Robot Envy

move, bitch! get out the way!

2009-01-22T15:46:00.003-05:00

change has come.

"just keep walking, george."

HELL yeah.

photo courtesy of msnbc.com

ELECTION DAY

2008-11-04T09:42:00.002-05:00

i'm voting after work today. if i had time to do it now, i would, because i can hardly contain myself. i want to thank literally everyone who reads this for your passion and enthusiasm about this election, regardless of who you're voting for.

and now that i've done that, i want to tell you that if you vote mccain, good luck with that. and it hurts me and pisses me off that you're contributing to the vote that will leave me, AND YOU, with an out for himself, older + health challenged president who's already showed us that he's losing it and has already made bad decisions. the man won't make it through a term. i'm angry that sarah palin has a good chance of being my president because her "values" and her intentions (the few that we know of) scare the shit out of me. their administration would make us another laughing stock. their administration would try to outlaw things that are none of the GOVERNMENT'S business, despite their and your beliefs, which i personally respect. republicans are supposed to be about keeping government out. mccain and palin want to change the constitution to impose on people's personal rights. republicans aren't true republicans anymore, and politics and religion should not have ANYTHING to do with each other. that's why we live in this country. separation of church and state? i respect your beliefs. but keep them in their place. exercise them for yourself and talk to the people you love. don't tell me what to do with my body. and taxes? obama's plan is good. unless you're super rich, you're going to see nothing but benefits from it. and guess what? healthcare will be the same for you if you've got it good, and better if you don't! guess what else? mccain has a crazy temper. he's a 72 year old man with a serious anger streak and PTSD. and we're currently in a sad, sad, pointless, EXPENSIVE war. guess who's not only smart and composed but also calm enough to get shit done? always? every time he's been tested since the second we learned about him? obama. that makes me feel safe and comfortable.

i worry just like anyone that obama will get shot. it's a scary, unfortunate possibility, because people are racist, and people who want to, believe that he's a terrorist (???). because that makes things easy for them. but to be frank, i love joe biden. i feel safe and comfortable with him too. basically what i'm saying is that all of our bases are covered here.

i want to be proud tonight. i want to feel safer tonight. i want to feel PROGRESSIVE and happy and thankful tonight. the whole world is watching us. and the whole world needs us to make the right choice - because when it comes down to it, this is not just about me and you. this is not just about our country. this election is affecting the entire world.

make the right choice. don't fuck up. DON'T fuck up.
and i swear to god, ohio, if you do it to us AGAIN...

this is a political blog for today

2008-11-01T12:36:00.002-04:00

this is not the only place i've posted this. back to regularly scheduled programming soon, but for now...

i'm voting for obama.

...in case you hadn't picked up on that yet.

and i say this not as a threat, or as an insult to your own personal beliefs:

if you care about your life and the well-being of this country, despite the reason you may be planning to vote for someone else this election, YOU WILL TOO.

please help me and other obama supporters turn this country around. help us get our respect back and live better again. i'm actually begging you. i respect you if you're pro-life. i respect you if you honestly think mccain will make it through four years and we won't be under SERIOUSLY, SERIOUSLY underqualified and ignorant sarah palin. i respect you if you support the troops. but these things won't matter if mccain is president, nothing will change for the better.

obama's tax plan makes SENSE. it's what the united states has always done.

his healthcare plan makes SENSE. healthcare is SO important for us. other countries don't have to worry about the bullshit that we do. i WANT that for US. i love the united states, and that's why i care so much about this stuff.

mccain is not a bad guy. but he'll clearly do whatever it takes to win at this point and that's where it ends. he caught the hillary bug. and i used to be a hillary fan. not that i'm equating them - i think she's redeemed herself. but that's beside the point.

obama is smart and competent and calm. he can do this. i'm not just thinking about myself when i vote for this man that i believe in. i am thinking about you.

if you feel that you still don't know enough, please go to every website you can think of, read every newspaper you can get your hands on, watch every news program you come across, even if they're biased EITHER way, and GET INFORMED. please. this is my plea to you. i've keep too silent for too long.

thank you.

i'm not dead...

