Saturday, December 25, 2010

The Christmas Spirit.

So it's Christmas Day.

I'm wearing my best robe, new watch and ring, having just ordered my new ridiculous shoes online; my feverish, narcotic consumerism is finally laid to rest. The order promises 1-5 business days. I am satisfied.

My mother gave my sister and I two movies, very specific ones. My sister received The House Bunny and I was gifted Ever After. She said that she chose them deliberately, for each of us. Telling Fernando (my sister's boyfriend who is staying with us over the holidays, poor guy) to cover his ears, she said that the films were important because both of the heroine's men accepted them for who they are, and that is what my sister and I deserve in our lives.

Looking over at Fernando and Sash, who look like a precious happy family of kittens framed by the gleaming of multi-colored Christmas lights, I deduct.

"I feel like this one is directed at me."

My mother is laughing and tearing and denying, and we all giggle a little. It smells like bacon and coffee in our home, it's dark because of the weather, and our 7 dollar Christmas tree is trying its hardest to stand impressive

My sister is leaving for Germany in a few days to study abroad. I am moving to Oceanside, with bills, a job and young, tumultuous adulthood. But for now we get to be playmates and well-read Cinderellas, eat bacon and drink mimosas. Real things like goodbyes and men with so-so character get suspended for the time being; we all play a part in this Christmas Story.

But perhaps, like Ebeneezer finally comprehended when he threw open the blinds and ordered a turkey, that the realizations of Christmas can be the prefaces to life in the New Year. I think I have a extremely handsome Prince, sans tights and a horse (or with?), and Sasha totally has the boobs for Playboy. A Goodbye is not forever and I know at least 5 people to adore me for exactly the insane wench I am.

Merry Christmas.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Daily Happy

Recently, I had a...er, I guess you could call it a reader, mention my lack of reporting on my day-today experiences or reflections that make me happy. Instead, I let loose a slightly more composed collage of an angsty stream of consciousness narrative to be the stormy little raincloud blocking an onslaught of UV Rays.

Um, I'm protecting you. From ignorance and skin cancer.

But in all seriousness, there are many day to day moments that make me happy. Little scenes of minute satisfaction that I sometimes skip over in light of a good, cathartic bitch.

Buying thai tea boba in downtown Oceanside and the bespeckled lady already knowing who I am. Then subsequently spilling the neon orange liquid on the corner of my white blouse.

"What happened, ma'am?"
"It's tye dye."
"Just in the corner?"
"..."
"I spilled"

The owner at Ocean Breeze Flowers giving me a hug because I started tearing when I read a letter that was written to him by an elderly woman who had her spirits lifted by an arrangement he created.

Getting a call back from a boutique owner I had been hounding for a week.

Being enthusiastic and sweetly silly at a Piano Bar.

Driving to downtown San Diego and seeing the way the buildings look at night, and for the first time being conscious that I can be a part of it all.

Walking in downtown Oceanside, crying because I'm tried and people think I'm trying to sell them things instead of learning their stories, and see a 5 oclock orangey-red setting sun juxtaposed with the gray blue of the water and sand.

Getting an "I love you" text before I even wake up in the morning.

So yes, even though I spill shit on myself daily, sometimes get job-ly frustrated, and every once in a while go all CWFM (Crazy White Female), I would say life is good. It's so good that I haven't even needed to purchase a pair of unreasonable shoes to fill voids. In fact, I have been stomping (literally, I stomp) around my new little coastal town in a pair of tough, flat Cowboy boots and couldn't feel more powerful.

And that my friends,for this height obsessed young woman, is true happiness.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Bye Bye Libido

I've just moved to a new town to start my shiny new job.

It's exciting, and my job is the kind of position I waxed poetic about when I was 19. The type that is like "If I could just have that opportunity..." Now that I have that opportunity all I can think about is deadline and rent and my disintegrating desire to be a sensual, breathy female.

I had a nice, handsome young man mention his appreciation of my, er, face the other day at Starbucks. I dumped my old man laptop case, camera case, notepad, reporter's handbook on the floor, wiped my nose and said "Huh?"

"Huh?" Like I just woke up and my mom was trying to tell me to let the dogs out.

"Huh?" Like I'm drunk at a Mexican restaurant and somebody is trying to tell me I have cilantro giving me a gap tooth.

"Huh?" Like I don't know what a penis is, or what boys are.

As I scramble to find living, handholds, and time to do my rapidly frizzing hair, my 22 year old sensuality has flown right out the window with my ability to complete my "Complete by Xmas" reading list.

I thought I had it in the bag once, get all dolled up with lipgloss and mascara, fly shoes, inappropriate dress. Have a couple of cocktails and feel all diva-like and unstoppable. I often live my life by my ability to curiously outfit the situation. Now I'm wearing jeans and a tired expression that is a constant manifestation of my dirty Starbucks "Huh?"

Good! Job first, annoyingly fleeting sexuality second.

Right?

Right?!?!?!

Good for all of you young voyeurs into the job world, work your overtime hours and still manage to bang your dome on the headboard regularly. I guess I shouldn't complain though, it's not like I don't have a man constantly pining for my attention (to detail) and time (for meetings). His name is Michael. Booyah.

He's my editor

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Inquisitive is a Euphamism

Sometimes, a situation seems so detrimental that life beyond the present, living, breathing, pulsating, sensual life seems as impossible as locating two matching socks.

I can always recall moments like these, although their severity fades in memory. Because life always goes on, the morning always comes, and there you lie, alive, awake, musing at a painting that you wanted to tear off the wall and put your foot through six hours earlier.

I am a detective. I am also a slight masochist. Not a sitcom masochist, all trussed up in leather and chains, but a mundane, everyday pain-chaser. You know how they say the truth hurts? Well I like to find out the truth. I like it very much.

Being on the hunt for the truth means you become a devious snoop. Sometimes I hear the theme for the Pink Panther whirling in my head as his phone sits unguarded, three feet away from my itching fingers, accusing. Then begins the internal battle.

Angel/Chill Girl: Don't be a nutjob, don't be a nutjob. Walk away from your impending snoopery and go watch TV.

Demon/Crazed and Convinced: UM HELLO?! GIRL YOU'VE GOT LIKE FIVE MINUTES. START DIGGING.

It is interesting that while in plight for the true intention of unanswered phone calls and cloying love texts that one begins to stretch meaning out of a message like "Loves" or "I like hotdogs." Suddenly the everyday communications of coed friendships become chapters in their love story. They met up at a place called Loves! It's probably a sex store! They had kinky, better sex! She likes his hotdog!

And while I am in heated, feverish pursuit of what he means I overlook the log in my own text inbox. They say things like "I love you" and "I miss you," but the words don't mean as much when they are said to me. I am more interested in what is being said to others.

And here's where the irony of "the truth" knocks the wind out of me. I have cast aside the potential happiness for my own happy kid story because I am way too into my spidey sense for foul play. When somebody says to you "I love you," you should not be thinking "Yes me, but who else?" You should be thinking I love you as well. You're perfect. Isn't this fun? Aren't we lucky and fun?

I have decided to lay my expectation of the truth in the present moment. I want to feel the love I know is there all the way to my snoopy little toes. It's possible, because I am willing to put down the fingerprint kit and extend an undusted hand of trust.

I have to put She-lock to rest. Girl is getting out of control.

On the other hand, if She-lock ends up knee deep in the shit she originally sniffed out, I wouldn't want to be around. In fact, I'd take myself, my painting, and my most comfortable leather shoes and start running.

Monday, December 6, 2010

I Never Do This

I'm not a huge picture poster, but I ADORE Grace Potter, and always search for pics of her. Then I was browsing all my inspiration folders and realized its nothing but a montage of all my women crushes. I love women! So much! So instead of me blabbering about feelings and happy hour, and sad moments, I just wanted to remind myself why the world is good, and beautiful, and wonderful.












1. Laura Stone. Size 4 Successful Model! Vogue did a profile on her hip hardships in the size -3 industry. Whatever. REBELLION!
2. Katherine Hepburn. An original diva. Unknown, she demanded a higher salary than they were offering her on her first big film. That's how you end up with 1200 a day!
3. Nicki Minaj. I watched her documentary on MTV. She is weird, bossy, and strong. She is tough. Her album is doing really well, she's had Lauryn hill comparisons in terms of her lyrical ability, and many of the online responses have been PAH! I've read some of her lyrics, particularly Roman's Revenge. Eminem raps of the track, and his words seem to have a better narrative, but her rhyme schemes are impressive (hailing back to freshman year poetry ha) She reminds me of Emily Dickinson...it doesn't really seem to make sense, it sounds weird and makes you uncomfortable, but that's its purpose. I'm pulling for her. I see brilliant.
4.Sophia Loren. Done.
5.Anna Karina. Jean Luc-Godard's muse, French new wave siren, tiny fleeting bit of a human being. I like looking at photo's of her, she seems rather incapturable by still film. She is wide-eyed on subtle on screen. I like her mystery.
6. GRACE POTTER. I have only seen her perform on TV or youtube, but I feel the vibrations! She is fearless, sensual, powerful. I like her voice and how she extends herself through her sequins. Role Model.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Great Expectations

I have a problem with daydreams.

