If you don't like sports...

Just skip this one.  I am not a huge sports fan.  I like watching soccer when the World Cup happens.  I like watching the Olympics when that stuff happens.  I like watching college football, and I LOVE everything about hockey.  Other than that, I'm no big sports fan, and I don't pretend to be.  Definitely not even as big a hockey fan as this guy:

Even my love for the Caps would not extend this far...

Anyway, all craziness aside, it's my recent intense, obsessive love for hockey that drove me to write this blog post.  File this under things that make me really mad: fairweather fans.  (Let's hope that guy up there is not a fairweather fan who just got really wasted one night after a Boston Bruins win.)

I may not be a huge sports fan, but the teams I support have my support through thick and thin.  I don't root for teams just because they're doing a good job.  So if my team is having a rough season, does that mean that my love for them becomes any less significant?  I guess for the fickle and feeble of heart, supporting a team only when it's doing well seems like a pretty good option, but then what's the point?  The point of supporting a team is to have someone to root for no matter what.  In my opinion, a person's reasons for supporting a team can literally be ANYTHING except, "They're doing well right now."

It's no big secret that this has not been a very good season for the Washington Capitals.  Of course, that is, in comparison to more recent seasons.  We're 8th in the NHL as of ten minutes ago when I had to double-check the standings to make sure that my facts were indeed facts.  But that doesn't sound too bad, does it?  8th in the league.  At least we aren't LAST in the NHL, eh?  It's this kind of looking-on-the-bright-side that seems to escape so many Caps fans.  Sure, after we win a game, fans text in messages that say, "I knew you could do it!" and "There are the Caps that I know and love!"  Crap like that.  And when we lose...well it's just a whole different story.  "Ovie sucks!"  "Wake up!  This is a 60-minute game!"  "Where are the Caps that I know and love?"  News flash: they're right there, on the ice, the same team that won that other game you were so excited about two days ago.  That's still your team, if you consider yourself a fan.  (For the record, Ovie totally doesn't suck, and I'm pretty sure these guys who have been playing hockey since childhood DO know that they play a 60-minute game...)

I completely understand the disappointment that comes with losing a game, but it in no way makes me question whether or not I'm supporting the right team.  The disappointment is not directed at the team, as if to say, "YOU HAVE FAILED ME!  FOR SHAME!"  The disappointment is just an inherent effect of having lost something I wanted so badly (that would be the win, in case I'm being unclear). 

Or let's see if this makes more sense: Do you love your children any less when they fail a math test?  Do you love your dog any less when it poops on the rug?  Do you love your mom any less when she makes roast beef for dinner when you specifically said you wanted pizza?  DO YOU?!  No.  You love these people/animals for who they are, not for how well they perform or for the ratio of jobs well-done to jobs well-botched.  Nobody's perfect, and that extends to sports teams.

I love the Capitals because I just do.  I just love them.  I don't care that they were in the playoffs the last three years.  Well...sure, I care because I'm glad the team I love has a good recent record.  But it has NOTHING to do with why I love them.  I've known about the Caps for years.  My best friend has been a fan for years, so I should have jumped on this train long ago, if I were only interested in how well they play.  To be completely honest, I can't really pinpoint why I love them.  I just do.  Yes, they ARE a good team with a lot of crazy, crazy talent.  But they're also close-by, they're fun to watch, they seem like good dudes, and the team itself (the Washington Capitals) is so patriotic it makes me just swell with national pride and bleed some good ol' red, white, and blue (despite the fact that I think there are only MAYBE three Americans on the team).  Their mascot is a bald eagle named Slapshot.  How sweet is that?  They're just.  The best.

So why is it that so many Caps fans are SO faithless?  So we aren't doing all that well.  Why does that mean that you have to put the guys down?  If I, a self-proclaimed not-so-into-sports gal who has literally followed the Caps for about 2 months, can still be devoted to them during rough patches, then surely so can people who have followed the Caps for years.  In fact, I STARTED following them in the middle of a rough patch.  An 8-game losing streak, to be exact.  And I somehow STILL loved watching them.  But I read a blog today, a blog that a lot of devoted Caps fans read, one that was supposedly written by a devoted Caps fan.  But the whole blog was pretty much about how much the Caps suck right now and how disappointed this "fan" was.  It was the most disheartening piece of fan literature I've ever read.