2008-10-30T07:37:00.002-04:00

just floating.....

i'll be back soon and for good. been going through a lot and i'm also looking for a bit of a new direction here. but i miss this and i'm not giving it up. stay tuned for the new and improved.

in the meantime: http://www.twitter.com/serayepa

p.s: happy halloween!

brush yourself off & try again

2008-07-23T04:03:00.002-04:00

it's been a long time
i shouldn't have left you
without a dope beat to step to

okay it's been a REALLY long time. i have been extremely busy. i have been extremely creatively blocked. i've also been very much in love, and when i started this blog, i was in a very different place as far as that's concerned. as i experienced fewer and fewer problems in that area of my life and became less and less confused, the more i struggled in coming up with something to write about. i had some ideas but nothing ever seemed to work. i'm sorry.

i was watching an episode of "the view" on tivo a few hours ago and shirley maclaine was on, talking about reincarnation and past life regressions and uh...stuff like that. it was interesting. and then i saw something in a community on livejournal asking about soulmates - whether or not people believed in them, and what their feelings were. so i decided to do some research to see where the idea came from and what it's really supposed to mean when someone is considered your soulmate. first of all, i found this.

i especially liked the part about balance partners. and reading all of the information on that site and on a couple of others, it's become pretty clear to me who those people in my life are. i really have no doubt about it, and it makes a lot of sense to me. i wasn't always sure that i even believed in the concept of soulmates at all because i wasn't entirely sure of what it entailed. but after reading about it, it's like my life makes just a little more sense.

that said, i will post again soon (I PROMISE), but for now, you should check out THE NEW INTERLUDE MAGAZINE WEBSITE!!! if you're an arlan fan, you probably already know what i'm talking about, but either way, go there. look around. support. subscribe. yeah, i'm biased because arlan's my friend and i work for the magazine but i would not promote something that sucked! so do that now and we'll talk again soon.

luv

2008-03-27T03:10:00.004-04:00

i'll be back soon...promise.

sometimes i feel i've got to run away

2008-03-11T03:13:00.002-04:00

first: i LOVE danny noriega. he is the cutest and coolest 18 year old in the world. okay, maybe an overstatement, because i don't know all of the 18 year olds in the world. but come on. i just fucking love him. i love his voice, i love his attitude (big personality but still very humble in my opinion), i love his FACE (what a beautiful face!) and his pretty shiny hair. now that he's gone, i am not nearly as excited about this season's american idol. but back to danny. i feel the need to tell everyone about him, so for those of you who don't watch AI, read perezhilton, or watch access hollywood, danny noriega is america's sweetheart. you should add him as your friend on myspace and check out his youtube page as well. i realize that many more people already go to those sites all the time than will ever read my blog, but it can't hurt.

secondly, i don't always agree with elisabeth hasselbeck on the view, but i have been watching it now for months and i must say, even though she doesn't always have all the info and she doesn't have a great sense of humor and she's pretty stuck in her beliefs politically, she speaks very well and she's extremely intelligent. and to be on that panel every day with people constantly questioning her, all of them older and more knowledgable (save for one ms. sherri shepherd, who has learned quite a lot from whoopi, i must say - kudos!) and most of them leaning quite far to the left, i think it takes some courage. she does hold her own. and she does listen and allow them to influence her occasionally, which i think is a good sign. and the other ladies listen to her as well. but i still watch the view for whoopi. she's brought a level of entertainment, intellect, class, and harmony to the show that it never had before. i LOVE me some whoopi.

i had a third thing. wait, let me think.
...nope, i forgot. check back soon.

feedback

2008-02-29T04:18:00.015-05:00

i love it.

yeah, guess who? ANNA CHLUMSKY. MY GIRL. can you believe that? i couldn't. that's why i took a picture.

scarlett johansson looking exactly like gwen stefani.

HELL YES.

i'm suddenly TOTALLY into this show. anybody else?

the real housewives of orange county is (was?) one of my favorite shows/guilty pleasures, so i'm totally psyched about this. i am lame. and awesome.

this was in...i think us magazine, and she's supposed to look bad, or ridiculous or something. but uh, is it just me, or does she look hot? and just...good? maybe i'm insane.

when did ashley become the dark, slutty one? seriously. but j/k. i love the olsens. i think they're smart, talented, gorgeous, funny (mary-kate is, at least), mature, and like...cool. also i wear their perfume. good stuff.

i read recently that natalie portman said something about wanting to just grab scarlett johansson's breasts because they're so "lovely," or something. look at the way she's looking at her, and clutching her waist for that matter.
...arlan?