As soon as I get a whiff of something that could be potentially enjoyable, I whip up a spectacular scenario and just marinate in it for a few days.

So what, right? But it's bad. My fake expectation is grounded in so little reality that I am usually always so disappointed I lapse into brief social comas. Here's a metaphor for how wide the gap is:

Let's say I turned on the divine seductress within for 1o minutes and secured myself the best kind of date: casual drinks at some spunky local watering hole. So far, so good. Then, when I'm at the office revamping the lede for the piece on January's "Foodie Finds," my currently reality will slip away in a mist, and just like the movies, I launch myself into a first date of epic proportions.

I'll probably be wearing a navy sleeveless well fitted dress with a deep v-neck. My hair will look exceptional, yet casual, and my height will be a good 5 inches higher thanks to fall's new platform mary-jane. I smell better than Elizabeth Taylor will ever smell, and look 5 pounds thinner.

My date is handsome, busy, has great, hulkish shoulders and sits by politely while I discuss my favorite authors. We get a bit drunk on expertly mixed wells, eat very little, and have conversation rhythm that all the blazer and dress clad couples envy; they shoot looks of jealousy over the platters of exotic french fries and fancy mayo. We're the Norman Rockwell of dates. We sparkle.

I am so exuberant about my fantasy date (which by now I have reconciled will be an outline for the actual event) I hum happily to myself while trying to find the perfect adjective for a cilantro chutney. I come up with "smooth." My vocabulary is affected.

Then, reality hits. The waterhole is spunky, yet booze soaked. There is beer on my shirt and hulky shoulders is late. The french fries are domestic, and the conversation is about about as interesting as my analysis of Jersey Shore after a second shot of Jameson. "Pauly D is hilarious! OH YEAH!"

The worst is watching a fallen hero. In my daydream he was charismatic and humble, brutish but shockingly funny, and nice as a button. In real life he is just drunk. And drooling. And doing a Van Zant impression that looks more like a seizure. We don't sparkle, We reek. Of whiskey, bad decisions, and my souring disillusion.

This is what I do, again and again: set myself up for a rather spectacular fail. Could anything ever be as good as the Norman Rockwell date? No! I don't think my own birth was as cool as that. Why do I insist on great expectations?

Though, every once and again, these expectations allow me to be blown away by the unexpected. A walk in a park, a view that makes you cry, champagne in pajamas, takeout and football, catching the last 15 minutes of happy hour with an old friend...these are the moments that even my daydreams can't touch because they are so honest and simple, free of outlines or guidelines or 15 dollar well drinks.

This is a new sort of contentment, one that cannot be replicated in fantasy or used as a premonition. It is the redemption to what had fallen, the soft light of sun after a piss storm.

So while I am busy banging my head against a wall watching my sloshed date writhe on the floor during the climax of his air guitar solo, the universe is getting ready to suprise me with a real life daydream, free of expectations, but full of everything great.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

The Little Things


It's truly shameful how packed I still am from college.

I just liberated my front and back car seat from odds and ends: tampons, a white dress, Calvin Klein strappy sandals. My job hunt and internship load is picking up and in an attempt to ward off any panic attacks I dug out my 2010 Audrey Hepburn calender.

Two months left in the little Audrey montage. I flipped to December to see the picture (a strange styling of Audrey with a fishing net) and there on December 25 was a large, fat, heart-punching reminder.

Scrawled around the day Christ was born in the rather inelegant handwriting of my ex-boyfriend, was the epithet "On this day...nothing happened."

My ex is a stout atheist, I have watched him drunkenly debate Jesus's existence with a surprising about of hammered eloquence. So much so that my the end of the discussion and five cigarettes his opponent is saying things to the extent of "I love God, but you're a cool cat."

I don't know what possessed him to mark my calender. I once caught him leafing through the pages to see if I had written down important dates like his winter break or when he'd leave for trips.

I sat for a bit in my room, laughing at this completely characteristic yet still surprising little note my ex boyfriend left me. It made me happy, but also slightly sad.

Innately I understand the process of break ups. The world--my world, his world--doesn't stop because our relationship does.

I guess I am just bittersweetly aware that within the proverbial Audrey calenders, on the date of our anniversary, it may one day read: "On this day...nothing happened."

Sunday, November 14, 2010

The Punch


I once had a friend punch another in the face.

I remember what he looked like, before he struck. I have seen his face do so many things; smile, laugh, set up jokes, yell things across the street, but I'd rarely seen his face like this. His mouth looked strange, flattened and snarled, preparing. I tried to look at his eyes, but they moved too quickly to lock onto. They flashed up on my face for brief moments, but I may as well have another passerby.

And in a flash, there was blood.

He was gone.

And we all stood on the curb in mediated silence amidst the threats and the swearing, losing his back into the swell of the night.

I know far more violent things happen everyday. But witnessing this intimate glimpse of a hate's manifestation sticks with me like a bug I just can't shake.

I still have strange dreams about this ferocity, but it mutates itself into different scenes. Sometimes more carnage, sometimes no blood. But in those dreams I see the thing I never did during my waking memory.

I see his eyes. And it is a disappointment. I used to see a thousand lifetimes when I caught his gaze. But in my dreams, within the blue irises, there is only emptiness.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Beating a Dead Horse

A bit ago, I posted a story about a jilted lover whose rage took on the task of destroying some valuable property.

A friend of mine messaged me, relating a similar situation, in which his buddy got a lovely and pricey bike sawed in half by a similarly jilted lover.

My friend, who is the best guy you could ever know, asked me "Is this a common thing you girls do?"

It is sad, when I think if it, that pretty bikes and fancy guitars get demolished when a love turns ugly. I can imagine it is like the sadness that happens when you watch old Civil War movies and the horses are being gunned down, their spindly legs grasping at the air as they fall into a puddle or something. During my seventh grade history class we watched one of these, and I whispered to my classmate Ben how sad I was for the dying horses.

Ben looked at me in slight disgust, "What about the men?"


Yes, Ben! What about the men!

Perhaps things like guitars and bicycles sometimes fall as casualties in love and war. It doesn't stop there, people get nasty divorces and then houses, money and children are suddenly spoils as neatly suited lawyers engage in paper battles.

With my experience in all things jilting, it does not surprise me when I hear of a slashed tire, broken bicycle, or splintered guitar. In fact, the naughty little drag queen inside of me claps her hands and says "You go girl."

I don't know what it is, why I feel vindicated instead of sad for the proverbial dead horse. 70 cents to the dollar? Menstrual Cycles? Childbirth?

I remember once I was absolutely enraged, heart broken, sobbing, and very drunk. I gazed on the sleeping, passed out drunk form of my perpetrator, angry at how hurt I was, angrier that he was not awake to witness my clearly devastating hurt. I couldn't sleep, and began noticing objects in his apartment. Stupid chair, stupid pillow, stupid cheese grater. Then the objects began to vibrate with potential.

Ha! I thought! I will take them! That will show him who he thinks he is.

I really didn't have much of a strategy when gathering items; candles, the book I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max, a tiny, electric fan, sunglasses. I grasped the loot in my arms, feeling devious and successful. Wait till he wakes up without his tea lights!

Then I realized I was hammered, it was 4 a.m., and I was twenty minutes by car from home.

I replaced all the items, defeated. Then I decided on a new form of revenge. I threw his lighter across the room, and planning to leave as soon as I sobered up, hid his "water pipe" in what at thought at the time was the last place he'd ever look.

Morning came, and with it two gut wrenching hangovers.

"Why is my [water pipe] on top of the refrigerator?"

... Perhaps not the cleverest hiding place.

I think that when a fiery, fiesty, woman feels the pain of heartbreak, she radiates it in her body like a new form of energy. That night I felt like I could shoot my pain from my fingertips, like a crazy Spiderwoman. It is so affecting, it is so resonating, it is red like fire and beautiful like the sun. It is the reason my friend's father said, "My whole life has been about keeping the woman happy," it is why a spider can eat her mate. A woman's pain consumes her being, and she lets it, as she has accepted it as a natural heritage.

So to answer your question friend, it is perhaps more common that we girls mess up some men stuff in the wake of our splintered hearts. We'd just like you, or your guitar, to understand what it feels like to have something of yours broken.

"Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There's just too much fraternizing with the enemy." ~Henry Kissinger

Sunday, November 7, 2010

The Look on His Face


It is indicative by the contents of this blog that I love a good melodrama. Moments steeped in such ridiculous feeling that reality is briefly suspended. Those are the situations I cherish dearly and store them in my memory to revive during an Oasis song. But one melodrama sheds its mascara tears better than the rest: the goodbye.

