I'm ACTUALLY sort of a pansy.

Confession, I'm actually not that tough.

People don't think I get my feelings hurt, or that I care to know about their Sister's baby, and your day-to-day life, but I DO.

.... I can be self-reliant to a fault, that people assume I'm my own island; friends, lovers, entertainers and therapists all existing on it, leaving no room for any visitors.

And they have a reason to think it, even when I really need advice, or someone to rub my belly and buy me a milkshake when I'm sick, I rarely ask for it.

When I lived in NYC/LA I got used to putting on my Shark outfit every morning after eating a bowl of Lucky Charms and watching The View, that that 100 pound armour became an easy costume to fit into. As a survival mechanism more than anything...I didn't like the way it felt, or the weight of it and more so, sad that Thick Skin is an outfit I wear, even when it's safe to be soft.

When you're so involved with being TOUGH sometimes people stop asking how you are, how you feel, if you want to grab a drink, etc. if they think you're always going to be FINE, or busy, or indifferent whether they invite you to Vegas or not.....When you're so TOUGH and "focused" you end up experiencing a lot of your mini-successes by yourself....

I rarely call to chit-chat, or get advice about an outfit. I don't need to be at every barbecue that you have, but I still want to be invited. I cancel dates, to work and be alone. I like to say "bad ass" things, act unaffected and wear super high heels and eyeliner before noon. To give you a visual.

But, as much as I act like I'll go bananas, I equally want to wave a white flag and cuddle instead. I may not stop for directions, or ask for help- but I want you to offer the help anyway.

Sure, I could slam 6 Gin and Tonics and walk straight, but sometimes I just want to stop at 7-11, buy a Yoohoo! and watch all those shows on TLC about little people.

I'm not afraid of being alone, but that doesn't mean that I don't want the company. I'm not afraid of getting a "no", but that doesn't mean I don't cry a little every time it happens. I may have a million people in my phonebook but there's only about 10 that I LOVE.

I seek adventure constantly, but that doesn't mean I don't ask "how likely is it that this will kill me?" or, "have you seen any bears out here?" about 50 times. I say fuck a lot and talk about my vagina, but that doesn't mean I can't hold a killer conversation with a 5 year old, or your Christian family.

Being self reliant is amazing; it's perfect for defining your voice, your SELF and being proud of it, but it doesn't have to be all or nothing. I need reassurance just as much as the next guy, I need kisses, love, invites, a nice "well done", or "you look beautiful." I need a good cry and a cookie to make it feel better too.

I tough, but I'm not that tough.

How "TOUGH" are you????

Just Call Me BLING, BLING.

"It dawned on me today that I've been waiting my whole life to SHINE.....and now, half of my life is over- what the hell was I waiting for? Why not SHINE NOW??"

There's nothing more crushing, more inspiring, or more vulnerable that your Father telling you that he's spent 47 years of his life WAITING TO SHINE.

I would imagine that when the shoe drops out of the sky and you're smacked with that realization, you probably look around at your life and say; what the fuck was it all for?

What was the point of working the 14 hours days, or of building a home in a school district that I thought would benefit my kids- when they just ended up going to Arts schools and homeschooling. What was the point of letting my boss berate me, control me and confine me nicely in a cubicle- just so that in the end, I'd feel under appreciated, replaceable and dulled. So that I could come home and find solace at the bottom of Sun Chips bag, just to do it again tomorrow.

Sure, there was paycheck. There was the benefit of handing over crumpled twenties to your teenage daughters so they could spend it on cheap accessories and funnel cakes. With each drawn out lunch shared between my Mother and I with bottles of blush wine and creme brulee, with each new school backpack, fender bender, must-have trendy slogan shirt, and unnecessary water park treats.....he lost a little. bit. of his shine.

Each day, funding our futility he worked, tirelessly and dutifully. Never making us feel guilty, or aware for that matter- that we were now his heart, running about outside of his body and he had willingly, selflessly given us his shine.