HELL YES.

i just think these dresses are really pretty. yay flowers.

something more substantial coming soon...

there was a time i didn't have you around

2008-02-28T06:19:00.003-05:00

i just watched an episode of dawson's creek in which that henry kid wants jen but she rejects him because she's not ready to be with anybody yet, and she feels like he's too young and inexperienced to understand her. he tells her that he's in love with her and she says that he can't be because he doesn't even know her. he's 15 and she's...17 or almost 17 or something. they're almost two years apart, i think they said. anyway she says that a lot will happen in that time; his heart will swell and break a thousand times. when she tells him that she can't be with him, he tells her that that was heartbreak number one.

it made me start to wonder, how many times CAN a person's heart "swell and break" before they just can't do it anymore? i think it depends on the person. i haven't been in many relationships and i feel like i've lived 10 lives already. like i've been ripped apart and stomped on and i've had to sew myself back together, bit by bit, more times than you could ever repair a broken zipper or a ripped dress before it just falls apart entirely. you can only save something so many times. i pay $80 for a pair of jeans; they last me four or five years. i pay $8 for a tshirt and it tears the first time i come within six inches of a cat's claw. i'm not saying that you get what you pay for, though i do believe that too. i'm saying that more work went into those jeans. they were stronger and made to last. you can climb trees and spill paint and it takes years for any holes to form and the stains always come out. the shirt needed gentler treatment to last half as long. at the same time, you may go through those shirts twice, or three times, as quickly, which kind of fucks up my whole analogy because my point is that not everyone bounces back easily. some people need to go through their fair share of people and experiences before they can relax and be happy, or be with someone who deserves them. and they can deal with that; maybe they even like it. others can't handle as much and so they're pickier. they have to be, to avoid the pain.

just a thought.

i am the creature in this story

2008-02-25T04:53:00.004-05:00

the best thing about getting older is that you don't care as much. some may argue that it's actually the worst thing, and when i was younger, i would have too. and in general, i do think that it's a bad thing. but for someone like me, who thinks too much and feels too much and gets so worked up, it's a good thing. i never want to lose my passion, but losing a bit of passion, if that does occur, for someone like me, is a small price to pay for the calmness that's begun to come over me as the years, the months, even the days, pass. you learn to see the gray areas as opposed to the black and white. you start to realize that you need to pick your battles and you learn what's worth it to you and what is not. you stop trying to fix everything and you learn to just roll with it, a little bit more. that is, if you're lucky.

if you're even luckier, you find someone good to be with. someone who treats you well and makes you laugh and smile. someone you're not afraid to be yourself around. someone who helps you feel stable and important, and who allows you to give of yourself the things that others didn't care to accept. someone who loves you both calmly AND passionately. someone who forces you to look inside yourself and see you for who you really are without causing you to get angry, all the while still knowing that they love you.

being human is hard. but it's worth it when your heart is not alone.

what color is "old"?

2008-02-22T04:29:00.002-05:00

i recently had to edit my "about me" profile thing (see right) to update my age. i'm officially on the other side of 25. i'm going to be 30. i didn't always think that i would be 30. but it looks like i am going to be 30. 30. 30, 30, 30. three decades of life. 30, when it all starts to go downhill. my boyfriend's been very supportive. for the few months leading up to my birthday he always made sure to find a reason to talk about how difficult turning 26 was for him. mmm. people show their love in all sorts of ways.

a lot of people, most of them older than i am, roll their eyes when i say anything about it. but it's not about getting older, really. it's not that i think 26 is OLD. it's just that certain ages slap you with a new reality: at 18, i was technically an adult. it felt scary to me, and i had a freakout. 19 was fine, so was 20, 21, and 22. when i hit 23, i was no longer "college age." i couldn't pretend to just be figuring things out anymore; at least that's how it seemed in my head. that was weird. 25 was alright. i'd survived 23 and 24 and it didn't feel much different. i was right there between 20 and 30; no closer to one than the other. but then i turned 26, and now it feels like i'm on this fast track to everything. like i'm on one of those people movers at the airport and it has no end and i can't jump over the side. 26 feels strange.

something i love: crystal light peach tea on the go packets. you just put them in your bottled water and shake. 10 calories per packet. it's delicious.

something i don't love: roseart markers. they SUCK. crayola is better.

lack of imagination

2008-02-21T20:26:00.012-05:00

so i had this idea late last night when i was reading cosmo. i took pictures of certain things in the magazine that i wanted to comment on, and i thought that i would post them here. not too groundbreaking; here we go.