I say goodbye everyday, Bye Mom, Bye Boss at work, Bye to my poodles as I am locking you in the guest room until you stop jumping all over the couches like mountain goats on LSD. Those goodbye are easy to brush off, like raindrops or Shirley Temples with too much grenadine. But there are other farewells that cling to you defiantly; a symbiotic relationship of comfy nostalgia and slight masochism where your only recourse is breaking out the vices.

I can remember only certain details about those kind of goodbyes. I remember watching the gray morning light make its way through the cracks in the blinds. I remember how the asphalt was still warm when I stood on it barefoot. I remember the clerk at the gas station commenting on my legs.

When my father left, he took parts of the house with him. Pans, silverware, linens. But what I can recall very clearly is coming home from school and seeing the tan leather recliner missing from its corner. My parents bought that chair when we first moved to Folsom, and friends of theirs would always remark on its quality or how comfortable it was. It had an ottoman as well, I remember my father reclining in it royally when we watched movies.

I have no memory of my father leaving, but I do remember the missing chair. It was, in many ways, like my father. Removed, handsome, wanted, and cozy like home. It was significant in its own way.

I think that is the melodrama of goodbyes: when inanimate and seemingly meaningless things suddenly become the only handholds to important memories. And I know I speak very diva-like about emotions and moments and melodrama, but the truth is it's all very simple. When you can't bear to say goodbye to the actual entity, you instead say goodbye to something disposable.

Perhaps this is why, seven years later, I can only remember the look of the light on the water, rather than the look of goodbye on his face.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Learning how to get Gold.

I am in Gold Country.

I remember looking for jobs on Craigslist in Sacramento. Sometimes Craigslist would assume I wanted to look in Gold Country and show me jobs in blue writing based out of Placerville.

It was as if my fingers could feel the gold Country vibes permeating the keyboard. I'd jump back from the screen, scowling, and rapidly find my way back to jobs in the river City.

Thanks Craigslist, but I'm not from there.

I'm from Folsom.

I just recently started interning at a magazine whose coverage encompasses areas like Folsom, Roseville, and Granite Bay. They also release a publication called Foothillstyle; this is the magazine I am working on. Foothillstyle is hitched up to El Dorado Hills, Cameron Park, Placerville, and Shingle Springs.

We are doing a "Holiday Gift Guide," which means I drive through brush-rimmed roads until I hit civilization and then ask the shop owners if they have any merchandise they'd like to feature in the spread.

This week I drove my red Toyota up to Shingle Springs to find a store named "Lee's Feed." I constantly live my life in a state of aesthetic delusion, and I always dress the part. I was wearing all black, some leather platform booties, and a vintage cashmere white hat that I thought made the whole thing quite kicky.

The parking lot of Lee's Feed was on a hill, so I pulled in tentatively, not wanted to hit all the Dodge Ram's that were being loaded up with the local livestock's fall menu. As I stepped one spiked bootie out onto the crackled asphalt, I suddenly realized my hat wasn't kicky, and that I, about to go into a store called Lee's Feed, looked like this:

Today at work, I wore cowboy boots. I realized that I'm from Folsom.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Can anybody find me, Somebody to love?

I once had Somebody tell me my blog was nothing but a stupid girl's rant.

I once had Somebody tell me I am so (excuse my language) fucked up in the brain it gives Somebody a headache.

Well Somebody, considering the nature of my aforementioned brain insides, if anyone should have a headache, it's this girl.

My friend once told me a story about a girl he knew while we were in college. I knew her too, but only slightly. She worked at a coffee shop in our small college town and was very noticeable. She was tall and slender, with astonishing eyes. They were blue, but not blue like the sky or blue like Billie Holiday. They were an icy, fiery blue. They were so blue that you kind of wanted to pee yourself when she looked at you and asked dully, "What kind of milk?"

She also had a mane of blond hair. It sprouted up from her skull defiantly and rippled down to the middle of her back in oddly perfect waves. She was striking.

This girl dated somebody equally striking sophomore year. He wasn't honest about it though. He wore pinstripe vests and girl's pants. His black hair, streaked with amber and bleach, played footsie with his eyeliner. He called himself by his first name, twice. Evan Evan.

After spring break his eyeliner decided it liked another girl. He returned to school and told coffee shop girl he wasn't interested anymore. I wonder what fierceness the blue took on when she looked back at him.

"So.. I love you and all, but I'm in love with another girl. Her named is Alexandra Alexandra Evita and we are very happy. You understand."

FIRE EYES.

A following evening, our blond heroine could not sleep. Everybody knows the insomnia that comes with anger. The last time I went to bed angry, I fell asleep drooling on my computer. On the document I had been working on, entitled "Manifesto of Obscene and Impressive Hatred and Vengeance Plan that will take place thereafter."

Fire eyes whips out of bed, throws the covers off, and goes in to full vengeance. Evan Evan had left one of his fancy, gleaming guitars at her place. It's shiny wood, oiled from Evan Evan's forehead grease and Oil of Olay make up remover, sprung an idea from her head like Athena out of Zeus.

She grabbed it's thin, strong neck, and smashed it to splinters, courtesy of her driveway and the months of frustration stored up from Evan Evan asking her if his eyeliner was even.

She then gathered the pieces and marched to Evan Evan's door. She dunked them with gasoline, and let out a banshee scream. Evan Evan arrived to the bonfire like Evita to the balcony and watched his baby burn.

Burn, baby. Burn.

I may not have the heart and guts to dramatically destroy some property, but I find it oddly comforting to tell a story so weirdly poetic. I have told the story to males of mine and they grin crookedly and say "That's awesome."

Is it awesome? It could happen to you. It might be happening to you right now.

I know it may be silly, but in committing this anecdote to Internet infamy (haha) I find myself feeling as victorious as if I had smashed a Gibson, without the possible destruction of property charge. I see this blog as more like a literal manifestation of guitar demolition than a collection of women rants.

And you know what? Somebody should be glad of that.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Saturday Night

Earth, Wind, and Fire has a song called Saturday Night. Part of the lyrics are as follows:

"Many dress to suit their taste, participate in the ego race. Tonight's the night for you to be, the biggest man in history."

I love that song; it's my favorite EWAF song, after Serpentine Fire. I find it obscenely ironic it is what came on my shuffle while during this Saturday night. Because this Saturday Night, instead of dressing to run in the race of egos and transforming to a huge man, I am making bruschetta in my mother's kitchen.

It came out all fabulous, by the way. I ate it with a 2007 Zinfandel.

There are moments in my life that I feel it would go against my core being to not reflect on. I am a capable 22 year old female, with dreams, a clean record, and high heels. I could be sitting, looking prissy on some faux white leather bar stool in downtown somewhere listening to a remix of Cooler Than Me hoping somebody in a sparkly shirt buys me another vodka soda so I can officially arrive.

But instead I choose the road less traveled. I choose the road reflective. I choose such a shiny, untraveled road that in order to deal with such the reverse of expected and normal action from other retards of my generation I must detail the defiance. Has anybody ever punted their phone? Of course you have. But for no reason other than there is no other movement in your life? My phone is somewhere in my backyard, and I feel better simply because of the motion.

I gather, from the words of my mother, her friends, and my therapist, that in your twenties you get a bad case of the Angst. And it's bratty, its transitional, it stems from insecurity and lack of knowledge about this inner being I so often speak of, but it still feels like a dense, sticky fog that remains slightly impenetrable without a nice Merlot and a bad attitude.

So, my fellow boomerang generation, let us raise our bratty, nice crystal (thanks mom) glasses of ingratitude and unmitigated ambition. Raise them high to 10 pm bruschetta's and 10 am returns to your childhood bedroom. Mom, I hope this a temporary situation. But until then, would you like a little nibble with your wine?

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Baby

Yesterday I was social.

So now I am going to negate any personality points I would have received and talk about my social evening on a virtual platform.

I met up with a friend who I haven't seen before she left to study malaria in Uganda. IN UGANDA. She told me a story of how she assisted in two births, C-Section and vaginal. The medical assistant wasn't available and the doctor snapped up my friend's capable hands.

One of the babies, the family named after her.

Isn't that unspeakably beautiful?

I started to cry when she mentioned that small tidbit. She said it slightly offhand, like oh and I got an A on the test I completed blindfolded. If I had a child named after me, I would have T-Shirts made. I am probably still going to have them made and distribute them to family members so we can take a group picture to solidify an accomplishment I had absolutely no part in. Everyone grinning, in little stadium rows wearing red shirts that say "My friend has a baby named after her in Africa, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt."

This story makes me wildly enthusiastic about things I may have not been before. My friend will forever be connected by something so intricately personal to this little girl who will one day live and grow to have hands just like those who delivered her. It is not an immediate, perhaps typical connection, but it exists, and strongly. I believe in it like I believe in coffee and the cold light of mornings. I believe in it like a realization.