I can admit the guys aren't playing their best right now, but it's not for lack of trying, as so many "fans" seem to believe.  These guys want to do well, and they don't want to let their fans down.  So why are we letting them down by totally turning our backs on them?  If you can watch them lose a game and honestly say that you love them less or you're disappointed in them or that you can't stand watching them, then I don't think you can call yourself a fan.

And a lot of idiots are talking about how Coach Boudreau needs to be fired.  THAT is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard.  One not-so-good season and suddenly he needs to be fired?  If we'd been having a few bad seasons consecutively, then maybe that would be a valid consideration.  But ONE season?  Give me a break.  It took UVA I don't know how many straight-up TERRIBLE seasons to fire Al Groh.  So just because we're 8th in the league, and second in the Southeast division instead of first, our coach needs to be fired?  Boudreau also led the Caps to the playoffs for the last three seasons, beginning with his FIRST season with the Caps.  Stupid and faithless, these critics.

The bottom line is this: if you support a team, then ACTUALLY support them.  Don't turn your back and lose faith when your team is down.  That's probably when they need their fans to believe in them the most.  I don't think our Caps are going to be getting any better when their so-called fans are telling them how much they suck.  That's called discouragement, and discouragement doesn't do anyone any good.

Mission: Accomplished.  I've said most of what I wanted to say.  The rest I didn't write because I couldn't figure it in coherently.  So I'll just end with this:  C-A-P-S CAPS CAPS CAPS!

Edited 1:30 PM: In my sleep, the hockey gods came to me and told me that in my SWEET blog (their words, not mine) I totally said we were 2nd in the conference, and I tooootally meant in the division.  And I really did mean the division--it was just a slip of the tongue.....or finger...whatever.  Obvi, we couldn't be 2nd in the conference.  We're 8th in the league...that would have to mean 1-7 are all western conference teams.  Pahaha.  It was like 4 AM when I wrote this blog.  I TOTALLY KNEW WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT!  Waaaaah I hate making mistakes.

Here's to you, Sweden...

So here it is.  A tribute to Sweden.  I promise that not all of my posts will be as long as or longer than standard novellas, but how can you really fit all the greatness of Sweden into a short blog post?  That's just it.  You freaking can't.  It's impossible.

"I'm so awesome I amaze myself."

My infatuation with Sweden began sometime around...the time I realized that Swedish men are totally beautiful.  That was probably sometime in 2010, when I became obsessed with one Mr. Alexander Skarsgård:


"I'm Swedish, I'm sexy.  Deal with it."

 I KNOW what you're thinking.  Thank you, Sweden.  Thank you for that.

So steadily over the last year, this infatuation has developed into a full-fledged love affair.  However, the deeper I delve into this entirely single-sided relationship with a Scandinavian country (personification, anyone?), the more I begin to realize that Sweden has been priming me for this "relationship" basically my whole freaking life.

I offer you now a chronology of my long and ever-evolving relationship with Sweden.  NOTE: I have unfortunately never been to Sweden.  The following is based purely on good ol' American exposure to Swedish things and online research (Wikipedia).

This story begins approximately 2 decades ago, when I was 3 years old.  Except then fast forward to maybe a few years later when I would actually remember more things.  Does ANYONE remember this?

NO CAPTION NECESSARY.  That's the GERMAN version of a little SWEDISH girl named Pippi Långstrump AKA Pippi freaking Longstocking.  You remember, remember?  Crazy braids that would not lie flat but instead completely defied all laws of gravity and stood up (presumably to highlight the fact that Pippi is JUST that unconventionally SWEET).  She was...awesome.  I don't remember much about her except that I liked her and that catchy song, "Pippi Longstocking is coming into your world, the freckle-faced, red-headed girl..."  Ahhhh, childhood.  I think I also liked that she was some kind of troublemaker.  How neat.  Anyway, this was step one.  Sweden's earliest attempt to appeal to my super-obsessive personality.