...really? i can't even...wow. that sucks. like, if it's your brother or something, it's totally disturbing - more so probably - but i think there is something about the dynamics between siblings that would allow it to be less awkward and more like "EW! OMG GO AWAY!" as opposed to, "oh...my...god...thanksgiving is going to be weeeird."

those are payless shoes! pretty cute. yeah that's all.

oh, this is just for arlan.

right. wellll, let's just see what this is meant to lead to...

i really don't like monkeys. so.

(i do this all the time. i'm sorry.)

i don't know if you can read that. i was using my camera phone and dealing with both glare and shadows. and yes, those are my feet. but...interesting. thoughts?

more soon...

i couldn't love you any better

2008-02-20T06:36:00.003-05:00

i haven't posted in over a month. i am so sorry. please stop yelling at me. no, keep yelling at me. i like it. anyway this post may be a bit rambly and schizo so i apologize in advance if that turns out to be the case. i've got to get back on the blog...horse. wagon? no, not wagon. that has negative connotations. horse is better. blog...legs? well, never mind. we'll work this out together.

i hope everyone had a lovely valentine's day. mine was fantastic; the best ever. i was sick and i couldn't talk for most of it but it was still the best valentine's day i've ever had and, dare i say, one of the best days of my life, actually. so everyone thank my incredible boyfriend for making me a happy, happy girl and being one of my biggest blogging inspirations.

i'm learning a lot lately. in the wake of a lot of my own mental and emotional issues, i'm learning a lot of things about myself. i'm learning that i'm even more fucked up than i thought. i didn't know that was possible! well, i'm not shaving my head and going to rite aid at 4am every day with members of the paparrazzi, but everyone's got different standards, i suppose.

think about the people in your life who you KNOW love you unconditionally. now think of some of the other people in your life who don't necessarily fall into this category: you're sometimes, or maybe even often, afraid to say what you think or feel because you're worried about what they'll think, or you keep them at arm's length so that they'll never have the chance to get close enough to you to know how you really are. you're afraid that if they learn, they'll leave. you may not think it's true but give it some more thought. your sister or your father who you fight with and then go out and drink with your friends and don't give it a second thought. your best friend of 10 years, who will call you tomorrow no matter what you said last night when you were feeling sad or irritated. you don't censor yourself around them. why? because you know that they won't leave. but maybe your mother has always been judgmental of you, or you're not sure that a particular friend REALLY likes you or is just nice to you for the sake of mutual friends. do you put as much out there? are you as open, as vulnerable, even as angry, to their faces? does the outside match what you're feeling inside? maybe not. why? you're afraid that if you give all of you, they won't like it. they won't respect it. they won't love it. and maybe they'll leave, and you can't bear that, or it may be as simple as not wanting to deal with the drama that will ensue as a result.

i'm willing to bet that you test boundaries with the people closest to you. maybe not as often as you did when you were younger, but if your mother has always, always been there, through thick and thin, you're probably not afraid to tell her that she's driving you crazy. you're probably not afraid to yell at her. not because you don't care about her feelings, but because you know that SHE knows that you love her, and nothing will ever change that, not even a little bit. and you know she's not going anywhere. you could shoot a guy and she could know that you did it and she would still testify for you in court. of course nothing is like the love that someone has for their children, and my parents and grandparents have taught me that. but it is the sort of love that we call unconditional, and i think that it's the only kind worth feeling. if you're going to love someone and allow them to love you back, you have to close your eyes and jump. be you, all you, nothing but you, 100% of the time. if you're not, they won't be able to tell whether or not they actually DO love you, because it's not you that they see.

loving someone and being in love are different. people know that. i'm not going to break that down for you or anything. but at the core, love is love. and i just think that it's all or nothing.

glass half full of cynicism

2008-01-18T03:11:00.000-05:00

i have been gone for a long, long time. i'm sorry. thank you for continuing to read.

generally i am a very optimistic person. i realized the other day that i don't make a lot of sense. i think that most people equate optimism with happiness and sarcasm with cynicism. i'm not saying that i'm unhappy, but i'm certainly not energetic and bubbly; i'm not sunshine and rainbows and...bubbles all the time. at all. but i am an idealist. i blame tv and movies mostly. i'm a sarcastic optimist. i look on the bright side, i always believe that things will turn out alright in the end, and i give people the benefit of the doubt about 80% of the time. but twisted things make me laugh. i have a hard time relating to people who have no sense of irony. but my main point here is that i am not someone who often has feelings of hopelessness. even if i'm depressed as hell, i'm hopeful. in terms of the major things that i want to accomplish in my life, i don't really worry that i won't, i just get down about the sadness and/or frustration that i'll have to go through in the meantime. everything seems so far away. but i do believe that i will get there.