Somethings are easy to believe in; sports teams, democracy, microwaves. But somethings, like those hidden in the spaces of human conscious which we choose often to not explore as they may hurt or scare us, those things are difficult to commit to. And if you can find something that inspires you to believe...Go on and let yourself be a little in love. Because somewhere in Uganda, in a village full of people, there lives a baby named Kaitlin.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Thwarting Yourself

Lately, I think I have been taking on tasks specifically because I know I will not be able to do them.

For the past half hour I have been trying to move a dresser. I want to move this dresser out of my room so I can twirl my bed around, allowing it to hug a corner of my bedroom. This dresser is immovable. It's the Iron Curtain. It's me when I see a shoe sale. It's my father's stance on extraterrestrial life (aliens exist apparently). I stare at it now, with hatred. It and it's stupid light wood, drawers askew. I try to push it and it grabs onto the carpet, stubborn as a mule and just as heavy. I lay half of my body down to its surface, the corners making sharp contact with my hipbones, and cry.

My dresser relocation is part of the Master Plan to revamp my childhood bedroom. My bedroom makes me uncomfortable. It's such a picture of a frozen transition; platform heels stacked next to seventh grade basketball trophies, pictures of me on St Patrick's Day smashed in college stare at a framed collage of me receiving First Communion. It is my stubborn girlhood refusing to give way to new, employed me. The tenets of adolescence cling to me like a spider web, and when I stumble home after a night out, hair mussed, drunk from the bar, I fight my room."I'm AN ADULT," my drunk self says.

"Ha," says my room. "In your 22 year old dreams. Why don't you cozy up to your giant stuffed bear and call it a night, eh? By the way, you've had these sheets since middle school."

Today I sat on my bed and checked my email, hoping for employer's enthusiastic responses to my scanty resume. I looked up at my desk, my suitcases still overflowing from still packed college goods, my high school diploma, volleyball plaques, a stuffed dog I named Patches one Christmas, and suddenly all the objects took on a pulse. Their motion grew; the simple notion that they could move at all mocked my existence, my resume, my attempts at dressing like an adult . I snapped, threw all my clothes out of the dresser, and heaved it away from the wall with all my adult, womanly strength.

About a foot later, here I am.

On my blog.

Talking about how Patches came to life.

I have realized that there is no way will I be able to move this dresser by myself. Or my bed frame for that matter. They are both too heavy. I am going to ask my father to come over after work and help me move the elephants in the room.

I think part of being an adult is to recognize when you need help, and instead of thinking you have the upper body strength of a young Arnold, ask for it. Perhaps if I can swallow my girlhood bravado and pride for a second, the woman in me can make a brief appearance. Well, at least long enough to move a dresser and a bed.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Two Paths Diverge

Today I walked my dogs with my mother. The light was fading, just like summer, and I could see the tops of suburbia glazed with amber.

She says, "How's the job hunt?"

I say, "GREAT."

Then my steps pick up, and so do hers. Briefly, we look ridiculous. Two ladies with miniature poodles, race walking.

I wasn't really angry she asked me about job hunting. I live at home, she's supposed to do that. I even enjoy telling her about my interview nerves or worries about my qualifications. It usually quiets the angst.

But the real reason for the springin my step is more instrospective. Lately, I have been running scenes from my past over and over in my head. Scenes of domestic breakdown and youthful foolishness.

Once upon a time I was in a heart-crushing argument. The debate disintegrated to large pauses and reflections reaching that point where both parties have said all there is to say. You know, the moments of brief loss of hate, why there's all these breaks in speech. The fighters need enough time to squeeze out one more, trivial point.

During one of these late pauses, I took the opportunity to wipe the snot waterfalls from my nose. I am not sure what it is about wiping the snot away, or maybe I was just tired, but for a lovely, diaphanous moment I did not feel an all consuming urge to hurl insults and poorly thought out arguments. I felt... affectionate. Like I was sitting next to a dear old war buddy, not my evil nemesis.

"You know," I said, gazing up at him like Bambi. "I think maybe all this nutjob-ness of mine may make me famous one day." I cracked a silly grin in the dark.

"Maybe," said he said languidly, sounding bored to even be talking. "But you're not very resilient."



I think these are the brief moments that define us, as they present the paths we choose to stumble along and those we take one look at and then say "Hell No. I don't want to die."

I believe in that moment, a fork presented itself to me quite clearly. I quickly picked a side. I hope it is the right one.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Me and my Dad

Yesterday my father graciously opened up an account for me at a nice, fancy gym.

My membership, however, exists on the condition that once I become "established," I will take over payment.

I asked my father what he meant by established, just to be a shit. I know what it meant. It means not sleeping till noon, haphazardly job searching until your eyes get tired, then making yourself cocktails with the different fruit juices that your mom buys. Pretending, while you cocktail, that you are the star of your own highly successful snarky, hip cooking show. Or putting on the first act of Les Miserables on the house stereo system, printing out the lyrics, and performing for two sleepy, non-plussed poodles.

I don't think that constitutes "established."

On my gym member application form, there is a box where you list two friends for a referral and a free week trial membership. After a deliberation that was a bit too long, and a scan of my contacts, I grudgingly listed one acquaintance. Proud of myself, I announced my successful listing to my father.

"You need more friends."

Dad! I said.

"No, it's not a put-down!" he explained. "It's a fact."

"What?!"

"It's a fact! We all need friends, you and I. We need friends."

"Dad, that's worse. It's worse that it's a fact."

We had a brief word scuffle, me finally conceding that he was more of the opinion that I needed friends because it's a general need of the human race, as in we are not really solitary creatures, even if you live in Folsom.

So I don't need friends because I haven't brushed my hair in two days, or plan to perform Act 2 for Bear and Otto tomorrow. I need friends because I'm human.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Stand By Me

My friend and I set goals for ourselves this summer: to go on a date.

Finals week starts tomorrow. No dice.

I came close a couple of times. I've had offers for chicken and waffles, been licked on the neck by an elderly, hammered gentleman, asked to watch a magic show. Got a gay man's number, gave mine to an ancient queen who danced like Richard Simmons with less flexibility, avoided subsequent phone calls.

The other day I heard "Stand by Me" on the oldies radio station and lost my shit. The song is literally the words stand by me repeated with different emphasises. But it is such a strong sentiment, more resounding than the other big three, I love you. Stand by me doesn't ask for a lifelong commitment, it doesn't clasp the chain around your ankle or slap a label onto your trembling back.

It just says, hey, just be here.

It seems pretty selfless to me, despite the fact that its technically command. I imagine that by him asking her, he is explaining the fullness of his devotion. That when the time came, he would be right there, standing.

Sometimes asking for help overpowers hot blooded declarations for love.

My date goal was stupid. It wasn't what I wanted.

I want somebody to hear that song and think of me. I want to Stand by Them.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Theory of Relativity, sort of

One of the tenets of Einstein's stupid theory of relativity is that your description of physical reality is the same regardless of the constant velocity at which you move.

As I avoid all attempts to study for my Astronomy final, I came across Chapter 22's intro to this special theory. I have just spent the weekend with my friends from college, freshly detached and come back to visit their old haunt. We all ate and drank way too much, laid on the couch for inordinate periods, talked about how full/drunk/tired/cranky we were in between those bouts of crotch hurting laughter and feelings of brief invincibility.

So for three days, we all had the reality of one another, no matter which direction we are moving in our lives, just like Einsten said. But now, sitting in my poorly lit room alone, I have realized that the way in which we are speeding through our young and directionless lives IS affecting our physical realities. I guess Einstein never had college rommates.

The differences are subtle. Nobody looks unlike themselves. But the stitches of our four year situation begin to unravel as everybody seeks a new life thread.

Remember in high school when you were dumped for the first time? And you listened to Bright Eyes laying on your bed and felt that nothing could ever feel worse than that moment?

Well this time it's not like that. I see my friend, ready to move across an ocean to pursue the lifestyle he dreams of, and its not all Bright Eyes and moping. It's complicated now. It's pride, and fear, sadness and joy, excitement and regret. I miss the purity of high school emotions. Now my cocktail of feelings are pushing me to accept things I don't want to. You know, to grow up.

I feel that I have spent my summer resisting adulthood. I have clung to my girlfriend's mantra of living in the moment, so hard that I missed it when the moment actually hit me: We are all moving on.

I am not saying I plan to welcome adulthood with open arms, in fact I plan to fight that bitch all the way to the grave. But I guess I am coming to terms with letting people go and live their physical realities in ways that are different than mine.

Wish I could channel all this maturity into a successful Astro grade, dammit.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Male Gaze

Ever felt that somebody was looking through you instead of at you? You are about to launch into an adorably interesting anecdote and you turn to face your audience. His eyes are facing your direction, but his stare is that of what I assume a possum's would be: physically alive but wildly inattentive.

He looks, but does not listen.