Sometime in this same era, a new Swedish pop band called Ace of Base hit the US charts with AWESOME songs that TO THIS DAY, most of us can still sing by heart.  "The Sign" and "Don't Turn Around".  Both awesome.  I think "The Sign" is probably more popular.  I think I actually liked that other one better.  But anyway...I'm not going to post a picture because, let's be honest, no one really knew what they looked like.  Or maybe that was just me.  But you can probably bet they were blonde.  Though that's also probably just me perpetuating stereotypes.

Fast forward again to when I was like...8 or something.  All I really remember was that I lived in Minnesota, which is cold (like Sweden--coincidence?  Yes.  But still.) and also, according to Wikipedia, boasts a population that is almost 10% Swedish.  Awesome.  Anyway...that's not even the point.  The point is my brother, at some point during our 2 years in Minnesota, became obsessed with legendary Swedish pop group ABBA.  (I hope you don't mind me saying it, Michael.) 

Not to be used as evidence of beautiful Swedish men, necessarily.
But how about them foxy ladies?  Ehhh?

I owe all of my knowledge about ABBA and their music to my big brother.  Whether you like ABBA or not, you know that "Dancing Queen" is either a song you hate to love or love to hate.  It is played at EVERY event that has a DJ.  It's about as ubiquitous a party song as "Shout" or "The Electric Slide".  I actually genuinely really enjoy ABBA, in spite of the fact that they are responsible for "Dancing Queen".  I listen to them on a semi-regular basis.  Because of my brother.  I mean really, though...do you not cry when these ladies sing "The Winner Takes It All"?  I just cried a little trying to pick out my favorite lyric.  And then I couldn't even choose a favorite lyric.  Geez, Sweden.  You're really doing a number on me. 

I guess ABBA overshadows the fact that The Cardigans are also from Sweden--remember that song "Lovefool" that was in Leo DiCaprio's version of Romeo and Juliet?  "Love me, love me, say that you love me...."  Everyone knows it.  And probably loves it.  Yeah.  It never would have happened if Sweden hadn't happened.

Anyway, the Jessica-Sweden chronology starts to get a little fuzzier now, after moving from Minnesota to Virginia.  At some point, I started watching HGTV home makeover shows, and consequently, I discovered that Ikea is awesome.  You may hate it.  But you'd be a minority.  Ikea--the home furnishing sensation from SWEDEN, famous for its clean lines and modern design elements and also for DIY instructions that a lot of people think are hard to read.  I've put together plenty of stuff from Ikea.  It's not rocket science.  You try writing instructions that literally have to be legible to people from every country ever.  The art of diagramming--not so easy.

Around the same time that I discovered Ikea, I actually WENT to an Ikea and thereby discovered Swedish meatballs and lingonberry jam.  Holy crap.  Unreal.  It's the most delicious ball-of-meat-smothered-in-gravy that you'll ever have with a fruit-based sauce on the side.  Those Swedes really broke the mold with that balls-and-berries combo.

Skip ahead to college.  At some point, my friend Lauren mentioned "The Final Countdown" to me.  It's one of those quintessential hair-band songs that everyone knows, but most people don't know where it came from. 

Well...if you've read any of this blog or even just the title, then you know it came from Sweden.  Or rather, the song's writers/performers Europe came from Sweden.  Which is in Europe.  No chance of being misled to believe these guys are from any other continent.  Anyway, this song is totally awesome.  Epic, some might say.  I'm just gonna leave it at awesome.

I could literally do an entire blog on music from Sweden.  We also have the more obscure but still way awesome bands The Hives and The Sounds.  I won't post more pics or vids, but look them up.  They're both pretty sweet-ish.  Ahahaha.  Sweet-ish.  Swedish.  Ohhh, I kill myself.

So...I'm skipping a lot of things, I know, but I'm pretty sure my chronology is long enough for...well...everyone.  Jump ahead to 2010-ish and my discovery of/falling-in-love with Alexander Skarsgård (see above for sexy tux picture).  Simply put, he's beautiful and actually talented and enjoys not having many clothes on while on camera, which is nice for my eye-parts.

