Thought for the day

We all have two lives: the life we learn with, and the life we live afterward.

(loosely adapted from The Natural)

Rutting

It concerns me sometimes how much I fall into habits. I mean, I'm a textbook Taurus, no doubt about it, and therefore prone to ruts and habitual behavior, which explains why I get so comfortable in jobs and relationships that fundamentally don't work. I'm also scared by change with uncertain outcomes - I'm perfectly comfortable re-arranging my furniture every 2 weeks, but don't ask me to put my heart on the line or quit a job with no backup plan.

I'm stepping out onto an invisible bridge again. I hate my job, I hate who I am at work, so May 6 is my last day in this wretched position. I don't know where I'll go (maybe within the same company, maybe I'll start nannying or stage-managing, WHO KNOWS) but I know I'll be happier. Deep breaths.

Also speaking of ruts - there's a guy at work that I've sort of had a low-grade thing for (similar to the guy from this entry; something to tide me over, so to speak, between visits from The One). When he first started working, I was all like "eh, he's way too Ken-Doll for me"... but he's grown on me to the point where I definitely have a little crush. Obviously my first thought was "well, he's an attractive, interesting straight guy in close proximity" and just sort of left it at that. But then a few of us were out for drinks on Friday night, and he started talking about something that he felt passionate about. It hit me like a ton of bricks: the reason I'm attracted to him is because he's EXACTLY LIKE MY EX (except nicer). That fire in his eyes is exactly the fire that The Ex had when he started talking about politics or music or whatever it was that sparked him.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a type, and I totally didn't realize it until now. Sigh.

You Should Date An Illiterate Girl

Okay, you know what? Usually I don't post essays in their entirety - just excerpts - but this whole thing is so fucking amazing that I want you to read it beginning to end. This essay says Live Boldly if anything or anyone has ever said Live Boldly.

You Should Date An Illiterate Girl

JAN. 19, 2011 By CHARLES WARNKE

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/dont-date-a-girl-who-reads/

Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.

Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.

Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.

Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return, or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.

Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, god damnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.

Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.

Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.

Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.

A Funny Catch-up Chat Quickly Takes a Serious Turn

So, this just happened on Facebook Chat, and I feel that it's very revealing of quite a bit of my personality and worldview. Just thought I'd share it. "CK" is my friend, and I'm (obviously) "Cookie."

Spackle, Shellack, and Glitter

I re-watched the Sex & The City movie for the hundredth time this weekend - saw it was playing on cable and decided it was time to dust it off and pop it in. I'd never actually cried at that movie before this most recent viewing, but when Big jilts her and she attacks him with her flowers... I totally shed a few tears.

Since then I've been thinking really hard about the meaning of family. One of my coworkers has a family that is similarly dysfunctional to mine (or, dysfunctional to my one-year-ago family, not the current state of my family, which is even more dysfunctional) and I'm often the sounding board/de facto therapist for her. So many people I knew growing up had really great families and best-friendy relationships with their moms and they just kind of seemed like Norman Rockwell paintings. Mine was way more Picasso than Rockwell, and at some point I was okay with that. I realize now that it was probably a defense mechanism, but I was glad that my family had some cracks and chips and stains, because it made life more interesting, less cookie-cutter.

Now, though, all I want is a calm, safe, semi-boring life. The guy (Holy Grail, or HG) from Sunday's post reminds me a lot of this guy E, who I had a thing for during my last few months before I moved: very sweet, very safe (the major difference being that HG drinks, and E doesn't - biiiiiiig difference, huh?). It sounds disparaging and lazy, doesn't it? Maybe I'm searching for stability because my life is so unstable right now, or maybe it runs deeper than that and I have more daddy issues than I think I do (great, just what every guy wants to hear!). When I moved up here, I triumphantly put E behind me and resolved never to be "boring" ever again and to live boldly and all that. This resolution did not under any circumstances take into account the turmoil I was going through with my family and job uncertainty.