So you continue, like a social robot. But you might as well be speaking in tongues. His possum eyes have launched themselves onto something shiny, like the waitresses tightly clad behind.

And then it's a sinking feeling, somewhere in your uterus.

It's that feeling you get when the top comes off your 4 dollar coffee and sloshes your white button down.

It's the feeling you get when your friend's band covers Nickelback.

It's the feeling you get when you hear about BP on the radio.

It's the feeling you get when you turn to grab a piece of toilet paper and all you feel in cardboard. And it's the morning.

Hangnails, the voicemail, burnt hair (or steak for that matter), weight gain, dirty dishes.

Life's little inconveniences. I think they hurt more than we care to admit. I am not ashamed to admit that when I fall down the last two steps of my lecture hall isle as I attempt to turn in my midterm, I feel a little hurt inside.

But hopefully, one day there will be somebody with human eyes on the other end of the line, who will not gaze past the words of my midterm fall. He'll laugh, and say "That sucks baby."

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Where's the Beef?

Yesterday I went to a bbq at a friend's house. She is living with a family near the hills of Santa Barbara; the property is insanely beautiful. We, well other people, I sat and watched, grilled burgers and slathered them with avocado and grilled onions and watched the sun burn down the mountain. It was gorgeous and I felt for brief moments the power that comes with youth and possibility.

But poetics aside, there was a younger young man I shall call Ryan who came to the feast a little later. A small group was sitting around the sienna tiled kitchen island, indulging in a round of tequila shots. Nothing bonds a group of people who don't know one another like tequila. We had just slammed down out glasses when Ryan makes his way to the island, all smiles, floppy hair and gaged ears. Everybody makes quick introductions and small talk is pushed aside for more interesting conversation (thanks again, tequila). Somehow it was brought to attention that Ryan was a vegetarian. He explained his devotion to all things leafy over the mound of charred burgers by denouncing beef's nutritional value and revealing its truly foul nature as nothing but pounds of masticated, rotting flesh.

The debate then swiveled to gesticulating on the birth of vegetarianism, and its contradiction to homo sapien's hunter-gatherer beginnings. It was argued, by the carnivores, that man first survived by bringing down a beast to nourish himself. To reject that would be a break with the tradition that allowed our species initial survival. Ryan countered with the notion that today's meat consumption is far more wasteful, "Back then it was different they used everything, they sucked the bone marrow and shit."

Then everybody took a shot. As we went to cheers, somebody volunteered a toast. "To Beef." A slight current of dissension shimmered in the air.

When you talk about dietary lifestyles, it always seems to hit a little too close to home. What begins as a difference of opinion ends up as an epic battle between good and evil. Statistics and scientific facts begin to get muddled and exaggerated to prove points, and suddenly what we put in our mouths decides if we're going to heaven or hell.

We are all not immune! I took a class on Literature and the Environment last year and was bombarded with a few texts talking about things like the meat and dairy industry, how CAFO's are big death factories and purchasing these types of products is obscenely bad for earth. Then, considering myself all learned, I stupidly brought this up at a dinner party, began questioning milk (we're the only species that drinks it) and got an interesting response.

"I LOVE MILK"
"MY MOM SAYS MILK IS GOOD FOR YOU"
"FUCK THAT SHIT"

It is said that a way to a man's heart may be through his stomach, but to me it seems more like the way to severely piss a group of people off is through their stomachs.

Perhaps literature and food should stay away from one another. Oh, and Ryan? He ended up getting arrested later that night. Maybe he tried to convert the police to soy based products.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Green Girl

Anybody been seeing previews for that new exorcist movie?

Why is evil always wearing a nightgown?

I still have to close my eyes and ears.

The Exorcist scares the living diva out of me. I will briefly glimpse a preview of the new possessed girl's sweaty head snapping back at an unnatural angle and start shivering mentally. It just takes me back to dome spins and pea soup vomit. My first experience with Linda Blair was when Billy Crystal hosted the Oscars. I can't remember what year that was, but I remember my mother had let us sleep in the living room on a large fold out futon. It was really exciting.

Billy did a historical montage of cinema in which he dubbed himself into famous movies of alternating genres. Horror was represented by The Exorcist, and Billy tried to reason with crazy ass Linda as if she were a distraught lover, not DEATH ITSELF.

I remember thinking, hmm, I wonder what movie this is, its kind of a strange scene, just a bed and this little weird girl OHMYGOD SHE IS FREAKING OUT AND THROWING UP EVERYWHERE AND TALKING LIKE AN OLD MAN WITH LUNG DISEASE. OHMYGOD I AM SO SCARED AND TEN YEARS OLD OHMYGOD.

I was paralyzed with fear. For years. From then on I referred to this mysterious character as "the green girl." I would try to explain to my sleepy and befuddled parents when I would wake them up at two in the morning, but I couldn't set the scene or context again as I was too afraid saying it aloud would make it real. It really disrupted my ability to be an adolescent, I could never sleep over at friend's houses, stomping off to my room was out of the question as I got too terrified alone; I was literally a sophomore in high school still creeping silently into my parents bedroom to huddle at the foot of their bed. Trembling in fear over green girl, over the possibility that my dad would wake up and find me, the refugee, and send me back to my deep dark bedroom.

I know I have been talking way too much about how to deal with demons, specifically those boy related. But the overexposure to this new demon-in-the-backwoods-of-Louisiana movie reminded me of the time I learned to man up and sleep in my own bed. It took, um years, but now I can curl up in the nook of my temporary air mattress (oh college) and clock a good ten hours of slumber. I remember at one time thinking i would never be able to sleep again, but today I am longing for my rubber bed as I type this. I guess if I can overcome green girl, what's a little bit of heartache?

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Romance Day 1

My friend was telling me a story about a night out on the town. She was with a group of boys, one of whom I had dated, named...Joe. Joe and company were waxing on about how Joe's current girlfriend was a luminous ball of nuts emotion or something. A mutual friend of ours muttered to himself, without missing a beat, in reference to me,

"Well, you [Joe] do like the crazies [me]."

I am the first person to attest to my flamboyant side. When emotions are high, I'll combust like a supernova all over your previously pleasant evening. But it still doesn't feel luxurious when someone reminds you of the thing about yourself that gets you into trouble. The thing that snarls the lips of those I'd rather see smiling. The "get away from me" thing.

But then I look at the people who have meant or mean something to me. All of them are a little off. And the ones who aren't, well, we're really not that close. There is a strange kinship that happens when two nut jobs of a feather get together. You recognize that sedated wildness in the corners of their eyes; understanding that when the madness unleashes it will not always be pretty, but there is great comfort in solidarity.

My crazy seems to be triggered by, well frankly and stupidly, love; falling in it, for it, losing it, missing it, giving it, not getting it back, rejecting it. I won't get smashed and uproot plants after getting a bad grade or forgetting to pay my rent, but I'll end up with a counterful of dirt encrusted tulip plants the morning after getting dumped. And what's really crazy is the world feels me! Love makes most people want to drunkenly make bouquets or throw doughnuts at their ex's window, they just won't allow themselves. Well, I'll bite the bullet for y'all. Plants and baked goods beware.

I find, however, that there are ways in which to harness the beast within. Since it is that ole devil that riles me, I have decided to engage in a bit of a social experiment. I am going to try and give myself a good, solid dose of romance at least once a day. Things like going on an evening walk. Taking a bath. Listening to Billie Holiday in the morning. Wearing a flower in the button hole of my shirt. Reading 1 poem, because that's sort of all I can handle. Breathing Deeply. Drinking hot tea in the mornings and red wine at night. Brushing my hair. Eating fruit wildly over the sink.

It it going to be difficult, to woo myself, but I am going to try. Perhaps if I can fall in love with just plain old me, I can understand how to love somebody else. And I am sure once I learn to understand that, I won't be getting so Lady Macbeth on another poor boy's ass.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Getting Past Your Break-up

Remember how college broke up with me? No? Me neither. So I read this to refresh my memory.

I have naturally messy tendencies when it comes to break ups, so in true form I haven't quite moved one from college. I am in my third week of a six week summer school course. And I see him practically every day.

At first I thought we could reconnect. I had only been away for a month or so. I mean, I was in love! I finally conceded that his lifestyle was the best I'd ever get. And then we broke up, but summer school seemed like a second chance.

Turns out, once you leave...you shouldn't go back.

I think college has moved on. I think he's seeing a new gal. In fact he's seeing a whole bunch of new gals, Class 2014. She, they, seem great. He'll take her out on the town, they'll have smoke seshies together on somebody's moldy couch, get to know each other and become best friends. And in four years he'll dump her and it'll start all over again. I can see this laid out like a teenage romance novel. But I can't help if it still hurts.

When you fall in love, it's because that person makes you breathe easier and faster at the same time. That person makes you unrealistically exuberant about everyday tasks like brushing your teeth and eating lunch. He made me jump out of skin. He made me feel like the luckiest, coolest girl in the world.