however it hit me like a ton of bricks just a few hours ago that i view things this way in every aspect of my life except for in relationships. i am incredibly cynical when it comes to romantic relationships. i've made progress, and though i have made a conscious and somewhat successful effort myself, i mostly have my boyfriend to thank. he's made me feel wanted and cared about and appreciated and important in a way that no one else i've dated ever has. i'm very grateful for him. he's very understanding and patient. we don't always "get" each other, but i think that the important thing is to try, and to communicate to the other person that he or she is important (i know i've used that word three times but it's the only one good enough) enough to you for you to do that.

but back to cynicism. it has no positive place in terms of the way that we view relationships. miranda on sex & the city makes it look cool, but look at all of the things she went through with steve before she realized he truly was THE one and settled down with him! i mean they had a baby for god's sake, and they'd dated off and on for years. he treated her like royalty no matter how mean she was to him. and yeah, i know i'm talking about tv again but i'm just using it as an example because thousands of people watched/watch that show so the characters are like mutual friends of ours, you see? like, if i said "look at sadie and barney!" you wouldn't have a clue what i was talking about. just for the record i do not know anyone with those names, but you get the idea. maybe you don't know of the characters miranda and steve either, but the chances are pretty good that you do.

in reality, if you think that you will fail, most likely, you will. it's all about attitude. and i could launch back into all of my whining about baggage and past pain and all of that shit, but that's just feeding into it. going through most days thinking "he/she is going to break up with me; i have to at least consider beating them to the punch, no matter how much i love them" is NOT GOOD if you are in a good relationship. seems like it goes without saying, right? but i have to remind myself of that on a regular basis. i'm the strangest combination of open and guarded. i think it's important to be at least a little of each, but if you're too much of either, you paralyze yourself. too open? vulnerable to heartbreak. too guarded? well...vulnerable to...heartbreak. but the difference is that if being too guarded is your problem, you're less likely to be totally blindsided by a situation, and adding shock to heartbreak is about the only thing that makes it worse. at least in my experience. at the same time, it prevents you from living every day to the fullest and from enjoying the good things, if you've constantly got it in the back of your mind that it's going to end.

keep your eyes open, yes. if it hurts, talk about it. but life's too short to always assume or expect the worst. i don't want to have 50 relationships like carrie bradshaw. i want to believe in love the way that charlotte york does on satc. unlike charlotte, i'm not old fashioned; i'm not particularly domestic. but i don't want to date until i'm 40 or 50 either. i don't have it in me. i want to replace the cynic in me with the charlotte york.

insecurity

2008-01-03T05:19:00.000-05:00

when i first decided that i wanted to approach this subject, i had an angle. unfortunately since then, it seems to have escaped me, so just bear with me here. insecurity. for years i was under the impression that i was extremely confident and secure. and then i started paying attention. no, i'm not insecure in the way that i look, and i think that's generally the first thing that comes to people's minds when they throw that word out there. i'm not completely in love with my personal appearance but i don't think that anyone is. there are things i would alter slightly if i could, and things that i can change that i will. but most of the time i'm not terribly self-conscious. i don't ask people often if i look alright before going out. i don't care if my hair looks kinda crazy or i'm covered in dog fur. i know how i like my hair and which clothes flatter my body so i just style, dress, and go. i'm not that bothered by it all.

i first realized that i lacked confidence when i realized WHY it's difficult for me to sing in front of people: i'm afraid that it's not good enough, and it matters a great deal to me what other people think in that area because i'd always planned to make music my life. by stark contrast, it doesn't bother me a bit if someone doesn't remark on how wonderful my writing is, or even if they insult it. i think it's good, and i KNOW it's above average, and i speak from my heart. i don't try too hard; this is just what i do and have always done. i had a friend when i was younger who loved to sing. she always took lessons and was in musicals and she still sings. she has a beautiful voice, but a lot of people found it to be obnoxious because she would sing ALL the time. it didn't matter to them whether or not she actually had a good voice; it was just too loud and too much and they didn't think or care beyond that. personally, i loved it, because it was literally music to my ears, i loved her, and i envied her confidence because she didn't care when people would tell her to shut up, jokingly or not. she just loved to sing, so she did. whenever the mood struck her. and it took me years to realize that that is really all that you need to do: love something, and then pursue it no matter what. or even more importantly, do what makes you happy - it's probably the reason that you're here in the first place. it's an attitude that i'm adopting a little more each day. without passion, there's no point to anything.

