In 29 Hours...

(*Warning! This is going to be some disjointed and incongruous blogging!*)

I will be on a plane, headed home. This makes me giddy with joy!

In five hours - if I can stay up that long - I will be checking in to our flight, so as to get the best boarding options.

In about a half-hour, I'm gonna get back on the cleaning/packing/cleaning wagon, so I'm as ready to go as I possibly can be.

Twelve hours ago was the end of my first-of-six weekly copy writing classes. This shit is so balls deep and the participants were AWESOME! I'm a little bit sad we weren't in an actual class together (it's all on line); but, by the same token, I'm sure if we were all in a physical class, because we're all zany freakazoids, we'd freeze up and the rapport wouldn't have been as tight.

These are some amazingly talented folks. The moderator and instructor, Ash Ambirge is so ridiculously awesome, it's really hard to come up with anything more creative to describe her. She's sixteen kinds of spectacular. She demands that you live out loud, fearlessly, and chase every dream -- pipe or otherwise -- as if it were your last day on earth.

Suffice it to say, I'm so excited I might just pee my pants!

Even though I always say that I'm going to do this or do that on this blog (and rarely come through), I am going to try to get the class assignments up here. At the very least, the exercises are giving me some blog content to put up here.

Aaand....

About 30 hours ago, I was at a tattoo/piercing shop, checking another item off of my life list. I got my nose pierced. It'll piss my parents off royally -- and I may even get threatened with a firing, but it's worth it. Here's why:

1) I have a good nose for a piercing. There are a few features that I was blessed with, and a good nose is one of them. It's well shaped, well proportioned and symmetrical enough to pull it off.

2) I've wanted my nose pierced since I was 18. At the time, though, I had to choose between getting my eyebrow done or getting my nose done (even though I dig piercings and tattoos, I don't like overdoing them. OK... I've overdone the tattoos, but at least I'm not buying crack. Amiright?), and I opted for an eyebrow ring.

3) Piercings are not permanent -- unlike tattoos. Once this heals up a bit more, I will be able to take it out for work and other occasions that require a modicum of professionalism and decor. While I shouldn't mess with it for at least 8 weeks, I know how my body works and I should be able to mess with it just fine in about four weeks.

4) I'm 34 years old (ACK!). I should not have to not do something that, in all reality, is relatively benign because I'm worried about how my parents are going to react.

4a) My parents should also not be dictating how I live my life. See the whole being 34 thing. See also: I'm the good kid.

5) And really, in comparison with my siblings, I could probably tattoo half of my face and still be considered the "good kid".

6) Seriously, nobody has reacted to my nose ring. Not even friends that have seen me on a fairly regular basis. Nose rings are just that... well, common. It's a tiny little stud and, once the piercing heals and I can take the piercing stud out, it's going to get even tinier. Which is kind of my point about it being benign.

7) I spend a lot of time examining my pores (I'm mildly obsessed with squeezing the crap out of them). The older I get, the bigger my pores get. I seriously have pores that are bigger than the hole the piercing will leave. Which is traumatizing in its own right.

8) If my parents are going to freak about a nose ring, they probably should've freaked about the sparrow I have tattooed on the middle finger of my left hand. If that was only mild disapproval, they probably should STFU about the nose ring. 

9) At the end of the day, it makes me happy. It's not alcohol. It's not drugs. It's not sex with random strangers. It's such a small thing, but it makes me feel as if I'm being more true to myself.

And, at the end of the day, being true to oneself is the most important thing.

My mom often says that my generation feels like they're entitled to happiness -- which, to her, is unrealistic and silly. But she's not exactly correct. We don't feel like we're entitled to happiness. We're willing to work our asses off for happiness because living a miserable existence just isn't worth it. It isn't worth the sperm it took to make us, the labor it took to deliver us into the world, or all the bumps, scrapes or bruises it took to bring us to where we are.

We don't expect hand outs. We don't expect a free ride. We do expect that, if we're willing to pay our own way, and it isn't hurting anyone, to live the life we want to live; to work a job that doesn't make us loathe waking up every day; to dream big and live bigger.

After all, we're only allotted so many trips around the sun. We need to make the most out of every single second.