Then there are the Stieg Larsson books, the Millennium Trilogy, the first of which I have just read.  These are really good.  These have me thinking more and more about Sweden in historical/etymological terms (have you noticed a lot of these names have the same suffixes?  Like "strom" or "sson"?) and basically geeking out over Sweden.  Thanks Stieg.  R.I.P.

Then there's a hodge-podge of other things I appreciate about Sweden: the colors of its flag (blue and yellow--actually one of my favorite color combos ever), the Swedish chef from the Muppets ("Börk, börk, börk!"), some of my friends, one very small proportion of my blood (thanks unknown ancestor), and then the godfather of all of my favorite Swedish things and probably the most recent addition to the list...

Its contributions to the world of hockey.  Yes, I love hockey.  Some unbelievable percentage of NHL (and otherwise) players are Swedish.  Including this guy:


Playin' hockey, bein' Swedish...

 Who is also this guy:

More intense than camping.  In tents.

That's Nicklas Bäckström.  Number 19.  Washington Capitals.  Center.  23 years old.  6'1".  210 lbs.  Really, really good at what he does.  Sweet.  Dedicated.  Generous.  Uneducated but still very smart.  Cutie-patootie.  My future husband.  Swedish.  He makes me want to learn Swedish so that I can meet him and impress him with my Swedish-speaking abilities.  We're gonna get married and then make adorable little Asian-Swedish babies.  I've never seen that before, but I bet it would be awesome.  Oh, my future children, you're so cute and part Swedish.

Sigh.  So, that's all I have to say right now.  This blog is ridiculous, but I'm not even about to apologize.  I love Sweden.  If I had a glass of beer or wine right now, I would raise it to you, Sweden.  But all I have is a bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper.  I will instead raise this bottle to you.  Skål!  (Which means, "Cheers!" by the way...)

Coming Soon...

A tribute to Sweden.  It's gonna happen.  In the next day(s).  Just compiling my list of things I LOVE about Sweden.  Sigh.

For the record, I've never been to Sweden.  I love a lot of Swedish things though.  I think we all love a lot of Swedish things.  Ikea, Abba, meatballs...that's just the tip of the big Swedish iceberg.

Stay tuned for the rest.

It's a late night...

Actually, this is quite early for me.  I am and always will be a night owl.  Mornings totally suck for me, and I can't explain it to save my life.  Everything before 11 AM just feels like death, even when I've had ample sleep with sweet, sweet dreams, a brisk walk and shower, and a nutritious and balanced breakfast (though these things rarely happen, if ever).  Sure, I can function and be a person before 11 AM.  I can read and do math.  I can even probably do more extraordinary things like...sing or be profound.  But right around 11 AM is when my brain really starts to fire.  At about 3 PM, it slows down again (delayed food coma from lunch, brain-nap time), and then it gets progressively faster until around this time.  The witching hour (but not the scary, evil kind).  The time between midnight and 3 AM is when I'm usually at my prime.  It's terribly inconvenient because regular people are sleeping right about now...

I am not regular people.  I never have been, and I hope I never will be.  I like to think a lot.  I tend to think too much, to be honest, which is usually not a good thing.  It's generally around this time that I think the most.  I start to get really reflective and/or existential.  Do I exist?  Sure.  Am I doing a good job of existing?  Debatable, but as long as I'm not killing things or stealing, I think I'm doing all right.  Do other people like my existence?  Well, I sure hope so because if they don't, then what's the freakin' point?  (This is usually an internal discourse, but sometimes I have to talk out loud.  That's actually not a joke.  100% true.)

Anyway, what is the freakin' point?  When all is said and done, what is MOST important to me?  (I ask myself...sometimes out loud.)  When I'm on my death bed, what will I be thinking about?  What would I miss most about living?  It's not money or art or even music or hockey.  It's the relationships I've built.  But why are these so, so important to me?  Sometimes they feel like such a burden.  These relationships tend to intersect and tangle so much that I don't even remember how I met a lot of my friends.  Somehow, there are some distinct spheres of relationships in my life, but they all seem to collide and overlap like a giant, 3D Venn Diagram.