Best Dad advice to date, he said "I WANT YOU TO SHINE, TO DO EVERYTHING THAT YOU WANT TO DO AND DO IT NOW. Don't wait." followed by cheesy Father-Daughter misty eyed hugs and lip pursing.

We spend so much of our time doing what we think will "pay off," we take an action to climb a ladder one bar at a time to that "greater" thing/job/house/etc., we count calories so that eventually our tummies will look just a bit flatter, we "pay our dues,"..... we DELAY our shine so that we can shine LATER, and the delay ends up being the majority of our lives. My the time we realize it, the shine is beyond reach.

So now, I'm focusing on SHINING. Brilliantly. Fully. With a pulsing, magnetic burn of effervescence. I want to gleam. I want to feel like Christmas morning. Like the crystals of a Ballroom dress. Like the luminosity of a full moon. Like the glare of stage lights. Like the glint of the reflection from the Ocean. Like the finale of firecrackers. Like the flash of a gold tooth..... yeah, I want to shine like a fuckin' grill.

....Illuminated from the inside; every cell, every pore. Every word, action- thought.

I will not wait. I will shimmer, I will RADIATE. I WILL SHINE. BRILLIANTLY.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR???? ARE YOU DELAYING YOUR SHINE?

I'm calling you "PUNK ASS" because I LOVE YOU.

You know what's sexy?

Dressing up in lingerie and getting so fixated on a chunk of peeling skin, on your love's arm, mid-foreplay- that you sit on him for an hour and peel his flesh, in lieu of gettin' down. Right? Sexy, or just damn real? That, is love.

Tugging each others sleeves into random bathrooms, for a routine blow job, isn't always the way it works. Fuck you Romantic Comedy's and pornos for making me think once I got someone to routinely have sex with that all of a sudden I'd be porn-starring it out in public with lusty bathroom sex, and whipped cream bikinis. Turns out there's actually several moments when you'd prefer to box them in the face, than have an orgasm.

This weekend was weekend two of; Operation Kill Your Boyfriend.

Week one went something like; 5am Nebraska. Chelsea Talks Smack and Love groggily awake from a night of binge drinking in a tent on a lake.....fast forward: 7am Love says, "OH SHIT. I have to be playing at a WEDDING at 9am, Four. Hours. Away." Chelsea Talks Smack bursts into action; full speed ahead, precisely 100miles an hour ahead- My Love makes it to the wedding, on time. Hair awry in full Amadeus mode, ready to play horrendous violin versions of pop-punk tunes. Which is a whole separate blog unto why these people shouldn't be allowed to get married.

Weekend two: 2:30pm Chelsea Talks Smack is an hour into a hike up a mountain, her Love emails- because his phone has lost battery ( and yes, I miraculously had service).... "So, that wedding we're going to tonight in Breckenridge- two hours away- is at 5pm, not 7. I'm sorry, get here asap." Chelsea kicks her ass into gear sprinting down a steep terrain, arrives, sweaty- pissed, seething and in need of some fucking Pinot. Stat.

SOMETIMES- ALL THAT GUSHING ABOUT BEING IN LOVE, is thrown out the window when you feel like you've adopted them as a child, not as a partner- and when you wonder if someday they'll forget your unborn baby in a hot car because they can't remember their own damn wallet.

And that's the thing people; Love isn't always rainbows and icecream cake. You can't always expect that just because you set up the "perfect" weekend for love, the "perfect" dinner, and you wore your cute underwear- that everything is going to work out like planned.

Sometimes, you're tempted to run over each other with your car, or suffocate them in their sleep and say bad things about their Mother. Sometimes, when you're driving an hour out of the way to fill up their gas tank because their stranded and broke, or you're picking up their drunk ass from a strip club (*note that was me, not him) you wonder, WHAT. THE. EFF. am I doing???