but i've recently realized how insecure i am when it comes to relationships. as i've mentioned before, i don't come without my baggage. i'm traveling a little lighter these days thank god, but it's still one day at a time. regardless of the people i dated who treated me certain ways, ultimately it was (and continues to be) my job to decide how to react to that treatment. sure, the way i was treated in any given situation may have reinforced certain hang-ups that i had, or feelings to which i was predisposed, but if we didn't deal with our shit and move on, we would never get anywhere. still, sometimes my reactions are a little too...big. i'm not an overly defensive person except when it comes to a few specific things, and if one of those buttons is pushed, i have trouble staying calm and rational at first. if you're close to me and you're not aware of said buttons, feel free to ask but i'm not going to list them all here. i'll just say that i'm lucky to have some very patient people in my life who stick around until i've had time to decompress and react in a fair and rational way. to those people, i say thank you for liking me and loving me and caring enough about being in my life to give me that consideration, because i usually don't deserve it.

shout-out to captain obvious: thank you for caring enough to fight with me. thank you for making me feel like my good outweighs my bad and that i can trust you. thank you for being the first person i feel comfortable arguing with without thinking you'll go away. thank you for listening to me, and thank you for calling me on my shit.

iRelationship

2007-12-29T04:56:00.000-05:00

arlan asked me to write about internet dating. i told her that i'd thought about it, but that i wasn't sure i'd have enough to say and that it wasn't a subject which particularly inspired me to write. she said that i could preface the whole thing by mentioning that she was curious to see what i had to say on the subject, and after some explanation from me (to her), we agreed that it would go something like this...

arlan: so, sarah, what are your thoughts on internet dating? do you feel that it's a valid way to meet someone? is it something you've found success with? do you think you can carry on a relationship mostly/solely through the internet? do you think it's better to meet people outside of the internet, and either way, do you feel that it makes for a different type of relationship if it's started out one way or the other?

me: i mean, whatever works.

so. that was sort of my problem. i've met people in "real" life who i ended up dating, and i've also met people online. some of my friends have met people online; others through friends or maybe out at a bar or a party or something. and really, in this day and age, i don't think it makes much difference. just about everyone's got access to the internet in some way, and it's not weird or scary anymore to meet friends or potential dating partners on myspace, or facebook, or a dating site, or even, like, craigslist. or through blogs. or message boards. anyway, you get the idea.

so far, in my experience, my best relationship to date is my current one and i met him on the internet. it wasn't a drawn out internet thing; we met days after the initial messages that we sent to each other and our primary contact since has been in person and on the phone, and we email each other while he's at work and things like that. he lives like 15 minutes away from me. a couple of guys i met on the internet were total psychos; a couple were nice guys but we never got beyond one or two dates. i met my last boyfriend at work. i met one guy i dated at a bar.

as far as dating exclusively online, or carrying on a relationship mostly through use of the internet...i don't know. i don't have much of an opinion about it because i've never done it. i honestly feel that whatever works for you, works. and even though i don't care what anyone thinks, it is nice that we've finally reached a time when saying that you met someone online is...normal. acceptable. i wouldn't have most of my good friends if not for the internet.

...what do youguys think?

eggnog, etc.

