This week has been the week from hell. Hence why I have completely disappeared. I was all prepared for a week with my mom, having nice dinners, relaxing, doing the whole new york city thang.

Then Monday arrived and what seemed like a simple conference call from my boss landed most of the group in the bathroom crying our eyes out. Have I mentioned I have ALWAYS been level headed and calm in stressful situations when at work? I must have missed that memo on monday.

Insane, nearly impossible to make, deadline? Check. Unrealistic timeline? Double check.

So to make a very long story short, I was drowning in work and now I am beyond exhausted. Which makes Ashley not a very good blogger so today I am going to take the easy road out and do this post via pictures….

So we all know I was swamped at work….

(seriously, this is my desk, only imagine all those pieces of paper being 36″x48″.)

But other exciting things happened. Like over the weekend I got drunk at many design events. Including monday night with my mother (who spilled her red wine all over the table at one showroom. Whoooops.)

I also graduated on Tuesday from Radio City Music Hall. Me and LJ both have decided that due to circumstances during the ceremony we need to go back to school because we don’t know how to follow directions. At all. (So, we had to stand up by major instead of walking across the stage and it was in two parts right? Associates degrees and Bachelors. We stood up for….both. Did I mention we also screamed? Yeah. We. Are. Awesome.)

Wednesday, after working 12 hours and coming in on my day off to work till 8pm, I went to see a broadway show, Boeing Boeing which was HYSTERICAL and I loooooved it. Highly recommend it to anyone who wants to go see a broadway show. Before the show started though, I totally got checked out by a gorgeous actor…

I have no shame in posting his picture. YUM.  And when I say I literally could run into an actor and not know it was him/her (I didn’t realize he was an actor until my mom pointed him out), I meant it. Coming out of the show I literally ran into….

and we apologized to each other and it wasn’t until my mom poked me and told me who he was did i realize it. I swear, Brad Pitt is going to have a full convo with me one day and I will NEVER KNOW.

Today I am leaving at 1pm to go home, pack, go to the guggenheim and actually spend some time with my mom since i haven’t been out of the office before 8pm the past few days. Then I am leaving on a jet plane for the ENTIRE weekend (sorry guys, no blogging from me til next week!) to go to michigan and have a relaxing weekend with my family sleep alot and lazy around on a beach on lake michigan which will be WAY TOO COLD to actually go near.

 

Since I have been incredibly, painfully, MIA from the blogland I have NO idea what is going on in your lives. Tell me what you have been up to and what fun plans you have for memorial day weekend!

Hope you have a fabulous one!

I was inspired by Hope’s beautifully written post from yesterday. Thank you Hope for your continuously amazing posts!

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I’m afraid of commitment, but when its right, I’m all for it. If its wrong i will know immediately by the hyperventilating panic attack I have when they suggest going doing anything other than talking across a plate of food.

I am fiercely loyal. When I’m with someone, I’m with just that person and my mind is focused solely on them. No matter how bad it gets I will not stray. I may want to but I have too much respect for the person I’m with to hurt them in such a way, without regard to their actually respecting me.

I’m also rather independent, liking my “me” time. However when I like someone a lot, I want to spend time with them and see them as often as I can. Sometimes this is misconstrued as coming on too strong, or clingy. Maybe it is, maybe its not.

I’m a physical person, showing my affections through kisses, a touch, cuddling under the covers and long embracing hugs. I’m also a very sexual person, often loving the act more than my partners do. Often I am blamed for just wanting sex, when it is never actually the case.

I kiss with my eyes open, liking to watch the reaction. Theres nothing hotter than when the guy is staring right back at you as you are in a heated makeout session. I’m a bit of a voyeur as well, watching for a rise, a reaction from my techniques. Visual, auditory, anything to encourage me going further.

I am upfront, if I like you, you’ll know it. I do not beat around the bush, I do not play games. I don’t see the purpose of them, do not see the purpose of hiding your feelings.

I love the beginnings of relationships for the butterflies, the newness of discovering someone elses quirks and what makes them tick, exploring their bodies. What I love more is the relationship after its developed more and you have someone that just knows you, inside and out, and loves you anyway.

I like security. I like being in control of a situation. Its hard for me to recede power to the other person, leaving it all in their hands. It is sort of like a roller coaster. I would probably like the ride a lot more if I were driving.

I am a creature of habit, I like having a routine with that special person. However I am also spontaneous, I will make plans the day of should it arise. I like someone who can be flexible, who doesn’t mind if plans go awry. Things often change last minute and I am able to adapt well. Those who cannot, do not work well with me.

I am a passionate person, generous with my time, my attention and my love. I do not like when people take advantage of this and will often punish by revoking their rights to any of these. I can be bitter, I can certainly hold grudges. You lying about an exgirlfriend 5 months into a relationship? Damn right I’ll still bring it up 2 and a half years later should the situation call for it.

