Two for one: TMI and Thankful Thursday. You're welcome.

Among most of you who read my blog, it's TMI Thursday (which for those of you who live underground or maybe watch too much Sarah Silverman stands for Too Much Information). So, if you need to be grossed out on this fine Thursday, here goes:

The boogers I have had since moving to Minneapolis may be killing me.

I don't think I've used a heater in four years. I never needed it in Phoenix. Now I have a radiator. I live in a building that has two units on my floor and the lady in the other apartment controls the thermostat and keeps it set at 85 degrees. It's April and it's unseasonably warm so I find that I'm pitty by noon every day. AND it's causing hard boogers and bloody noses every morning. People may think I have a little nose candy (which is terrible slang because that sounds delicious. I wish I could eat candy with my nose) problem the way I rub my nose constantly and it starts bleeding all of the time. It's killing me softly. No, that's his smile? His eyes? I don't know. Is it possible to die of hard boogers? If I don't write for awhile, you all know what happened. Be outraged.

There's your TMI. Meditate on it.

Now, I've decided this Thursday for me is going to be Thankful Thursday and I'm looking at you blogoverse.

Most of you know about a month ago I moved from Phoenix to Minneapolis. I really didn't think it was going to be a big deal for a lot of reasons:

A.) I hate Phoenix. The city: Flat, brown, hot, and to me just not the right scene.
B.) Phoenix never felt like home. I'm from Ohio and I'm a Midwesterner at heart. I need hot dish and cheap beer to thrive.
C.) I'd been visiting Minneapolis almost monthly for a year and I loved it. The vibe. The weather. The people. Just the general feeling I got walking down the street.
D.) I already had some friends I was looking forward to hanging out with in MN.
E.) VC lives here and I was really wanting to spend time more regularly with him and have more of a "normal" thing happening. (LDRs are not normal even though I think we gave it an amazing go and I'm proud of us. More on this later.)

I've moved around a lot in life. Lived in lots of states. Spent a few months here and there. It's always been fun, not stressful. So, I packed up and moved with a "catch ya later, sucka" attitude. Um, yeah, that didn't really work out for me. I don't know why. Maybe it was too much all at once. Maybe I'm just really getting old and more needy of my routine.

I got here and the first few days felt like a party and it was wonderful. Then Martini (who helped drive my butt out here -- and I still owe you stories from that roadtrip) left and VC went back to work and normal life and here I was in an empty apartment (because I sold all my worldly possessions instead of moving them. I'm lazy.) feeling very alone and lost. And then I got up to go to work, except work was right here in the same empty apartment. I was sitting in my bed - because I had no couch - on my laptop all day, every day. No trip to the office kitchen for coffee. No gossip at the assistant's desk. No lunch dates with friends. I freaked out. I admit. I started second guessing my decision.

And I let on about it on Twatter. And a bit on Blip (which I lurve very much and if you don't Blip and you like music I highly recommend trying it.) And then this AMAZING thing happened. I was reminded that I wasn't alone at all. People were twatting me and writing me emails and helping me work it all out. They were helping me think through feelings and remember that I did an AWESOME thing by moving. A BRAVE thing. A thing that was going to be INCREDIBLE as soon as I adjusted. And they were all right. I'm totally settling in and loving my new home and neighborhood and my proximity to the BF (who, to his credit, was about as understanding as a boy can be through the worst of my emotional meltdown. He pretty much kicks ass as BF. Woot.)

So today I am shouting out to all of you. You're amazing people. Some of you I've met. Some of us are "in person" friends. Some of you I hope to meet some day (DC Tweet Up 2010 peeps!) But you've all been supporters of me in some way over the last year providing advice, laughter, or a just lending a friendly ear (or eye? that sounds gross) and I gots nothing but love for you babies.

Some people still don't get the power of online networking. To them, I say puh-lease. My mom met her (third) husband online 10 years ago. To quote the Greatest Movie Ever, Wayne's World: Get with the now.

I still have "real" friends - those I get to go to lunch with and stuff, but I consider you all my friends, too. There's been many a night when Jordan and I were both simultaneously drinking too much wine, surfing for kitten videos on YouTube and making jokes about it. And talking about it, just not in person, over the Twat. It's how we communicate now. And it's made my life better. So, there's your sappy from me. I hope you hug it and squeeze it and call it George.