Now, okay, I've taken some risks since moving here. I did hook up with Almost-Neck-Tattoo Guy, which was fun but now I'm not so sure how proud of myself I am for it. Mostly that's because deep down, I do want a relationship, not just a fling, and I don't want to do anything that would screw up my chances of finding that relationship. HG would be a great partner, I think, but now he's acting all weird around me, which is so annoying. Of course, I have no idea how to have the "so, we hooked up, now what?" conversation, so guess who's SOL?

In an attempt to wrap this up I'm going to circle back around to the beginning of the post and the idea of family. My family lets me down an awful lot, and I let myself down an awful lot, and apparently I am way more of a fuddy-duddy than I make myself out to be. I talk a big game, but I'd rather curl up and watch Real Housewives marathons most nights than go out drinking. But my friends are my life and my family, and I have basically jettisoned the Picasso and am building a Monet around myself: several tiny dots that all add up to a beautiful life.

Dandruff

So, no blog post from last night because yesterday started off kinda bad and just got worse and worse, until I was eating way too much chocolate and crying pity tears on my couch.

So, an old friend (who, incidentally, I fooled around with right around college graduation time but have no real sexual attraction to) mentioned on facebook that he would be in town this weekend, so I commented that we should hang out if he was free at some point. He texted me on Sunday night so I told him to come over... 2 hours later he still hadn't left Williamsburg, so I said we should try for lunch the next day. Monday: long story short, he texted me back about 45 minutes after each time I texted him trying to firm up plans, to the point where I was wandering around the East Village looking for him until he was all "actually, I'm hanging out with a friend, so..." ASSHOLE.

The day was crappy to begin with anyway, and that experience really put a fine point on what I'd been feeling in general lately - that I just don't have the time or patience for flaky people. If you're in town and you won't have time to see me, that's fine, but just tell me, don't string me along for 2 whole days. If we're really friends, though, and you don't make time for me... then we're not really friends. Life is too short. So I deleted his number from my phone, and in about a week or so I'm going to purge a lot of facebook friends (him included) whom I'm just not close with and don't care to keep in touch with.

It's funny that my two best friends in the whole world are also total flakes. God love them, but picking up their phones or making solid plans (both of which I, as a Taurus, am obsessed with) is not their strong suit. It doesn't seem to matter with my best friends, apparently... Not sure why that is, but I guess it's one of those "love conquers all" situations - I loved these girls before I realized they were flaky. But anyone else? I'm not putting up with your bullshit flakiness. I hated Head & Shoulders when I had to use it, and I'm never going back.

Guilty & Annoyed

So, I went out with former coworkers last night, and in attendance was my makeout buddy, with whom I (surprise) make out with when we're drunk. He's a sweet guy but no one I could see myself dating (one word: baggage) (another two words: New Jersey), but we get along great and have fun. So, this morning I woke up and was checking facebook and saw that another coworker had posted the following status/tweet:

I assume he's talking about us, considering that most of the people there were in relationships. So I posted this reply: 

God WHY do I always leave early and miss these things??!?!?? 

Which I think is the perfect non-chalant, subtle denial. Because (a) we do not hook up, and (b) ... We do NOT hook up.

Lately I've been starting to feel guilty about the whole thing... I am self-aware enough to know that I'm really only behaving this way because I want the attention without the emotional attachment, but that's such a shitty thing to do. I never want to be accused of "using" someone but that's precisely what I'm doing, and it feels AWFUL. So I need to cut myself off - I just wish there were an easy way to do it without him feeling like it's personal/I'm irrational/whatever, because it's not/I probably am/??.

Stupid Facebook. At least said "other coworker" (the one who posted on Facebook) does NOT name names. I've tried to coax/bully/wheedle names out of him before - especially after the epic company party this summer - to no avail... so I'm hoping for similar zipped-lippedness when it's my personal life.

Also, HAPPY HALF BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEEEEE

Teenage Dream/Teenage Nightmare

I'd like to take a moment of silence in solidarity with Kurt Hummel for the loss of his first kiss. As a fellow first-kiss-regretter, I feel ya sister. Hopefully Blaine will make up for that with you in the near future.