2007-12-25T04:22:00.000-05:00

katie girl

2007-12-24T07:27:00.000-05:00

i've been watching too much sex and the city. i'll cop to that right now; let's just get it out of the way. i'm still watching reruns, all out of order, on tbs and hbo, some i've already seen but most i haven't. i saw an episode the other night in which carrie finds out that big (carrie's ex-boyfriend who really broke her heart, for non-satc fans) is engaged. she's angry, and then hurt, and eventually finds herself asking the question, "why wasn't it me?" she's discussing this with her friends at brunch or lunch or dinner or whatever and someone suggests that it's a "hubble" thing. she emphatically agrees, and then samantha asks, "who is hubble?" they explain that he is robert redford's character in "the way we were," and that barbra streisand's character is katie. it doesn't work out between them because she's too complicated, and ultimately he ends up with a much more simple girl. one of the ladies mentions that the new girl is boring and has straight hair, while katie is complex and interesting and has "wild" curly hair, and carrie holds up strands of her own curly hair and declares her own complexity. she then announces that she's just had an epiphany: there are two types of girls in the world - the simple girl, and the katie girl, and SHE is a katie girl. the ladies talk about the famous last scene in the movie when katie encounters hubble and brushes the hair off of his forehead as she tells him, "your girl is lovely, hubble." at the end of the episode, carrie runs into big on the street outside of his engagement party that she couldn't bring herself to attend. she is calm now, having had her "katie girl" revelation, and reluctantly asks him, "i just have to know, why wasn't it me?" he hesitates and she begs him to answer. he sighs deeply and responds, "it just...got...SO hard." carrie takes this in, and reaches up to brush the hair off of his forehead. he looks at her strangely as she says, "your girl is lovely, hubble," to which he replies, "i don't get it." "and you never do," she tells him, as she walks away, having found some peace. the very end is a shot of her long hair flowing in the wind with a carrie voice-over about how some people just need to find someone as free and as wild as they are.

i'm sure this idea and even this particular episode of satc has been written about and blogged about and talked to DEATH, but i have never actually seen "the way we were" and i'm obviously way late with the satc stuff. but that episode really struck a chord with me. there's nothing wrong with me; i'm just a katie girl. and pretending that i'm not only hurts me. so i choose to embrace it. that pretty much says it all, but i really wanted to share it because it's been on my mind.

happy holidays to everyone, and i'll write again soon. hey, let me know what you're doing/what you did for christmas, and what you got! it's the most wonderful time of the year.

talkin' it up

2007-12-19T04:12:00.000-05:00

first of all, i want to thank youguys AGAIN for reading my blog. yesterday i had almost twice as many views as my average amount per day in the past 30 days! it was crazy. so thank you so much. you're terribly appreciated and you're all invited to my family christmas this year. on you. HUGS!

i have to tell you, although i do support the writers' strike, i almost cried tears of joy when i found out that jimmy kimmel will be returning in the new year. i used to watch him EVERY night. and the strike really has me desperate. i'm tivoing all kinds of bullshit just to fill up dvr space and to have things to watch. right now i've got like 10 sex & the city episodes, gremlins, several episodes of the sarah silverman program...just all kinds of shit that i've already seen. i'm watching kathy griffin's newest stand-up special for the third time right now and it just premiered like last week or something. i've actually started tivoing the view, for god's sake. even my favorite horrible reality shows are wrapping up! it's a television addict's nightmare. don't you judge me. i know people who are a hell of a lot busier than i am who are plagued with the same minor inconvenience. when this is all over, i might sue for emotional distress. i don't know who i'm going to sue but...i think i'll sue donald trump. i fucking hate that son of a bitch.

keeping with the television theme, my boyfriend and i have the kind of relationship which involves girl talk about the outcome of a shot at love with tila tequila, immediately following the season finale. i hope that someday all of you are blessed with the same. because i love you. in the meantime, feel free to comment here and talk to me about it!

i want to keep several of the christmas gifts i've bought for people this year. i think that's a good sign.

next time i'll try not to ramble so much.

i want THAT one!

2007-12-18T04:13:00.000-05:00

some facts about me:

i am a pepsi addict. saturday afternoon we had a snowstorm. i desperately needed to pick up a prescription refill, so i drove for practically an hour in a semi-blizzard to the discount drug store where i have it filled. it should have taken me 25 minutes max to get there, snowless. i paid for the prescription, but as i was leaving the store, panic set in. i knew that i had plenty of pepsi left at home, but what if we were snowed in...for days? i couldn't take that chance. so i ducked into the beverage aisle and felt instant relief as i hooked my fingers under the cardboard handle of a pepsi 12-pack. everything in life was okay.

i need for everyone to like me. this is a recent discovery, within the past couple of months, i'd say. not in the sense that i'll be extra super friendly to everyone i meet just to please people, because i'm not that way. naturally, i am not that way. i need for everyone to like me, but to like me for me. and it's not so much that i really need them to, but it was more of a realization that when they don't, it makes me angry. this is not justified. often, i am not nice. and even though, personally, i actually DO like most people myself, i certainly don't like EVERYONE i meet. and that's fine. it's normal. therefore, i am a hypocrite. in many ways, this being only one of them.