...and if they're worth it; if they're loyal. If they're honest. If they love you all the way from your Back-ne, to your wonky little toe. Shaved or unshaven. On a tirade about "that-chick-who-can't-fucking-sing-and-looks-like-Celine-Dion-on-CRACK" or in your underwear dancing in all your pop tart glory to heinous Britney Spears tunes.....if they're still around THEN, you remember that everything is fickle in the long run.

If they remember your favorite candy, if they bring you flowers- but then remember it's your sister's birthday, so they save them until later- so you won't take away from her SHINE; if they they notice you shivering in the middle of the night and whisper stories into your year and wrap you tightly in a blanket, if they invite your cousins to grab a beer with them- so they can feel more like family, if they let you try on antique wedding rings at a Farmers Market booth simply because it amuses you- even though his Mother is a jeweler......

If they remember the perfume you were wearing when you first made love, if they can tell when you're getting anxious and they can talk you down.....if they share the last two cents to their name....If they fuck up on the small things but before you go to bed at night they're there, with you, reminding you that you're MAGNIFICENT.....

....if among ALL OTHER THINGS, they're doing THAT, they're worth every rushed arrival, every forgotten detail, every shitty quip. Those things are trivial compared to the weight of what LOVE actually is. And it turns out, love means calling each other "punk ass" just as much as you call each other Hunny Love.

Eventually, if it lasts- which under most circumstances in a relationship you hope that is does, you're bound to piss each other off. You're bound to mention that dude who you slept with in the past and is "so fantastic, you have to meet him!" one too many times before a fuse blows. You'll most likely vomit on each other's good shoes after too much free champagne or a mean case of Chinese food stomach poisoning. You'll probably say something that makes their Grandmother blush on accident, or insult their brother-in-law without noticing, until you hear crickets. You may skip out on an anniversary, or offend them when you really meant to give them a compliment. Point is, you'll fuck up. You'll fuck up, and you'll move on- because in most cases, it's totally worth it.

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN ANGRY ABOUT, BUT FORGIVEN BECAUSE YOU LOVED SOMEONE????

When You're BROKE and in LOVE......you buy shit with pennies.

I paid for an entire weekend vacation in CHANGE. Damn straight.

Pooling together a shitload of pennies and shiny laundry money can buy you; a tank of gas, bratwursts, a 24 pack of Corona, a liter of Beringer Pinot Grigio, S'mores ingredients, bagels, condoms, about 25 pounds of trail mix, (which was entirely consumed by moi), a wicked sunburn and wilderness sex.

I forgot to mention, we were also sleeping in bags, braving tornado warnings and peeing in trees, this act is also known as; camping.

This is no Ritz with poolside bottles of Veuve, this is actually where mosquitoes crawl up your Va-jay and bears eat your face off.

Amidst the complete chaos of not knowing where my paycheck is going to come from every given month I've decided to have fun anyway....-wait, back up, I see confused faces- yes, I DO several freelance jobs that pay and mostly pay well, but if you freelance you also know that means; we pay when we it suits us, so suck down some rice cakes and live in poverty, or start go-go dancing on the side. My ass needs about 34,000 hours more of spinning before I make that leap and because my spinning teacher insists on playing Vanilla Ice that's not gonna happen- so poverty, Coinstar and creatively doctored rice cakes for dinner it is!

...I digress; The point is, My Love and I are feeling it....we're feeling the consequences of choosing a rocky path instead of a straight one. We're not going out for dinner, we're cooking each other Ramen and taking advantage of happy-hour two for ones.

When you're broke and you're in love, you spend more time looking into each others eyes than looking at wine lists. When you're broke and you're in love you spend more time reading each other Flannery O'Conner short stories, than going to movies and watching stories. You spend more time at BBQ'S with your families, than hosting a BBQ at your home with friends.

When you're broke and you're in love you talk about the "someday" you'll be able to visit the Greek Islands and cross off your list of "If I had 15 More Days to Live I would......."