I really love Glee, and this week (horrendous Aretha mangling aside) was no exception. Finally we have a respectful, useful (if perhaps not entirely realistic) take on the how-to-deal-with-bullying issue that has been so overwrought and overdone lately! Bullying is obviously no joking matter and the idea that there are people out there who are so hurtful and cruel that kids are killing themselves is really despicable... but if we call the routine teasing we endured in primary and secondary school (one favorite incident I personally can recall is being offered a Snickers bar, only to discover - AFTER taking a bite - that it had been unwrapped and kicked around the floor of the bus and given to the first gullible kid that would take it) "bullying," it demeans what is happening to kids who are really being tortured.

Sorry, Demi Lovato, but "classmates pick[ing] on her because she was a working actress" to the point where "she turned to home schooling"? Gosh, how sad for her. NOT BULLYING. Physical assault is bullying, and even some verbal assault is bullying, but tough cookies y'all, getting made fun of is part of growing up. I went to private school and I was teased - no one is going to be safe from it unless they are the ones doing the bullying (and then we have to start delving into the deep-seated psychological issues/trauma that is at the root of one's desire to push his/her pain onto another). We are all expected to have tough skin upon finishing school and entering the "real" world, where there isn't always a sympathetic teacher or guidance counselor to help us when we're being picked on. Sometimes our bosses are the ones picking on us. (Right now I'm being "bullied" by my exceptionally hot boss, who is insisting that the Maryland Terrapins are better than my beloved Tarheels. BULLYING, Y'ALL. IT'S REAL.)

On a more serious note - if suicide becomes the best/most rational option for someone as a result of (1)rejection by peers/superiors and (2)the inability to deal with said rejection, it's a horrible thing. People SHOULD be more sensitive and kind toward each other. The "It Gets Better" campaign is really brilliant (although, come on - Hillary and Obama did ads? The point was for GAY people to talk about THEIR experiences. Being black-post-segregation/a-female-politician-slash-raging-bitch does not qualify you to speak on the matter) and will hopefully be a force for good, but overstating a serious matter only cheapens it.

So: Kudos, Glee; thumbs down, bandwagon mass media. The end.

Deep Breaths

Sometimes it concerns me that love isn't always fun anymore. I've written a lot - more than I ought, probably - about The One. Lately, though, when we've talked, he's been mentioning a girl that I know looks very similar to his college girlfriend. I don't know if he has a type, precisely, but both girls are kinda quirky, slim, short brunettes. I may be a quirky, short brunette, but I couldn't tell you the last time I could really be considered "slim." I know they're not exclusive (I hate that he tells me about the girls he hooks up with), but she's serious about him -- who WOULDN'T be?? I am! -- and that worries me.

As a result, I've been kinda down about the whole situation. I'm completely terrified of falling in love again to begin with, and I feel more scared about this situation than I've felt in a long time because I've been in love with him for SO long - longer than I've loved anyone before.

So, I'll be seeing him in the next couple months and I've decided that I need to tell him that I have feelings for him. It scares me to death ("Live Boldly," my ass!) but maybe I need to grow up and be an adult and risk something for once. Even if he doesn't reciprocate - an inevitability of sorts - at least I'll never wonder "what if?" and die a million deaths when/if he someday marries someone that isn't me. (I'll only die a thousand deaths maybe.)

I want love to be fun, and light, and easy. I've been so SERIOUS about relationships for so long that I feel like I've forgotten how to loosen up and put myself out there in a way that conveys that while, yes I'll make a good wife someday, MORE IMPORTANTLY FOR NOW I'd make a really kickass girlfriend. I need someone to set me up, maybe - that'll take the terror out of meeting someone and could actually be a hell of a time.

Anyone want to fix me up? :)

The Return of the Ring

From January 1, 2000, until May 2010, I wore one specific piece of jewelry every day: my silver Claddagh ring. It was a Christmas gift from my father that I had begged for after watching one too many episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It wasn't a promise ring, as many people surmised, but it displayed my heart on my sleeve. Finger. Whatever. Whenever I had a crush or a boyfriend, the ring moved all over the place - right hand, left hand, upside-down, right-side-up...