Like this, except bigger and harder to read.  Family not pictured.

Frankly, it's exhausting.  It's not exhausting simply to have these relationships.  What's exhausting is to feel like I want to make everyone happy, like I have to be someone different around some people, like I have to hide things about myself from others.  And the overlapping and tangling complicates things because if I act more subdued around one sphere and that sphere meets another sphere, where my sense of humor is usually unbridled, then Sphere One starts to think I'm insane.  See?  Exhausting.  And yes, I did just use Paint to make a Venn Diagram.

Sigh.  In the end, I know it's really beautiful (like WAY more beautiful than my beautiful Venn Diagram up there).  When you look at the big picture (not the picture up there, but the metaphorical kind), these people that I've mentally placed in the imaginary Venn Diagram all like and/or love me.  So why hide who I am?  What have these people done to make me believe that they won't still love me when they find out I'm not perfect?  (In case you haven't found out yet, I just totally spilled the beans.)

The bottom line is I hide things about myself, I censor myself, I pander, and I tell white lies because at my core, I care more about other people liking me than I do about liking myself.  As sad as it sounds, it's a truth and an obstacle that must be overcome.  I'm not, in any way, trying to say that these relationships are ONLY meaningful because they validate me.  They are so much more than that, obviously.  But the fact that they do validate me while I can't even truly accept myself or feel a sense of belonging in my own skin...this is troubling.  I only believe I have good qualities, that I'm worth liking because other people do indeed like me, not because I see these qualities myself.  Who hopes to find validation in other people rather than in herself?  An unhappy lady, that's who.

My one resolution this year is simple and yet so, so complicated.  I've only told one person what this resolution is, but maybe it's better to get it down in writing.

New Year's Resolution 2011: Be happy.

I realize that this post is pretty sad to read, but I'm not writing it to seek sympathy or encouragement from anyone.  I'm pretty sure it probably doesn't even make sense to a lot of other people.  But that doesn't matter because it makes sense to me--isn't that the point?  I'm writing it for myself, to get to the heart of what made 2010 a bad year. 

I should not feel the need to hide pieces of myself in order to please people.  I can't please everyone.  This is my life, and only I can live it.  Yes, there are good people in my life who want the best for me, and I need to be considerate of them and their opinions.  But I really need to focus on learning to like who I am right now, regardless of how others feel about me or my path in life, and hopefully the person I become on my life-path will like herself too.

For the record, I love you guys, and I'm grateful for years of validation.  I just need to be able to say that to myself now.  Here's to 2011.

This is what happens when my hands are idle...

Like some people, I have a lot of things going on inside my noggin.  I'm happy to say that most of the time I find those things interesting enough to write down.  When I was younger and really didn't know myself at all, I kept a diary.  I spoke to it like it was a person, which in retrospect is really creepy.  But after awhile, the pages either ran out or I just stopped caring.  In fact, the latter is probably much more likely.  The bottom line is, diaries don't work for me, but I need somewhere to write things, and this seems like a good place to start.

It has been a long-established truth that try as I might, I can't ever become "popular" online.  I've had blogs before that only I ever really read, and if other people read them, it was because they were depressingly bored or probably stupid.  I posted about things like having crushes on boys and...being mad at my friends.  It was really, really stupid.  But the fact is, aside from the fact that my old blogs were all...stupid, people just don't seem to like the online persona I have come to create, and to be honest, that concerns me a little more than it should.  I mean really, I can be ANYONE I want to be online, and you STILL don't like me?  That's really discouraging.  I know people (person) who has an unsettling amount of success with her online persona.  I don't envy her that, but it does make me wonder what her online persona has that mine doesn't.   (I've named mine Peaches...just now.  I did that just now.)  Well, hers has confidence, and Peaches relies heavily on self-deprecation (not to be confused with self-defecation eww).  Hers has lots of pictures that look nothing like her, and Peaches has pictures that look...well...they mostly just look like me.  (I couldn't find a more recent picture on my computer, but I haven't changed much since I was 17, except for that pesky 50 lbs. I've been trying to lose.)  Hers is actually pretty smart and has lots of friends, where Peaches pretends to be dumb and also pretends she is lonely all the time...