I put up with a lot. It is my weakness, my biggest fault.  I am not a doormat but will take a lot of crap before I break. I will cry till there are no more tears, but I won’t give up until the bitter end. If I think the relationship has a chance, I will give it chance after chance. I will fight for it. I won’t let it go until it is barely flopping on the floor, the life practically sucked out of it.

I love small gestures; emails, text messages, calls just to say hello or tell me about something they saw. An “It was really good to see you”, an “I’ve missed you” will leave me smiling for hours. I like to know that I’m on their minds during the day, that I’m not forgotten about. That I matter enough.

Despite all the heartache I have been through, I still let people in, still give out my heart to those who I see fit to have it. It has been mishandled a lot, but each break leads to a mending that only reinforces and makes it stronger for the next go-around.

Despite all the heartache, I’m getting closer and closer to giving my heart away again to someone who has already dropped it twice. Some will call it a lack of judgement, I just call it the way I am.

My brother and I are complete polar opposites, both in our personalities and our physical appearances. I crave social interaction, intimate, even boisterous conversation, being constantly surrounded by friends. He’s content to be alone for weeks on end, his only company a book and the trees; he prefers silence to mingling with people he doesn’t know.

When he was born he was 10 lbs 6 ounces and about 23 inches long. I was a small 3-almost-4 year old and couldn’t hold him on my lap by myself. Growing up he had his blond curls and I had my long straight red hair but really we weren’t that much different when we were children. I was a tad more loud, a tad more rebellious, with a little bit of a mean streak attached but we both loved being outside and getting dirty, both liked playing with similar toys (even though I was more prone to the Barbies and dolls than he was. Although, being the child I was, I ended up removing the Barbie’s heads. I warned you I had a mean streak) and always played together.

Then we got older and he was the pesky younger brother who I didn’t want hanging around with my friends. This younger brother who was sprouting up like a weed until he shot past me when I was only 14 years old–he was 10. I became a rebellious, if not very awkward and shy teenager and he watched as my parents placed many restrictions on me and I rebelled. He has said he felt bad that he got off so easy when he reached his teenage years since I had exhausted my parents’ disciplinary tactics. Where I eventually grew out of my shy awkard self into an ambitious and more confident college student/twenty something, he only grew more introverted. He was opinionated, a know-it-all– the consequence of being too smart for his own good and being a direct byproduct of my mothers incredibly stubborn nature which also inhabited myself.

Where I would have screaming matches with my mother, he would get physically aggressive with my father. He would shout at my mother. Whereas my screaming was obnoxious, I was also only 5′2. My brother by the time he was 16 had reached 6′4 and was continuing to grow. At this point I was out of the house away at college and every time i came home he would be taller and taller and the fights were growing worse and worse over the dinner table. One particularily bad fight which my mother and me were unfortunate to get caught in the middle was when my brother and father had a pushing match and were knocking over furniture. My father being nearly 7 inches shorter than my brother made him a more formidable match, but not quite.

His anger issues have calmed  but they still exist. I am rarely home nowadays and he’s rarely in the country, always away on some adventure overseas or across the country. He is still an introvert, prefering the solitary lifestyle. When he was visiting this past week I could tell all the socializing I was subjecting him to was getting to him. Don’t get me wrong, I was worn out myself, constantly having to entertain and be on the go with him to various tourist destinations, but he was a different kind of worn out. Where I wanted to shout let me sleep! He was silently screaming I need to be away from people!

Saturday night was a prime example of this. I had a birthday dinner for one of my girlfriends which he got through nicely since it was a small group in a semi-quiet atmosphere and he could just talk and not have to worry too much about fitting in. The second event we arrived at was in the bar in the basement of my thesis project’s building for my FIT girls to gather, get drunk, dance and have a good time. My brother obviously was uncomfortable in this small space. Once D arrived and they were introduced, he took off, claiming to be tired and that he just didn’t fit in.

Its more than just his introverted personality that doesn’t mesh with the social setting but its his physical presense. Whenever someone meets him they are astounded by his height; even more so when people find out I’m his sister. He stands at approximately 6′8″ tall, a whopping foot and a half taller than I. It makes for social commentary but he still feels awkward in his tall frame, being that he is the only one in our family that is anywhere near his height, and he usually is the tallest of anyone around him, even in a crowded subway car. I couldn’t imagine being constantly talked about behind my back, which is what he has to go through on a daily basis.

We always joke that he’s the mailman’s son, hey [mom], how tall was the milkman? Theres no explaining his height, his socially retarded tendencies, especially coming from my family of short, noisy italians, irishmen and germans who love to congregate and try to one up one another with their stories all the while drinking each other under the table from my mothers extensive liquor cabinet. The only resemblance my brother has is his alcohol intake.

Its also the joke that my parents smoked pot up until I was born. I want to know what my parents were smoking during my moms pregnancy with him so that i can end up with tall children too.