When The Ex and I started dating, that ring was firmly fixed on my left hand; I planned on marrying the guy, after all. When we had to downgrade on Facebook from "in a relationship" to "it's complicated" (about 6-8 months before we actually broke up) my ring moved back to my right hand, and people freaked out and thought we broke up and asked me if I was okay, etc. Point being, the ring has always been there.

When I found out what a douche my father had become, I took it off and stashed it in the back of my jewelry box. I didn't want to wear it because it was a constant reminder of the inconstancy of the best role model I had ever had. I still wore a ring - my hands felt naked without them - but it was weird to not WANT to put it on.

Lately I've been missing it. It was my signature, more than anything else I've ever done or worn, and I felt odd without it. Yesterday, I made a last-second decision while getting dressed to throw it back on, just to test it out and see how it felt. I'd been toying with the idea for a couple weeks now, including finding someone - a priest, a Wiccan, a Buddhist, someone - to do some sort of ritual cleansing/blessing/exorcism on it so I could feel better about it, but I have no idea where to even start on that. But it feels right to have it back on; its smoothness and contours are a part of me now, and even though I probably will never wear it around my father again (assuming I ever see him again, anyway) it's still good to have this part of me back. Maybe I'm recovering.

Four months and counting

I'm a dates person. I keep track of the most banal anniversaries of random things: 8 days since I cleaned my room, 25 days since I last started my period (you ladies know that this is THE MOST IMPORTANT! thing to keep track of!) 4 weeks since I changed the sheets (ew), 7 weeks since I had sex.

I'm also that girl who wants to celebrate EVERY milestone of a relationship: 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, 5 months.......... 3 years, 3 years 4 months 7 days STOP... 1 month post-breakup, 2 months, 3 months....... 1 year drink champagne, 2 years drink champagne, 2 years 1 month 1 day move to New York and celebrate a brand-new life.

I'm not sure why I keep track so meticulously, or as if my life depended on it. I also have no clue why I have the compulsion to keep journals and diaries and blogs in multiple quantities (especially that damn sex diary!) but I know I need to preserve my entire life. I keep unsent letters and movie ticket stubs and every note I ever passed in high school. The only memories I have ever gotten rid of are notes/gifts from ex-boyfriends. I've destroyed almost all of them - letters, roses... once I even hacked a teddy bear to pieces - but I have the little feet (they look like tiny Ugg boots) in my old closet at my mom's house. Also in that closet is the most precious thing that The Ex gave me; I blogged about it previously. So even still, I never do manage to throw away or forget anything.

This month, things have been completely crazy, and I completely missed the 4-month anniversary of my move here. There are days where it hardly feels like something to celebrate, because so often I feel like at any moment, my money - and luck - will run out and I'll have to slink back to North Carolina, a failure at job-hunting and life. More often than not, these thoughts come at night when I'm trying to sleep. Not particularly useful for inducing slumber, but there they are.

The days, of course, that I am so overjoyed by life in the City that I can barely breathe come much more frequently, thank goodness; although no glimpse of the skyline or hole-in-the-wall gem is untainted by worry. The last 4 months have been 4 of the scariest, hardest, most exhilarating and educational of my life.

Older and Wiser

Occasionally I'll scroll through the facebook profile or twitter account or whatever of an ex-boyfriend or former crush. Not in any sort of spy-on-you way - my time for that has passed - but just to generally check in on what they're up to, how they're doing, etc. I find it odd, however, that for the most part, I look at these profiles and think to myself, I know what I saw in them, but for the life of me I can't see it now. I find this completely perplexing. Weren't we all supposed to get older and wiser and start making good choices about those upon whom we bestowed our affections? Out of all of the guys I've dated or crushed on - and I am boy crazy, let me assure you - there are only one or two, maybe, that ended so well that I can be proud of the time I spent with him.

Age takes its toll, of course, and some of these guys just got old and fat. But mostly it's about personality. I just don't understand why I liked them. Strange, right? It makes me nervous for the future... The thing that scares me the most in life is not "never being in love," as so many people say is their worst fear, but falling out of love. But I guess the common wisdom is that all relationships fail, until one doesn't. I hate that uncertainty.