You talk about the day you'll be able to pay off student loans and buy saffron strands and ground turkey without feeling like you're breaking the bank. You talk about your future home; wood or terracotta floors? You talk about buying building a wine rack from scratch and the kinds of flowers you'll have in your garden; poppies, sweet peas, lilac, peonies and hydrangeas.

When you're broke, you're musicians and you're in love you visualize the day you'll perform at Red Rocks, how nervous you'll be when you collaborate with Chris Martin, what the tour bus will look like, the day we negotiate my Maxim deal for my cover (yes- I'd totally do it) and who we'll thank on our CD insert.

When you're broke and you're in love, you spend more time sitting outside than you ever will, because it's the one beauty that's free.

When you're broke and you're in love you have NOTHING but SELF to show for....and actually, that's exactly what makes the love feel as strong as STEEL.

When you're broke and you're in love you brainstorm, you dream, you reveal your vulnerabilities and you call PBR and Granola a "Feast." When you're broke and you're in love you don't "do brunch", you don't plan weekends away in Santa Fe to do foodie things and look at art, you don't bring the best wine to potlucks, you don't express your love through reservations, suit jackets, necklaces and bouquets- but through moments walking down Denver's streets and clutching the only tangible thing you have...... each other.

When you're broke- you're tested, you're scratching, you're digging and you're hopping something, anything, HITS. You're shameless, you're worn and you're willing. When you're in love- you're stupid, you're bold, you're hopeful and you're blind. When you're in love AND you're broke, you're the perfect combination of blissfully optimistic....hence, paying for vacations in change, Googling your dream wedding dress and beleiving in your one option, no backup plans.

When you're broke and in love you fantasize about you're future wedding dress, the ring, the honeymoon and the menu- even though you can barely buy gas and your current menu is processed and packaged.

When you're broke and in love you dream about walking down the aisle, beaming, complete, awaiting life as a couple, your dreams actualized and a vanilla buttercream frosting cake to cut while wearing one of these;

Dear Monique Lhuillier, I love you.

You make it happen. When you're broke and you're in love, things aren't easy.......but they're motivating.

Have you ever been broke and in love?????

And p.s. which dress?..... (so that once my man and I's music is playing on a Visa commercial we can start planning for real.....:)

REAL WOMEN, don't always shave their legs.

Woman the fuck up Chelsea. Woman up.

Chipped blue nail polish isn't cute anymore, you're not 14.

You're a grown ass woman who should wear eye cream, who has found the perfect department store moisturizer, and smells like lavender, and eucalyptus (I'm just guessing this is what a real woman smells like-it seems "spa" like and grown)....

.... It's really hard to take a woman seriously when she smells like a fucking baked good; sugar cookie, almond biscotti, etc. Even though, I love it.

This whole "needing to be more of a woman" thing started the other day, of course, while I was nearly naked- (since we always make rational decisions about ourselves when we're naked?) I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror; parading about my house in my torn, faded, 3-year-old? thong, my mess of untamed hair and split ends. Then, I looked at my hands, and my feet, a vision of a spa day, long, long ago. Big toe painted? Sure- what, you mean you paint all of your toenails? It all became clear....

I want to be the kind of woman who gravitates towards the Real Simple magazine at the grocery store. Who buys linens. I want to be the woman who showers everyday....and busts out the curling iron just because. Who doesn't think it's acceptable to wear sweatpants all day long...

The woman who knows how to pair meals with the perfect wine. Who gets out of bed before 9am and has a morning ritual that involves rose water and meditation. Who buys soy milk and nice purses.

I want to be the fucking Kardashians meets Giada De Laurentiis, meets Kate Hudson- so it looks like even though I'm put together, I'll still drive with all the windows down in the car and drink microbrews, not simultaneously.