And then when it ends, all you've got left is a hangover and a humanity degree.

There have been some moments though; moments of brief and mature reflection. They say: Move on. You're a graduate (almost). Throwing up on yourself and breaking things doesn't look good on you anymore. You're evolving.

College is a sexy beast. I will miss him so dearly. But going back for round .5 has made me realize we could never be together. He does his thing every four years, and I've got to go find mine.


Friday, August 13, 2010

Death of a Diva

Facebook says the kind of birth control I take will kill you.

Er, give you cancer.

Or mess up your kidneys.

For all intents and purposes, it can make you really, really sick.

Good! Bring it on, deathbed. I've already thought out a few choice monologues for those poor people in my life who would feel morally obligated to sit by my side for an uncomfortable hour.

I imagine it'd begin like this.

Scene: I am sitting propped up in a white hospital bed, nearing death. I am chic in the throes of the last hour, so I am wearing a silk white turban. The walls are covered in cards and inappropriate and hilarious drawings my friends and family. Any available counter space is flooded with dark pink and red peonies. There are also Christmas Lights. It I weren't dying, it'd be a cheerful place to take a nap.

Enter Ex Boyfriend Number One

ME: Hello, you.

EXBF1: Hello. You look beautiful.

ME: No I don't, but you have to say that.

EXBF1: Looks uncomfortable.

ME: Come, sit down. It's not like you will get this extremely advanced and painful cancer from the birth control I was taking so you didn't have to use a condom. God Forbid.

...fade to black...

I know, I am a terrible diva. But it is so self-gratifying and perversely satisfying: dreaming of a chance at martyrdom and full circle closure. Yes, it feels a little nuts to wish for emotional exploitation in order to deal with your current demons, but I think in coping with a feeling that is so affecting it's incomprehensible, indulging your inner Norma Desmond is just grand.

"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." --Sunset Blvd.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

I still Like you

You know how people say "It was the booze talking" ?

Booze is not a very nice person. Instead of "I love you," booze will say "I hate you." Instead of "You're the greatest," booze will say "You're the worst." Instead of a sweet nothing, booze will say everything.

I know it's my unofficial job as an early twenty something to indulge in bars, clubs, and sporadic binge drinking so that my children will have something to pry at when I refuse to let them go to parties in middle school. But I really hate booze sometimes. She is such a bitch.

When you first get introduced to booze, she is exciting. She introduces you to boys and cigarettes. You play fun games with her and feel more social and cool than you thought you could be. Then maybe she overwhelms you one night, but you forgive her. You always come back.

She is a one on one kind of friend. She wants to be a certain way, to act on her terms. It's hard to have a good conversation with someone else when you're with her. She wants you to herself. Try as you may to make a connection with another soul, it is hard to escape her pull. It comes out all wrong. You will try to say to them "I like you" and she will whisper in their ear "She's just drunk."

Monday, August 9, 2010

To Catch a Thief


I always enjoy a good limbo. But there is one that riles me into that state I assume dogs attain when they hear high-pitched whistles. If I remember correctly, this particular limbo is one of uncertainty, slight paranoia, and a pinch of delusion: when you think the boy is bagging someone(s) else.

I remember how sluggishly the tiny light of realization comes on. Maybe you accidentally read a months worth of text messages, or maybe his email was still logged in when you opened your browser. Maybe you are Lisbeth Salander and have been monitoring his Internet trail for months. To me it reads like the half an hour after somebody relieved themselves and tried to cover it up with Glade aerosol. The cloyingly sweet scent pervades every pore in your body as it attempts to mask what just happened, but underneath it all, the shit still stanks.

Now all divas in this world just want a little respect. And respect is usually attained with a little honesty. But if honesty is not a top priority in the boy's baby banging behind, it's time to take measures into your own hands. Here's the how-to on catching the thievin, lyin, doggin scoundrel.

1) God Complex.
In order to become a crazy investigative bitch, you must have the backing of a higher purpose. You are the savior for all the women who have been spurned, who's unrequited love has driven them to booze, drugs, or weight gain. You are the hero of the bitch. Consider that women are an integral part of reproduction, the veritable and only source of life for human kind; if this gender begins to disintegrate, a threat of the extinction of our species exists. Therefore homegirl, you are not just catching that bastard, you are saving the human race.

2) Review the Script.
So you realize you're Mother Teresa. Perfect. Now it's time to get to work. Begin over analyzing every moment you were together. Was he really buying panties for his mama? Was that actually a bruise on his thigh? Did we actually go to dinner last week, or did I hallucinate that? Trust nothing. One thing man has never been very capable at is covering his tracks. Take Bill Clinton. I bet Monica could scrapbook their time together. All you have to do is gather the facts...erm, well assumptions based loosely on facts, that may have seemed paltry before but will take on greater meaning when you put them in perspective. Remember when he took you to the movie and then went to the bathroom? What do you think he was doing in there? Peeing?! pssh, c'mon girl. Wise up.

3) Manipulation.
Okay so now you have a bullet proof case based on hyperventilation, resentment, and paranoia. It's time to test the waters to see how your claims hold up. When do the boys creep? And when is their guard down? Late at night, and in the bathroom. Show up at two a.m. in a trench coat, with Clue and a good bottle of red. When he looks at you as if you have three tits, breeze past him and say, "I thought maybe you could Clue me in." Secondly, hide a walky talky in his bathroom. Twice a day, scream into it WHO ARE YOU SLEEPING WITH. He'll be so caught off guard on both occasions that you may just find the answers you're looking for.

4) Show him ya Teeth.
Soo maybe the bathroom interrogation and game night didn't work. You've got a tough chocolate chip cookie on your hands. Not to worry. Employ your second string of offense (and don't fret, in this metaphor you are a pro football team, not high school, so second string is just as good as the first). I like to go a little old school when it comes to the intimidation factor, make him an offer he can't refuse. I imagine it'd be difficult to find a decapitated horse head, but it's the thought that counts. Use old stuffed animals. He won't be happy to find a bed full of bunny and teddy bear heads one morning. If you're wicked serious, perhaps a ken doll or two.

5) Physical Violence.
Water boarding. Strangulation. Handcuffs. Taser.

Just kidding. Don't do that. Seriously, don't do that. But it is getting down to the wire. Your previously sane methods didn't work. It's time to play dirty. This one requires a bit of cash flow, so while you are doing all those other normal and sexy activities listed above, save some money. Then hit him with an all day pain fest: Shopping spree. You need some "new clothes," in fact you need a lotttt of new clothes. Begin at a department store. He should hold your bag while you are in the dressing room, emerge after every outfit to discuss the stitching, hemlines, or construction of each garment. Then go to a shoe store. Try on five pairs of heels and ask him to walk around the store with you. No sitting. Ask the sales girls to bag everything separately. and Gift wrap it, he's carrying it. Visit boutiques that only have chairs as decoration. Try to go to lunch at a vegetarian or vegan place that doesn't serve alcohol. Finish the day off with a stop to the drug store for tampons. Suddenly receive a work phone call and ask him to "pick them up for you." After he takes you home, turn to him and thank him for a wonderful day. Then ask him if he is banging blah blah blah's name you found in his inbox. If he doesn't crumble after that, you've got bigger problems. He's gay.

This fool-proof list is 45% guarenteed to catch your man's side dish. Now is not the time to wallow, it's the time to get a lawyer because you will probably need one.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

The Silence Between Us

It seems, many times, that life is naught but one huge transition.

Well said, Sonia.

I am in one of those mini transition that makes up the one large, aforementioned-and-conversely-annoyingly-stated transition.

Moving back home.

It's not that I am despising my time. I sleep late, lazily walk to coffee, sigh, breeze through magazines, a mall, a salon, thank you notes. Lots of breezing and sighing and sleeping. It's nice really. It feels like time moves slowly, but then in a sigh it's Friday again and I have no where to go but my living room.

I read a short essay by a friend of mine who described an Anthropology lecture. The subject was more or less about communications between other cultures, one in particular whose young people did not speak to one another during courtship.A student volunteered his dismissal that it would seem impossible to chose your mate without conversation. The professor then ceased to talk for ten minutes, to the increasing anxiety of the class. As they giggles, twitched and shuffled she waited until the intensity of the silence seeped in. Then she asked of the class if they could imagine existing in that still and quiet space, while locked with their Other, slowly falling in love.

Jesus, can you imagine?

When I am in a damn post argument silence with my mother as she carts me around in her little Prius, five million angry little thoughts and quips are running around my head like mice in a maze. Over an argument about how much she hates Julia Roberts because her laugh is the same in every movie. NO IT'S NOT MOM, SHE HAS DEPTH. But picture a mandated silence surrounding falling in love, an experience that literally functions around over analyzing feelings, perceptions, and the potential of life binding. How do you tell someone about all those crazy things, if without a very long and verbal pronunciation? How do you send them a look that says "Set the date!" or "Hey, how about we make this thing official? I mean, unless you want to keep seeing other people. Because I'm kinda keeping quiet with two other guys but I'm at the point where I just thought we could keep the silence between us."

