A BF Shaped Hole in the Universe

There have been a lot of comings and goings in the past few weeks, which have permitted little time to compose new posts, but there will be much forthcoming!

A brief suitcase update:

April B-F has just returned from sunny Myrtle Beach, SC and is busily unpacking and reorienting herself for the work week. Rachel B-F, however, is packing all the bits and pieces of her everyday scholastic, extraordinary, romantic, domestic, and international life into two suitcases and, perhaps, a carry-on as she prepares to leave for Prague! Within the week, the jetset twins will be inter-coastal! Sad news, yes, but it brings with it all the hope and promise of the following:

• Webcams and g-talk! (For us girls, of course, but perhaps we’ll post a clip or two for you folk too…)
• Upcoming interactive lists! Just imagine JetsetBF now, but with more lists! — Lists of our historic sound-scape song selections with audio and video clips! Lists of recommended summer book reads and tales of our history through the pages of our favorite shared authors! Intercontinental to-do lists with larger than life deadlines and line-items! More tripartite self-reflective lists, of course! And, perhaps, a few city reviews in lists!
• A Day in the Life Photo Journals! We’ll select a random day of the week and will photograph the tiny moments of our days in each of our respective cities and lives, and will share these through Jetsetbf in a globally juxtaposed swap!
• Diatribes, polemics, digressions, and general posts on the intimate nature of our lives, thoughts, dreams, hopes, fears, and consumption of all things tasty!
• Reviews and lists! Yes, music reviews, Netflix lists, and more more more!

Be patient. All of these things and more shall begin to arrive shortly, but, in the present, we have one last day to commingle in Baltimore and there is much that needs to be done! Deadlines to be set, last thoughts to be shared, presents to be gifted, and warm kisses to be had!

A Polemic on Listmaking

We are, between us, the following:

One world traveler/grad-student-to-be/post-Brookylnite/post-post-Baltimorean/canvas shoe wearer/fledgling orthalogian/daily consumer of Americanized Mexican food

One domestic cat-lady-in-waiting/psychiatric rehabilitation specialist/counselor/fledgling harpist/wannabe philatelist/incredibly redundant wordsmith/potential theology student

We are both cheeky. And avid coffee swindlers. And, of course, obsessive list-makers.

Once in a seminar/training, titled “Therapeutic Crisis Intervention: The Cornell Model,” I was asked about my own coping skills and interventions. What do I do to relieve stress and self-soothe? I write lists. A completely original/novel yet odd answer replied the trainer.

Why do we write lists? It’s a tradition began in our freshman years of high school (and, incidentally, our first year of friendship). These are not to-do lists. We write lists because we are process-oriented people and obsessive cataloguers of information/data, including personal information. The process is self-evaluation, or: when together, mutual collaborative evaluation. We make most lists in an informal tripartite reflective structure with the following categories: Good, Bad, and the ever-fluctuating Questionable.

So, even now, as we prepare for the departure of one half of our homo-social life partnership (Rachel) to the Czech Republic, we are engaging the process of reflection through list-making. When we planned our last stateside time together, there was a tacit understanding that list-making would/should commence. Only now, and for the near-first time (we did very briefly blog together — but it was often far too listy and did not have enough textual content), we are publishing our lists online. Names will be changed to protect the innocent and, the more likely of the two, the not-so-innocent (and, most importantly, ourselves). Moreover, these lists will be more prosaic as they are meant to document our intercontinental experiences in a variety of contextual ways, but most simply in the ultra-textual Internet.

So, here it starts.

Good:
Us.
Johnny Depp.
Taco Bell. (The first 3 are historic inclusions, and required. By our own rules.)
Today (23/7/08 — Rachel writes the date this way for practice. April writes it this way because it makes sense — like Russian nesting dolls).
Moving on — taking the next BIG STEP. (No more baby-steppin’!)
Commitment to our new blog!
2008 so far!
Colby Canada (Ape swoons!) and mustaches.
Escape from the rats (also known and heard as kangaroos on rollerskates).
Sweet summer romances.
Nostalgic mixes.
Baltimore music scene (at present).
H&M T-Shirts — casual. cheap. perfect-fit.
Good-fitting jeans — Levi’s and J-Crew.
Canvas slip-on shoes.
The unexplainable energy sweet romances gives you that somehow transforms your body and the way you feel about yourself. When someone else sees you as a beautiful, it is because you finally are beautiful — there is an energy that surrounds and encompasses you. You are more forgiving of yourself and the way you look.

Questionable
Going home with co-workers.
Limited choice of Baltimore music venues.
Friendship with England.
5 cats:1 house ratio.
Job status.
Grad school (Where? When? How!)
Where April will be this time next year? Is Austin the next big thing? Chicago?
Time-limited relationships - can you put a time-limit on feelings?
Canvas shoe tan-lines.
Packing up your LIFE in 2 suitcases or less - how to trim the fat and stick to the essentials?
Ape wonders about writing a children’s novel…
Being 5 pounds away from your ideal weight.

Bad
Solo birthdays (birthdays apart from our homo-social life partners).
Drifting cat odors (gross!).
Cat incest (these species don’t have taboos!).
Sick + Tired.
Car expenses… + repairs (Gemma the Jetta is 10 after all).
Rach has no wheels.
Bone spurs.
Rach has no health insurance and Ape’s health insurance doesn’t believe in women’s reproductive health!
Feeling creepy-crawly this summer.
Not having enough time together!
Feeling skinny but having stretch marks.