Thought for the day

"In the midst of winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer."

-Albert Careb

"Mostly Alone"

Sometimes I'm afraid that I've spent too much time by myself these past few years. When I started my last job, I was going through the first major heartbreak of my life, and didn't have the emotional energy to see my friends.

By the time I lost that job due to the shitty economy, I had made a few close friends at work and was spending time with them more regularly, but my long days at work still made it hard to muster up the energy to go out for drinks after work. Most days, I would come home, make dinner, and watch TV.

When I finally did lose that job, I was emotionally ready for close relationships again, so I threw myself into the activities of the nearby church, which I had heretofore avoided for several reasons. But even that sort of tapered off after a while, and at any rate, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week of unemployment provides PLENTY of time to be alone even with "extra"curriculars (that aren't so "extra" when there's nothing for them to be "extra" from!).

So I still ate meals mostly alone, went to movies mostly alone, watched TV at home mostly alone... the list goes on. And after a while, after the terror and extreme discomfort subsided, I really started to - perversely - enjoy it. I relished the ability to finally do things by myself, after 8 years of codependence in high school (friends/family) and college (boyfriend/friends). I'm still a social creature and do prefer to be with people most of the time (although I will NEVER clothes-shop with someone ever again, I hate it I hate it I hate it)...but being alone is addictive.

So now I've become a little bit of a hermit. My move has forced me to change that somewhat, but I can always beg off with budget excuses or exhaustion or WHATEVER, and it's so tempting. I need to wrench myself out of this voluntary loneliness. Cheaply. ;)

Baby, baby, baby ohhhhhhh

Something that's been eating at me for a while now is the idea that I can't raise my kids the way I was raised, because (1) I don't believe in all the things I was raised to believe, and (2) I can't shove that down like my mom did and stick to a party line, and (3) Catholicism isn't nearly as cut-and-dry as the way I was raised.

It struck me the last time I was home (really only a month ago, which is so crazy because it feels like much longer). Genesis and the creation narrative(s), in particular, cause(s) problems. I was raised to believe in 7 literal days, like the Bible says, but even now that I have a fuller understanding of the world and the Bible, there will always be issues. What happens when my kid comes to me and asks me the tough questions? I can't be wishy-washy about anything, that's not the way to raise a kid, but no one answer can explain the questions kids ask.

This was the prompt that I wrote down in church last month: "What will happen when I teach my kids what the Bible teaches and then they find out that Genesis is not exactly the way I believe?" I just don't know how I'm going to raise my kids, and that freaks me out.

Let's get physical! Physical!

Well, I am currently too exhausted to cook, or even be hungry, so I'm going to lie on my bed and blog instead. Healthy!

I've struggled with my weight for about as long as I can remember. I was a pretty skinny kid, but I guess around puberty (or even maybe during that awkward, pre-pubescent, training-bra era) I started seeing myself as not-so-skinny. Maybe it wasn't exactly true, but I am by nature a sedentary person. I'd rather read a book than go get sweaty outside. I managed to keep my weight down all through high school - although, again, I was not skinny, just didn't have a LOT of extra fat - and even through most of college, but after my junior year of college, when I moved about 2.5 miles away from campus and therefore took the bus to class instead of walking, the weight started going on a bit more than it previously had. Not helping, of course, was The Ex, who despite his gymrat ways never did any cardio but still managed to tell ME I needed to lose weight. He looked a bit like Bartolomeo Pagano in the 1914 movie Cabiria. Whatever.

I've realized I need to cut back, but quite frankly I despise working out. Gym, outdoors, doesn't matter. I guess I should say that I hate running/ellipticals. If someone devised an obstacle course (a la Celebrity Fit Club Boot Camp) or decided not to charge me for climbing their rock wall, I'd be all up in there getting my fitness on. But most forms of exercise are icky for me, or - like yoga - not what I need for my fitness goals.

