About this Blog

I’ve been wanting to start a blog for years… and I’ve been blogging on mySpace for quite a while, but I was having some audience problems. With so many colleagues, acquaintances, etc. on mySpace, I didn’t feel like I could truly express myself and my views w/o stepping on some toes… so here I am exposing my “vanilla” life for the world to see!

Who am I? I’m a 29 year old marketing specialist for an educational association in the midwest. Like probably 90% of bloggers everywhere, I hope to one day become a REAL writer and am mining my life experiences for material.

This is the post that started it all...I’ve been blogging over on mySpace for a couple years now and decided to upgrade to a “real” blog. I’m calling it “This Vanilla Life” because lately I’ve been feeling very plain, very vanilla… I plan on re-posting some of my better posts as “classics” over the next few days and then hopefully I’ll get on to the business of blogging in real time.

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Sunday, March 23, 2008

Yo, vanilla

Okay, so I just got back from Vegas, right? It was a fun trip, but not exactly what I’d hoped. I guess that’s what happens when you go to Vegas with your family. Don’t get me wrong…there was lots of drinking, gambling, etc., but it wasn’t quite the “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” type of trip. I didn’t do anything I’d be embarrassed to tell my mom about because, well, my mom was there for most of it!!

Anyway, it got me to thinking about how vanilla my life has become… not exactly boring, but just really mundane and ordinary. Don’t get me wrong… I am blessed to have the life I do. I have a LOT of fun… I have great friends, a loving family and a full social calendar, but where is the excitement? Where’s the danger?

Once upon a time, I was a LOT edgier. Or at least I thought I was. I was the girl who listed “peace corps volunteer” as my career aspiration… and I meant it!! And now here I am, working on my seventh year at a desk job. I used to want to stick it to the man, and now I have become the man (metaphorically, of course). WTF happened to me?????? Have I become a boring cookie cutter Midwesterner or did I never have any “edge” to begin with???

To compound my little “I suck” complex, I FINALLY finished reading Diablo Cody’s book about becoming a stripper. Basically, she was sick of her office job and decided to try stripping on a lark…

In addition to my fascination with all things stripper (and all things Diablo Cody—it’s really becoming a problem), the book just drilled home how unbelievably normal I am. I’m *much* more like her pre-stripper persona, except I don’t even have the cojones to do something adventurous.

As I was reading the book I thought: “Shit, I should just dye my hair pink, get a bunch of tattoos and start a vinyl collection.” But that’s really not me. I totally dig the girls who live that lifestyle, but–for me– that would be like playing dress-up. A prep in punk clothing.

And I’m not wild about going down the Sex/Drugs/Rock & Roll route, either. Not only is it a bit cliché, but it also doesn’t lead to any sort of lasting happiness. Been there. Done that.

I guess I could do the whole “Extreme Sports” thing and jump out of a plane or something. But that also seems a bit too vanilla and insincere. It’s like the “made-for-TV” version of adventure. More appropriate for a Mt. Dew commercial than anything else.

So, what do I do? Should I pack up and move to some other city and reinvent myself as a horse trainer or roller derby instructor? Should I eschew all the trappings of my comfortable post-collegiate lifestyle and become a vagabond? Is there some sort of middle ground?

Since I’m too much of a chickenshit to actually give up creature comforts like a steady paycheck and digital cable, I’ve decided to do my own version of Diablo’s experiment. I’m going to do a little “choose my own adventure” by making a list of small exciting things that are “doable” and write about my experiences. Not exactly as titillating as stripping (pun intended), but it’s essentially the same concept.

This is where you all come in… What kinds of adventurous things have you always wanted to do but didn’t have the guts? What fun stuff can I do to bring back my “edge” without getting me arrested, fired, or both???

Seriously…I need some ideas! And some partners in crime. Anyone who wants to play along in my little experiment is more than welcome to join me!