I want to buy aprons with patterns of beachy landscapes, and kittens. No I'm not fucking joking. I want to have a proper teapot and make side dishes, instead of a measly pot of pasta with canned sauce (my Italian Grandmother is rolling over in her grave right now, "canned sauce!? THE BLASPHEMY!") I want to know how to make a special marinade and have the perfect substitution for when I'm out of vegetable oil.

I don't know if it's what happens when you're disgustingly in love- or when you're just a hormonal hot mess and all you can think about are fucking bundt cakes, but I want to be a person who would even OWNS a bundt cake pan??

The truth is, I think I want to be that kind of woman....but I'm NOT that woman.

Right now, I'm the woman who; wears a messy bun five out of seven days, doesn't always wash her face before she goes to bed, who forgets her Granny's birthday, and writes important information on gum wrappers. I'm the the woman who should change her sheets more often, doesn't know how to cook a decent piece of meat, and wears Dr. Pepper chapstick.

I'm the woman who can't keep her mouth shut, even when it's inappropriate to speak up. The woman who would rather cook together than alone, or just dine out for that matter. The woman who says vagina too often in public and gets distracted staring at people's asses in yoga class. I'm the woman who isn't afraid to do some ball busting, who has never watered or owned a plant and who thinks it's perfectly acceptable to rap to Biggie Smalls out loud, at the gym.

....could be worse I suppose....

What kind of woman are you????? Sorry men.

The blog one year ago today: Preservatif?

"Do you love me as much as you love your legs?"

"Do you love me as much as you love your legs???"

My Love, "Well-that's an unfair question....like, would I cut my legs off for you?"

CTS, "No, you love walking right? So do you love me as much as you enjoy having legs to walk......?"

"Chels, that's an absolutely ridiculous question. I love having legs, but that doesn't mean I don't love you."

And see people, this is one of the many questions that I pummel my boyfriend with on a rather consistent basis. Initially, when we started dating I wanted to be that really secure, totally "chill", girlfriend who was just all good all the time. I didn't want to call too often, or ask too many questions. I didn't want to ask him if he thought my knee caps were getting fat or if he thought I was socially awkward.

I didn't want to ask about his ex-girlfriends, or his first blow job. I didn't want to pry- I wanted to know what I knew, which he would just tell me without asking- because I wanted to be just that secure.

I didn't want him to know sometimes I hate my body. That I pinch, stare and over analyze until I vow to eat cabbage for the rest of my life. I didn't want to reveal that sometimes I'm insecure that my skin it too oily, or that my posture looks like the Hunchback, or that I wonder when someone is staring at my face if they're counting my black heads- or notice my crooked nose.

I didn't want him to know raw meat freaks me the fuck out and so does riding in his passenger seat.

I didn't want him to know that I worry a lot, or that I'm afraid to sleep in my big house alone for fear of a pack of wild burglars with tazers. I didn't want him to know that I'm not as tough as I come off. That sometimes I'm overly proud because I'm overly compensating.

Trying to act overly secure never lasts.

Because at the end of the day, when our guards are down, when my makeup is off, when the zit cream is on and there's just the slightest view of a muffin top over my skimpy boy shorts- you can't hide your insecurities. They're all there. All exposed. Your heart lays delicately in their hands and so does everything else that comes with it, stretch marks and weird fears of rabbits included.

In love, all of the walls need to crumble. You're naked. You're sweaty. You're sick. You're scared. You're communicating. You cry. Sometimes you even vomit birthday cake into their brand new trash can and cry at the same time.

Like I've always said, once someone has seen your "O Face" or popped one of your zits for you, all bets are off.

So yes, sometimes- I'll ask you if you love me as much as you love your legs. Some days I'll talk a little too much about the size of my inner thighs, and some days I'll ask you to remind me that you love me, even though I do you do. And in return, you can ask me if you have dandruff for the rest of your life and I won't mind, deal?

WHAT ARE YOU INSECURE ABOUT???