And here are my Rock stars: (If I forgot someone I'm IMMENSELY sorry. Please don't hate me. It was a lot of linking and like I said above, I'm lazy. Purty please. I need acceptance. I'll buy you a pony. Or make you pickles. It's my new hobby.)

MyLittleBecky
PlushroomSoup
Shineoutloud
RSub27
JordanAshleighF
Mariechatters
DysFuncJunc
Renee_817
LivitLuvit
rjcannon85
HeySuburban
esketches
Lbluca77
Kernheidi
garciasn
jennamariebee
albertxii
doniree
greenstarstudio

I am woman, I emote

First of all, thanks to shine and Marie for starting this blog theme and to the many people participating. Many of you ladies and gents have really gone boobs up and balls out and I say "bravo" to that.

For my contribution, I would like to write about the word "crazy."

I feel like this is a word reserved almost entirely for women, and I think that stinks.

I mean, yes, I hear it used in reference to men when like, say, some dude down in Arkansas decides to kill a bunch of kitties and make lampshades out of their skin and ends up on Dateline. But I think then it's mostly so that lazy journalists can write bad alliterate headlines like: Krazy Kitten Killer Gets Krafty.

In everyday conversation, "crazy" is used so often to describe women and it makes me sad because a lot of times I think it's just a reaction to someone trying to express their emotions.

So my Women's Writes statement: Emotions do not equal crazy.

How long are we going to be aware that men and women express themselves differently without being able to accept and embrace it? Yes, dear gentleman, your way of dealing with a bad day may be to drink some beers, play some video games, spank it to some illegally download porn and go to sleep early. (Uh ... I never handle a bad day like this. I swear.)

We get it. And I think (and this is based only on conversation with my immediate circle) many of us are OK with it and don't think a lot about it.

So, when I have a bad day, if I need to drink a bottle of wine, have a good cry, talk to you ad nauseum about how it all FEELS and then still need to work it out and so blog about it - I'm not acting bananas - I'm experiencing emotions. Normal ones.

Don't think this is a dude bashing post. I don't do those. I love dudes. I have one. He's super duper. He's a super duper dude. Uh ... carried away, party of one.

Back to the lecture at hand (Snoop reference. YESSS.)

Women are just as guilty of pegging this tag on each other. Ladies! Tsk tsk and stuff. This isn't helping. Just because you're having one of those days when you have all your shit together it doesn't mean you should go all Mean Girl on the poor gal who got yelled at out work, was visited by Aunt Flo in her cute new white skirt and found donkey humping videos on her guy's computer and is now a big teary mess.

I could go real feminist on you all right now and start talking about uses of insanity in relation to women in literature and film and how grossly disproportionate it is when you look at references to men. And I could talk about how even certifiably crazy men in history are often painted as "genius" in public while women are called just plain old crazy. I mean I really could do that. I wrote a paper about it in college. I is smart. But the truth is, I don't want to go all intellectual on you. I mean, have you read this blog? I would not call this a place of higher thinking.

I'm writing this as more of an humanistic appeal. I admit. Even I am guilty of uttering "she so crazy" about people and I've often use the word to explain my own emotions. "Sorry, I was acting crazy" has been used many times because I couldn't articulate my own emotions. And I think that's a cop out for my own poor communication skills when it comes to interpersonal relationships. Whoa. Big words. Maybe this IS a place of high thinking ...

AND, let us not forget that some people truly are bat shit crazy. For those people I pledge to have a bit more sympathy. Unless they get all nutso on me and then I will shiv a hoe.

The point is, yes. I'm going to cry. A lot. Sometimes, I'm going to cry and you won't know why. Sometimes I'm going to cry and I WON'T EVEN KNOW WHY. Sometimes, I'll get really intense and stomp around and fall down on the floor like a child. And sometimes I'll just want to yell a lot and I won't want to listen to anything you have to say. And then I might get really weird and refuse to talk at all.

Will this be a moment of my most sparkly behavior? Absolutely not. But chances are, I haven't lost my mind. Odds are I don't need medication or intense psycho-therapy (although, there's an argument that we may all need a bit of that.)

What I really probably need is for someone to listen to me. Or say "Of course how you feel matters." Or maybe just give me a hug. (there's also a strong possibility I need to get sober, but that's a subject for another post. Or 12.)

So, dear bloggers, on this, the first annual Women's Writes, I ask you to say no to "crazy" and HUG IT OUT KIDS. HUG IT OUT.