But being in NYC has been SO helpful in all aspects of the weight battle. Not only am I walking WAAAAY more than I ever have in my life, including college, but being around people with body types other than "sorostitute" and "morbidly obese" (which is what I felt like my college town was totally comprised of) has made me a bit more comfortable with having a ring of fat around my middle. Not comfortable enough to keep it, mind you, but comfortable enough that I don't want to just die every time a shirt doesn't fit me right. Plus, the "chub rub" (which is a term I just stumbled upon yesterday, and LOVE) is almost gone! Hooray!

Okay, hunger is starting to return... which is appropriate, since all I've had today are a bagel and 12 ounces of chicken noodle soup. (I hate getting sick.) Off to make chicken carbonara :)

Also, I have TWO interviews tomorrow! One is at the place I'm currently temping, which is MAJOR because it's a famous magazine in a famous building and I would adore working there. The other is at a boutique marketing/branding firm, which would be awesome because there'd be room for me to move up pretty quickly. Cross your fingers for me :)

Blurb

One of the main reasons I've always loved moving to a new place was because it was the best way to reinvent myself, to get out of whatever stale rut other people had put me in. I wasn't incredibly popular in elementary/middle/high school, so it was always nice to "start over." The funny thing about this move is that I don't feel the need to change or reinvent at all. I'm getting out of a major career & dating rut, but I've found who I am, and I like it, and the way I behaved in my old town is the way I'm behaving here. I can't imagine myself putting on pearls and dining at Bergdorf or Le Bernardin because that's not what I would have done back home. I'm the same old occasional couch potato, who has no problem watching Dexter reruns on a Friday night instead of going out until 4am - I might do that someday but not unless I feel like it. Maybe that's not the perfect way to handle a big move to New York City, but why give myself a makeover if I like the way I look?

I don't do drama, my tears don't fall fast

Well, it finally happened - the homesickness has officially hit.

I have NEVER in my life been homesick. It's just not something that I've ever felt, or even felt that I should feel. But I just texted a friend from The Lunch Club about something unrelated, then PS'ed that Friday lunch just wasn't the same without him/them and I missed him/them, and BOOM! Tears.

Also, I cried this morning at the season finale of Bones that taped yesterday, where (SPOILER ALERT) Bones and Booth had to say goodbye at the airport as they went on separate assignments for a YEAR (CANNOT TAKE IT, WHYYYY). (END SPOILERS)

I knew that I would miss him the most, but I don't cry like this, I just don't. And maybe the city is just too big right now, but I saw friends and made friends last night, and I get to see my best friend tomorrow, but it just HURTS because I wasn't 100% emotionally ready to leave in the first place, and now all I want to do is listen to sad songs and cry.



PS: The staffing agency I saw yesterday was SO much better than the first. I have a temp (only one week, but still) placement NEXT WEEK at a MAJOR publishing house, which is super exciting for foot-in-the-door potential.

I'm writing this while on hold with maintenance...

So, I was watching this TEDTalk about social networks, and something he said really resonated with me. Happy people tend to "cluster" with other happy people and sad with sad, and so on. While this is no big revelation, it (and the entire talk in general, really) made me realize that I take my role in my circles of friends very seriously. I've felt for many years now that it is my duty in life to brighten the lives of my friends and the people around me - ever since a good friend from high school remarked during a visit home from college that "life is so much more BORING here without you!" I naturally try to be the life of the party anyway, but sometimes that presents very peculiarly, especially when I am NOT happy at all.

(I'm going to be candid here. Watch out.)

The last couple of weeks have been impossibly hard for me. Between the process of moving, which has been very psychologically difficult for me, and the fact that my parents are indeed splitting up, and worse, that my father, who used to be one of my best friends, is now openly cheating on my mother with some whore of a woman he met overseas where he works. And wants to marry her CONCURRENTLY with my mother, despite the fact that NOWHERE in the Bible does it say - although he'll argue this - that men are now allowed to have more than one wife at a time... I've been under a lot of stress. Particularly with this news about my family, as my mom called me last Saturday (a week before Moving Day) sobbing and told me I needed to come home, upon which I called my father to ask him what he had done and he dropped the Girlfriend Bombshell on me.