Anyway, Home is my silent place.

And my Other is my newly minted, almost graduated self.

And she and I are not in a good place.

But we're keeping it quiet.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Angel Cum

Today, on my second to last day of vacation in Hawaii, my grandfather cooked us dinner. He insists that the best way to prepare food is to keep it simple.

"Sauces," he'll scoff.

"I tell you what delicious," he looks my sister and I, bouncing his eyebrows up and down, lapsing into Hawaii's pidgin dialect. "You make it simple, wheew and it's ono."

My grandfather made beef macaroni and it was delicious. We melted cheese on top and sat around in the living room, eating off plates balanced in our laps and talking story. My mother had been looking through old pictures before dinner and she had found some from my aunt's wedding. As soon as she turned to my aunt and uttered the words I began to get a knotted feeling in my spleen. I knew picture talk would lead to talk of the DVD. Moments later, my knotted spleen tightened.

"Ohhhhh! We should watch the DVD!"

I was just about to turn twelve when my Aunt and Uncle tied the knot. Around that age I was inspired by things of the theatrical nature. I was enthusiastic about my eventual ascent to stardom, so much so that I was genuinely upset when Brittney Spears kept churning out more refrained hits. The competition, I thought bitterly to myself, was heating up.

Despite my limited resume consisting only of a few solos in the catholic Children's Choir, I trusted that my shaky soprano was the stuff of greatness. So I prepared myself to bestow upon my engaged Auntie and Uncle the honor of a song. Not just any melody, but a song composed by myself and consequently performed at the reception.

It took me a long time to write the lyrics. Since I did not know how to play a musical instrument, the tune was improvised. I only remember a bit of the verse.

Like an Angel, you came for me.
God must have sent you, we were meant to be.
We gave each other all we had.
And I will always love you.

You gave me all the strength I needed.
You're the reason I've succeeded
We've helped each other through so much
And I will always love you.

(Two more verses, a bridge with the climax of the song, in which I hit a high note, don't know which one because I DON'T KNOW HOW TO PLAY MUSIC, and then a wrap up, repeat verse in which I sing the first verse all inside out like B Spears on "Crazy")

Telling this story is making my fingernails want to separate from my skin. Under the lover as an angel metaphor, I had made a joke about orgasms. I desecrated the purity of angelic love with a preposition. I am not sure how much a 12 year old student of works such as "Baby one more time" knows about the institution of marriage, but apparently the idea of everlasting love and godly destiny resonated with me.

And, once again, the song was going to be sung acapella. In front of a wedding reception of about 200.

So amidst heartfelt and trembling speeches from relatives and close friends, my little warble of a accidentally porny Christian rock love song was to debut. The parts of this build-up sometimes hit me in waves of reflective shame and embarrassment. Acapella. Age 12. Inside Out Last Verse. High Note. Awkward Stage. God Love is Lyrics.

However, those things I can usually let go. Chalk it up to inexperience and 12 year old bravado. But what makes me wince as my mother and aunt gush over the idea of watching the wedding video is the bit of improvisation I decided to throw in before I performed my song that fateful evening.

As I made my small way to the podium I felt a sense of increasing dread. I hadn't really bargained for these nerves, I thought, as my hands started shaking bit. Then I remembered my secret weapon, tucked away in my funny-things-to-say arsenal.

My aunt introduced my song and me to the patient audience. I stepped up to the podium and accepted destiny.

"Thank you all for coming tonight," I quoted. (I hadn't invited them) "I just wanted to say a few words before I begin." Pause for effect. Intake for breath. "For those of you who have your hearing tonight, I'd like to apologize ahead of time."Pause. Still holding breath. "And for those of you who are hard of hearing," Pause for effect. Lungs hurting "Tonight, you are the lucky ones."

Sound familiar?

It's from the film Mr. Holland's Opus, in the last, dramatic and tear inducing scene. A line that made sense in the movie because Mr Holland was addressing a room full of hearing disabled people, not, a party.

I plagiarized. Poorly.

There I was, a twelve year old junior bridesmaid in a red halter dress reciting pilfered lines from a film she saw on Lifetime as the preface to a song that began with a line that could have been substituted into a soft core.

This is why I cannot watch the video of me. The physical evidence of it happening will shatter any dignity I am trying to hold on to from that memory. I told my Aunt that we could maybe watch it when I am thirty.



Congrats on 10 years of marriage, Auntie and Uncle. I love you guys. Sorry I plagiarized at your wedding.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Hag Time

Right now I am in Hawaii, on vacation.

I never realized I had anal tendencies. What I have realized about my newly discovered anal tendencies is that they are not the slight OCD type that manifest themselves usefully in things like recycling or wiping bathroom mirrors down. My tendencies tend to lead me to do things like try on all my clothes as I attempt to pack them for a trip, inspect the divots in my shoes at four a.m., or blog on vacation.

So, here's to all those with unproductive anal tendencies. This wandering, gap-in-thought of a muse is dedicated to you.

While I was driving home from being graduated, sort of, I saw a hawk hovering over I5's uninspiring strip of grass medium. One time my good friend saw a beautiful white bird as we drove together, going somewhere. She was so excited at the make and model of such a lovely animal, she called her mother who was equally enthused about the fowl. I understood her excitement then, when I saw the large bird who was able to sustain his position by his instinctual knowledge of the buffering air currents and his own physical ability.

It got me thinking as I flew by inland central California's monotonous landscape, how I wish I could AIR HOVER. It reminded me of that enviable athletic ability of hang time. In seventh grade I was the first girl who had a jump shot. This jump shot of mine had the accuracy equivalent of a first time urinal user. Still, I was the first pick of the girls for the Folsom Youth Basketball Association that year. I remember my coach discussing my impressive hang time. However my glory was short lived. In eighth grade, all the girls had jump shots and mine was still the pee hitting the wall.

But I think hang time is an impressive skill. To be able to delay one's return to the ground; sounds like something R Kelly would sing an inspiring ballad about. I wish this skill could translate to the non-corporal realm, since nowadays I consider shopping a cardiovascular activity. I don't really get my kicks at the gym.

So maybe something like emotional hang time. The strength to delay a reaction or outcome that is often unpreventable, like gravity. Often times I am placed in situations that...rub me the wrong way. Dramatic, violin-music scenarios, the kind that even your friends will roll their eyes over as you explain it to them over a salted margarita rim. I wish in those instances I could leap high into the subconscious and half conscious state of my slanted, charged deliberation, and instead of plummeting magnificently back down into an angry text message or booze induced monologue,I would hover. Like the hawk, I'd employ my knowledge of previous mistakes and current irrational state and stay their until I figured the best time or way to swoop back down.

But do I hover? Nooooooooo. I plummet.

My girlfriend once told me (after I described to her a particularly embarassing case of plummeting) that my, erm, displays work for me.

"I knew you would," she said, as we lay on our beds. "It's just so you. And you get away with it. More power to you."

I guess I can sort of get away with the crazy. But then I have to own up to the crazy. And while I think that people who are sane aren't really as much fun (cue Kerouac quote yeech), I don't always want to be mad, as it drives me nuts.

I think I am going to work to my hang time.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Advise Me.

When you "graduate" from college, people want to give you advice.

I say "graduate" because I still have to take one more class in August (another thing people want to give you advice about, failing classes).

So for all intents and purposes, I "graduated."

Recently my father gave me a self help book from a female author who really gets him. Its title I can't remember, something along the lines of "How to REALLY get past your break-up." It's full of great idiomatic one-liners that punctuate the author's points. The paragraph about not stalking your ex's profiles on social networking sites ends with "If you don't want to get your hair cut, don't hang around the barber's shop!"

Thanks, no haircut, got it.

I read a few chapters aloud to my dad and sister, reading her idioms in a few of my well matured impressions. "If you hang around dogs, you're bound to get fleas!" sounds cooler as Cookie Monster, well a Cookie Monster that sounds more like Eartha Kitt.

I remember my commencement speaker at graduation. She was a fancy international journalist, impressively accomplished, New York accent. A portion of her speech explained how the study of humanities prepared her for her career and life. "My degree in humanities taught me the importance of communication, but it doesn't take the place of learning how to communicate in life."

Okay, those were not the precise words of her speech, but that is the way they felt to me as my brain processed them, hot in my itchy robe and fold-out chair. Her graceful and well thought out arguments sort of clumped together and formed that fuzzy, Charlie Brown's teacher ball of sound. I squinted my eyes up at the podium, hoping to cling onto some piece of her wisdom that would propel me to another state, any other state than my current numbness. Like a sad, hysterical one. Or a thoughtful, reflective one. Not my itchy and sweaty butt one.