So since I'm not good at being not-myself, here's the deal with this blog: I'm going to be 100% honest all the time, starting now.  Here are some things about me:

1.  Many of you may not like to hear this, but I started smoking when I was about 19 years old.  By the time I was 20-ish, I was smoking a pack-a-day.  A year later, I was smoking even more than that.  You can see where this is going, right?  Probably.  Actually, maybe not.  Today, I am smoke-free.  I AM SO PROUD I WANT TO SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS!  But unfortunately, I've been trying (probably unsuccessfully) to hide the fact that I was a smoker from several people in my life.  Imagine my dismay when I couldn't post, "I NEED A CIGARETTE!" on my Facebook status on day 2 of that quitting trip.  It was significant.  The dismay, that is.  But I am dismay-less now!  And more-or-less smoke-free (with the help of encouraging friends, Orbit gum, bottled water, and my magical antidepressant).

2.  I am on an antidepressant and probably will be for the rest of my life.  If I'm close to you, then you know this about me already.  In fact, If I'm close to you, feel free to stop reading this because you know all of this anyway.  The sad, sad truth is I have been clinically depressed since high school.  Depression marred my college experience.  I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy.  It has changed me as a person, and it has undoubtedly changed my entire future.  But we'll return to futures, destinies, fates, etc. at a later time (probably).

3.  The Newdos also changed me as a person.  "What are the Newdos?" you ask?  The Newdos (pronounced noo-dohz) are...is...are...were...are my a cappella group.  Yes.  I was in an a cappella group in college: 

The New Dominions aka "The Newdos"

Oh, wait.  That was from when I was a middle-aged man.

The Newdos from the Era of the Dinosaurs or 2006-ish

That's more like it.  Ain't we purdy?  Yes, we are.  Many of these people (and many others who are not pictured because they weren't in the group during this particular concert) made me better in pretty much every way possible.  They made me a better singer and performer, a better comedienne, a better friend, a better leader, a better follower, a better student, a better person.  And they only judge you if you suck in some way.  And even then, they'll probably still like you.  Or at least be nice to you.

4.  I have a best friend who has been my best friend since we were kids, and we haven't lived in the same town since about 2 years after we met (we met 13 years ago).  It's a phenomenon I can't explain, but it's almost like we share the same mind sometimes.  We will more often than not be wearing the exact same color nail polish on accident.  Or will be thinking/saying similar things at similar times and will realize this coincidence because we were both about to tell the same exact story at the same time.  It's seriously eerie.  Anyway, I don't even have to talk about how she's changed me as a person because I'm probably only still a person because of her.

5.  I have siblings.  Two sisters, one brother.  They more-or-less raised me.  They're the reason I ever even became a person.  That's not to say I don't have parents.  I do.  But in terms of emotional rearing, they were...not as significant as the siblings.  We don't always get along, but we do always love each other.

That's just the tip of this crazy iceberg.  It's 4 in the morning.  My idle hands have created this monster (call this the devil's workshop, I guess--heh heh, see what I did there?).  I've now re-watched the Washington Capitals beat the New York Islanders for the second time today (meaning I watched the game again, not that they played twice and won both times, though that would be pretty sick).  By the way, I really, really like hockey.  This is a new development.  Some people blame HBO's 24/7 Pens/Caps Road to the Winter Classic special (which I have seen about a dozen times).  But I must defend my own honor and the honor of all those involved.  I blame my best friend.  Yes, it's true, she has been obsessed with the Caps for years, and I only really just got into the Caps AFTER the HBO thing started, but it was not BECAUSE of the HBO thing.  I started watching a game one day in December just because, and I fell in love, even though we lost.  I would say it's because I was suffering nicotine withdrawal and needed to replace that addiction with another, but I think it's just...meant to be.  Jessie + Hockey = MFEO.  Deal with it.

Bed time.  Big things are about to happen.  Not in my bed.  I just mean...in the near future.  I hope.