Needless to say, this upset me. I haven't cried this hard since I found out that The Ex had spent exactly TWO weeks alone after our breakup and then started sleeping with someone else, and that he had lied to me about it. My dad KNEW about that trauma, and still made the decisions he made. It was similar enough to The Ex's betrayal that I just couldn't take it. So my father and I are not speaking for the first time EVER, I have de-friended/de-family'ed him on facebook, I just moved 500 miles away from everyone I'm close to, and I still have no job. Needless to say, putting on a happy face WOULD be difficult for anyone.

However, I have so trained myself to smile for the cameras, as it were, that very few people noticed that anything was wrong. I refuse to believe that 98% of my friends are that obtuse, so it must be that I'm a really good actress (JOB OPPORTUNITY!). However, now I'm left wondering if this is instinctual/genetic/whatever, or if this is just a defense mechanism or personality disorder or something. Don't get me wrong, I love being the life of the party, and I am naturally a cheerful optimist, but this level of masking is starting to concern me... I know I can be open with my closest friends, and I am, but I'm horribly insecure about the amount of openness - if I complain TOO much or seek TOO much sympathy, will they stop wanting to be around me? [Liz, I know you're reading this, and I know that you wouldn't, but the insecurity is still there. Your love means a lot to me, though :) ]



SIDE NOTE: I was on hold for 13 minutes. Finally got a maintenance request in. Yay!

Yes, I am blogging about Phil Collins.

I keep my bathroom iPod on shuffle, and every morning I'm stuck with this annoying little routine where I click through about 50 songs trying to pick out three songs in a row that I actually enjoy that will last me through my shower.

(I was using my iPod as storage when I had to replace my hard drive in November, and then the hard drive on my IPOD died and so I can listen to the songs but can't connect the device to my computer... I have a reference to an iPod repair place thing, but they take a long time sometimes so it'll be smarter to wait to fix it until I move, and I'm getting an iTouch for my birthday next month anyway.)

Anyway, yesterday I stumbled upon Phil Collin's "Can't Stop Loving You," which had tremendous meaning for me (I KNOW.) in high school. My best friend in high school... gosh. We were like yin and yang. My mom disliked her pretty much ONLY because we made so much noise. We were ridiculous together, and had so much fun together, and she was there for me through everything and introduced me to the Catholic Church and ... just, everything. I guess she's the first person with whom the word "soulmate" made sense to me.
(Background: Our friendship REALLY kicked off September/October of our sophomore year, and she transferred to public school for junior year.)

The first day back at school from Christmas break during our junior year, she called me for one of what had become our daily marathon phone sessions to tell me that her parents had decided to move them to Ohio, of all places, for her senior year of high school. Naturally, my heart completely shattered. I basically sat in my room for hours, crying and listening to Vitamin C's "Friends Forever" on repeat. (Still can't listen to that song without tearing up.) I actually didn't wear makeup to school the next day! And this was high school! People asked me if I was terminally ill.

Anyway, the whole situation was life-changing. I wrote my AP English autobiography assignment about it. My mother's sociopathic lack of sympathy about it was what cemented our divide. We stayed in touch, of course, but I am absolutely terrible at long-distance relationships and so consequently we don't talk very much. Facebook and LiveJournal are wonderful inventions - we can spy on each other's goings-on without having to pick up a phone. Clearly not optimal but the best I can do most of the time, apart from my annual trip up to Ohio (on my way to Michigan) where I can stop in at her place for an evening. But now, FINALLY, we are going to be in the same city again. It's such a relief, and totally funny how fate works out.

New York is not scary at all when I think about having her there with me. To be fair, she's moving there to be with her boyfriend, and if I've learned anything about boyfriends in the last two years that I've lived with The Roommate, I've learned to be realistic about how much time they're going to want to share with me. Of course, I adore her boyfriend (he's BRITISH!!) so that helps. But it's so funny to think of how life works out. I don't think the City is ready for us...