It's been six months since the last time I posted. I'm not sure what that says, considering that writing more was an overall goal of mine for the year. I wish I had a better reason than being tired and busy, which I think may just be a side effect of adulting.

These aren't really coherent thoughts, but I wanted to present a short list of things I've learned in my 25 years while I'm feeling kind of reflective.

1. Your heroes, even your biggest, most larger-than-life heroes, are people. They will make mistakes, and not always own them, and sometimes that will be okay.
2. Asking how someone is doing, and genuinely being interested in the answer, is one of the easiest things you can do to show you care.
3. You are under no obligation to make other people happy.
1. This is not open season to be a dick, though.
4. I am HORRENDOUSLY uncool. Accepting that you are uncool is the first step in living a slightly more liberated life. 
5. Sometimes self-care sucks: drink some water, take a shower, get out of bed, go to the doctor. It's good for you.
6. Sometimes self-care is great: bake cookies, eat cookies, take a bubble bath, pet a puppy. It's good for you.
7. Fighting is exhausting. Have fun with it or you'll burn out.
8. WEAR COMFORTABLE SHOES AND SUNSCREEN.
9. See #8.

On R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I've been thinking a lot about respect recently.  It started with a video about the influence of teachers and made me think about why I respect those who have taught me and why others fail to respect them.  I've thought about respect for feelings and respect for boundaries.  I've thought very deeply about respect for king and country (or, well, I mean, I don't live in a country with a king, but I think you know where I'm going with that).

I've thought about what it takes to earn my respect.  If you do not treat me like a child, I will respect you as an equal who deserves the adult they have deigned to acknowledge.  If you accept that I have clear boundaries -- physically, emotionally, psychologically -- then I will respect that their are lines that you may also not want me to cross.

But those are the things it takes to earn my respect.  And I've also started to wonder if that, too, is a flawed concept.  Because in expecting you to respect those needs, the only reason I can cite is that I am a full, complex human being, deserving of respect.  But then so is everyone else: full, complex human beings who, while I may not understand their positions, have reasons and origins as complex as mine and just as deserving of being respectfully heard out.

And, I suppose, what I've come to is something of a middle.  On the one hand, I feel like there are positions and opinions undeserving of respect.  On the other, however, people are not simply their views and opinions.

What I guess I'm trying to say is that, while I have always seen respect as something earned, I'm beginning to question if that's the right way of seeing things.  Does respect for a person have to entail respect for their beliefs or choices?  If not, are there people undeserving of respect?

I'd be lying if I said I knew.

Thoughtfully yours,
Rachel Leigh

On Weirdness

I think it's funny how someone's response when I call them weird is always to shoot back, "No, you're weird!"  I mean, yes, I am.  I'm totally weird.  I'm like the weirdest person I know.  But why does MY being weird preclude your ability to be weird?  Does my being tall somehow stop other people from being tall?

 

I can understand noting the hypocrisy, if I were somehow saying that you're a bad person because you are weird, but it's not like that.  You may have done or said something that I found odd because it doesn't make sense to me or it's unconventional.  That doesn't make it bad, but it does make it, at least to me, weird.  Why does the fact that I am also a weird person somehow make you not-weird?

 

One of my favorite quotes comes from Dr. Seuss: "We're all a little weird, and life is weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."  The fact that you're weird doesn't make you somehow less -- it makes you capable of mutual weirdness.  But just because I point it out, doesn't mean you have to go "Nuh uh, you are!" like I just called you smelly on the playground.

 

Embrace the weirdness -- but recognize it.

 

Yours in mutual weirdness,

Rachel Leigh

On 2012

Happy New Year to the darlingest of readers!

As the Christmas food comas and the around-the-clock napping of Winter Break begin to wear off (because I'm headed back to campus in six days!), it seems like a wonderful time to welcome in 2012, the year we're all going to die and the first presidential election I am old enough to vote in.
On a side note, after 40 years, it may be time to retire Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve.  Not because it's anything short of excellent programming, but because I spend most of the final countdown cringing at the fact that Dick Clark can barely talk and his spray-tan is one of the most atrocious things to which I have ever born witness.

Anyway, I'm absolutely horrendous at making and keeping New Years Resolutions.  Some years I just forget to make them altogether.

This year, I've resolved to:

1. Blog More.  Which I know I say every time I go on an accidental hiatus and then come back practically in tears and begging for your forgiveness, but you do mean a lot to me and you deserve my love and attention, don't you, darling readers?
2. Lose Weight.  Buuuuuut...let's be serious.  My diet plan consists of an overwhelming inability to cut energy drinks, coffee, and croissants out of my diet, and my exercise regimen consists of walking to and from class like a chicken with its head cut off.  While I admire myself for setting this goal, I doubt my actual abilities to see it through.
3. Clean My Room More.  This resolution may well kill me, but my room needs to stop looking like a blast zone.
4. Study Abroad.  If I manage to pull this off, Fall 2012 will be filled with posts and photos of glorious adventures around Europe.

Anyway, if you see me and I appear to be ignoring these resolutions, please smack the coffee out of my hands, drag me to the gym, and yell at me to post more and check the status of my DIS application.

Optimistically yours,
Rachel Leigh

On Things You Shouldn't Do in Public

Darling readers, if you're friends with me on Facebook or, god forbid, follow me on Twitter (in which case, I'm sorry), you know that I have a really low tolerance for people who can't seem to understand simple rules about what is and is not acceptable in public places.

Today, I was on the bus, which is a place that I find myself a few times a year as I travel back and forth between my home outside of Philly and my home-away-from-home in Richmond.  I could rant for days about the stupid things people do on the bus, but I think I'll cut it down to a few things that I really think should never happen on public transportation.

1. If there are children or old people on the bus, I don't want to hear you cursing somebody out or dropping the F-bomb every other word.  It's just not classy and, in addition, is offensive to old people and probably scarring to little kids.
2. Headphones have a purpose.  Their purpose is to allow you to hear your music/movie/video game without making everyone else have to hear it too.  Use them.  Also, if you are using them and I can still hear your music, you're using them wrong.  And probably causing serious aural damage while you're at it.  Good job.
3. There are things that I'm pretty sure you should just NEVER do in public.  Watching porn comes to mind.  Or, if you're the man behind me on the bus, consider that the bus is probably not the best place to conduct what only could have been a drug deal and a booty call.  Not smart, not classy.

I mean, I can't be the only person in the world who doesn't expect to be offended for an entire six hour bus ride.

Stay Classy, Public Transit,
Rachel Leigh

On Marilyns and Audreys

For a few weeks now, I've been thinking about the fact that, in life, there are Audreys and there are Marilyns.

When it comes to classy, ballsy, talented women that are nearly universally admired, there are no two names more ubiquitous than those of Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. As a matter of fact, as many of my friends from home will attest, I've earned myself the nickname Audrey F**king Hepburn when I do something particularly "classy" (irony, I use it).

Both women had reputations for being outspoken and honest about what people expected of them and had any right to expect of them. Both have been idolized and quoted and misquoted by girls for decades. But, I've noticed, nearly every girl is either an Audrey OR a Marilyn.

Don't get me wrong. I adore both of them, but there are some key differences that make Marilyn more appealing to some people and Audrey more appealing to others. First and foremost, the fact that Marilyn is, pretty much universally, a sex symbol. On the other hand, the most iconic image of Audrey Hepburn involves an updo, pearls, and her representation Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Plus, I mean, some people just prefer blondes. Though Edward Cullen prefers brunettes. Please shoot me for that reference.

And maybe this whole post.

I believe happy girls are the prettiest.

Believing in pink,
Rachel Leigh