It got me thinking about advice. I feel like I am getting advice from all ends of the spectrum: old, young, furry, sober, drunk, male, lesbian, well-meaning, bored, lonely, equally confused, angry, motiv-ed. All this wisdom flying in at newly porous me, permeating my skull and vulnerable, unemployed being until I get off the phone crying:

"I DON'T WANT TO EXPAND MY HORIZONS."

People, like the aforementioned two, give advice to help and guide those in a time of flux. I am, by definition of my age, education and maturation level, and relationship status, in a time of fluuu-huuuux. But I feel like these disciples of success, happiness, and life satisfaction are failing me a little. If my options are to "Shoot for the moon" or "You miss 100 % of the shots you never take," then I might as well live my life with a 22 caliber, aiming at the pie in the sky while during the day I run in circles like a discombobulated hamster, shooting hoops until its time to kill the moon again.

I wish someone would tell me to take a shower everyday. Go get your teeth cleaned, it's good for you. Read a book. Write down your thoughts. Go for a run (haha yeah right). Don't drink so much. Don't forget your mistakes, but forgive yourself. Buy more shoes.

I guess giving yourself advice is the hardest thing to do. But imagine that you have two parts, both of which can aid in "showing you the light." You and your dummy self are of one being, and can help each other out. Sometimes my dummy self drinks too much and passes out. BUT it was the right thing to do because my real self was all raw and pissed off and dummy self made any potentially embarrassing displays of wildebeest anger and drunken emotion impossible by consuming too many vodka sodas and being sleepy.

"Trust yourself, whether it be the real or dummy, because you never know when dummy will drink too much and save your real."

How's that for advice?

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Whistle Blower

When my family lived in Virginia Beach, my parents spent time with a group of adults and their subsequent children who loved to party. It felt like so much of our Virginia time was spent at soccer games or parties. My father had a short party-time span. For 3-4 hours he would be the belle of the ball, making jokes, being active, flitting around the space with his bottled beer and great attitude, aiding along the general festive atmosphere.

But as dusk started to set during the wet summer evenings, my father would lose interest in clever small talk and bacon-wrapped figs. Then the previously engaged would become brooding, and usually take to a small patch of lawn somewhere slightly distant from the party.

With this removal came the jangling of his keys, a sound in which my sister and I remained spectacularly in-tuned too, even though we rarely bring our father to the thuper cool house parties we now attend. Then, about 20 minutes later, he would blow a small whistle he had attached to his jangly keys.

I don't know if my father foreshadowed this use for his whistle. For its berth, it emitted an impressive sound. Like a train.

WHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOWWW

My sister and I would whip our eight and six year old heads to the lawn. Then back to where our mother was sipping a decently full drink with a tall blond lady.

WHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWW

My mother's head whipped to the lawn

WHHEOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW

The rest of the eight and six year olds' heads whipped the lawn.


WWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOW

Even the dog's head whipped to the lawn.

We were far from the Von Trapp family and the whistle did little to assemble us into neat, obedient lines. More so it made my mother grumble, my sister and I giggle, all of us a little embarrassed. But at the end of the train noises, when we four Lucygas made our way to the car parked in a neighborhood, the whistle made me feel like I belonged to something important.

The rest of the party watched us depart, probably amused at my mother's disgruntled look, the way my father swung his arms triumphantly as we walked. Perhaps they laughed, but it felt like the point, the traveling comedy troupe Lucyga.

And as eight year old me bucked my seat belt in the Mazda, I grasped my sister's little hand tightly, in on the joke, and happy to go home.

So thanks Dad, for being a whistle blower and a great father.

Happy Father's Day.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Aunt Frida, stop!

This one's directed right back at you, dead pants.

You are getting way to foreshadowing and reflective for your own good.

One time this nice and handsome man I knew made me watch an episode of South Park. It was about Facebook, and Stan or Ryan or whatever the cool one's name is...he got so popular on Facebook that he got sucked into the virtual world and had to battle his own profile! It took on virtual life.

Clever, you Colorado stoners, clever.

I am beginning to think my blog is turning into the Jewish aunt I never had. The one that starts to tell me things "for my own good" and they end up being painfully, uncomfortably true. It's as if she tells me all the things that are wrong with me, all my jokes about myself or my hard-to-follow-bc-they're-not-properly-thought-out metaphors are really her criticisms and bits of advice, sneaking their way into my consciousness through my narrative voice!

I might have to rename this blog. Auntie Frida.

Hold me Hostage, baby.

I am supposed to be writing a paper on metamorphosis, the individual vs the collective. If a man turns into a beetle but no one notices him is he still a bug? Who the hell knows.

I am sitting on a couch with the volume turned super loud for a bad cop movie, so my topic sentence ideas and quote intros are punctuated with epithets like "Don't fuck me on this one Jimmy!" or "Four of our guys are dead, what do you want me to do, throw a fucking party?!?" Not really conducive to deciphering the delicate and at the same time steely prose of Kafka, but good enough to keep back the tears that want to leap out of my eyeballs and make streams, order 1,2,3, AND 4 down my face.

I am just going to spray it, Relationships are not for the meek. Relationships are beautiful, and terrifying. You find your being, your awesome singular being confronted with things you never knew about yourself; neurotic behaviors, split ends, the ability to text ridiculously sappy shit and at the same time declare emotional nuclear war the next day.

I sometimes feel, for us "young adults," like its all naught but a hostage situation. We both stand facing one other, sweaty, looking like we've been ridden and put away wet. I am holding his pulsating, metaphorical heart in my hand, gun ready and finger twitching on the trigger. To borrow form my cop movie: "I swear to God I'll fucking shoot, I'll fucking kill it. Get me out of here, I want a nice movie and dinner date, foot massages, and for you to love me for who I am!"

And he's across the room, quivering. "AW shut the fuck up of I'LL shoot! I want sex twice a day and verbal appreciation!"

This was supposed to be funny. I am just sad.

Relationships are hard.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Love Letter

Last week brought to my college town the onslaught of "June Gloom," where, like clockwork, a dense, dewy, hair wrecking mist descends over Southern/Central California inhabitants. And we all look to the ocean longingly, sighing.

Also, I just bought and energy drink called NEUROSONIC.

But in the midst of this spectacularly melodramatic weather, I have had few moments to revel in this prime emotional-inducing surrounding, which is a tragedy. I am in the last bit of my finals before I graduate from college.

Did i say Tragedy? I meant HORROR, like over articulated, linear Edgar Allen Poe horror, like Stephen King on PCP horror. Like Linda Blair is my new roomie horror.

I am graduating.

Mufassa

You know that episode of Sex and the City (all my roommates are gagging) where Carrie forgets the men (paha) and dates the city for an episode? I feel like I have just realized that I have been in a four year relationship with college. And now he's dumping me, telling me to "move on" and "welcome to your future" and "this was the best time of your life, good luck finding temp work, say hello to your mom now that I'm kicking you out of your adorable, lovable living situation"

Even though I am in the gloomy midst (JUNE GLOOM JOKES AL DAY LONG) of a break up, I don't want to remember college like this; me drunk outside college's door burning the t-shirts he left at my place while screaming the lyrics to "our song." I want to remember the reasons I fell in inconvenient love with him in the first place.

I am sure this will be the first of many weepy Word documents I will fill as I swill good wine form my mother's crystal, holding my mini poodles at home close, telling them about that time I was drunk with all my friends having the best time of my life. But for now I just want to think of college the way I'd think of a boyfriend whom I loved very much, who I can no longer be with.

BITTERLY.

Just kidding. I think of you when I can't sleep, which is often, as I am half cat. When I am rolling around in my bed getting getting pissed off, emitting strangled, annoying sobs in frustration. There comes a point where I play a little game called "try to recall what makes you happy." When I was little I would think of playing in the sand with my cousins in Hawaii and eating Kahlua pig with poi, or eating berries with cream with my Oma in Germany (wow, see where my 10 yr old priorities were).

Now I think of you, ex bf-as-college-metaphor, to feel happy and peaceful at 3 in the morning. I remember how nice you were to me once I got my act together and took all my piercings out. How you took me from Keystone light to something bottled and darker. How we used to eat shitty sushi until we stepped it up a notch and discovered places in old town. How you told me about people from faraway places, like LA and Chico. How I pretended never to like you and wanted to transfer to Davis until it was too late and now I want to cling to a eucalyptus tree until some bewildered UCSB maintenance worker drags me away.

I can't imagine going away from you. My post-you existence seems as dense and foggy as June Gloom (told you). Most people look at you, your natty-lite can littered streets, freshman filled house parties, the textfromlastnight website, long distance relationships, walk of shames, drunken brawls and think "What a brute." But when I think of you I remember cheap wine, family dinners, hearing smart people speak for free (kind of), mood lighting, TERRIBLE sex, AMAZING sex, political arguments where nobody knows what they're talking about, and sharing funny books. I hope we keep in touch, but I'm sure you will be calling me. I am your Alum, after all.

I love you.