i obsess over things for a little while and then i calm down. for three days, i NEEDED the new lg voyager phone. and then some things happened, and i forced myself to think rationally and accept the situation, and now i no longer want it. at least not until next august, when my contract is up. i am like a five year old who MUST have the newest toy. this really comes as no surprise, seeing as i actually was that five year old. but i guess maturity means letting the obsession die.

on the other hand, i have big dreams, and i refuse to let those die. no matter what life throws at me or how much i allow my fears to hold me back, i never let go of my dreams. and that is why the future doesn't scare me, and why i am an eternal optimist.

enough secrets for today. eight days until santa comes to town...

listen to what i say

2007-12-14T03:11:00.000-05:00

tonight (friday) i am going to the zoo to see the christmas lights with my boyfriend and some friends. the bf and i will wear santa hats (yes, baby, i have an extra one for you!), and we will all look at the lights on the houses as we drive to the zoo, singing christmas songs. i will take many candy canes with me for no reason. we will drink hot chocolate. people will call me on my cell phone, causing sarah silverman to sing from my speakers, "don't be a douche, what would jesus do? he'd say, 'give the jew girl toys.'" i will try to answer before it gets to that part. we will walk hand in hand and sing "winter wonderland." in harmony. alright maybe now i'm pushing it a bit far. to be fair though, he did say he wanted to wear the santa hat.

can you smoke at the zoo? it seems wrong but it is outside. i don't smoke but i just started to wonder.

i saw part of the second gremlins movie last night for the first time in a long time. all i remembered was that there were some really, REALLY disgusting and scary gremlins in that one. and oh my god, there really are. but now i want to watch the first one. all i really remember from it, though, other than the guy giving the gremlins fried chicken after midnight, is a scene when someone comes home to a dark, empty house while "do you hear what i hear?" is playing. because it's set during christmas, see. i've always associated that song with gremlins because of that. it would be nice if that could change.

i went to a company christmas party last night that happened on wednesday. where are the time machines? i thought it was the future. in 1990, the people in that gremlins movie had voice activated elevators.

more soon.

on the fifth day of christmas

2007-12-13T02:46:00.001-05:00

so i was watching the real world tonight (i know, i'm sorry) and two of the roommates (kelly anne and cohutta) have started a relationship. i think they're adorable people on their own and together but anyway that's beside the point. they had sex and the condom broke. okay, first order of business: how fucked up/creepy is it that there are cameras in the bedrooms filming all of these people having sex all the time? and there is always a lot of sex on that show. how do they feel comfortable having sex with cameras in the room, and KNOWING it's going to be shown on national television? i'm never going to be able to wrap my head around that. but that's not really what i wanted to write about.

after they do it, kelly anne says, "the condom broke." as the episode goes on, you find out that kelly anne is not on birth control, and cohutta fully intends to take her home to georgia and marry her if they do find out that she's pregnant, because that is what he feels is the right thing to do. she's not sure what she would want to do yet, but isn't entirely opposed to that idea. fair enough. later on, kelly anne says that on sunday she will know whether or not her period is late. sunday comes along and she gets it. not pregnant. okay! MY question is: why...didn't she just go to the doctor or the pharmacy or planned parenthood or WHEREVER and get the morning after pill? if the footage shown is accurate, they know the INSTANT they're finished having sex that the condom is broken. it's broken. you know this! go get the pill. you even have five days to take it! if you don't know, this season's cast is living in sydney, australia. so i thought, well, maybe they, like, don't have the morning after pill in australia. or something. but i googled it. they totally do. and so...i just...WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST GET IT. i don't understand. i have no real insight here but i felt incredibly compelled to write about this for some reason, ever since i saw the preview for this week's episode. she didn't say that she was against birth control, she just said that she wasn't currently on it. and obviously neither of them have a problem with sex before marriage. so i definitely didn't get the impression that either of them were against the morning after pill in any way. it wasn't even addressed. i just don't understand going through all of that grief if you can just go do that. alright, this has become complete and utter rambling now. i'm sorry.

CHRISTMAS IS IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS!!! i am psyched, AAAAAND i've actually got most of my christmas shopping done. i don't have much to do, really, but it's a nice relief that i've made so much progress. on friday i'm going to the zoo to see the christmas lights with my boyfriend and some friends. i can't wait. we will see reindeer and maybe we'll ice skate! i'll definitely drink hot chocolate. and i plan to ride the carousel. and we will sing christmas songs alllll the way there. i might wear a santa hat.

snowflakes

2007-12-12T01:33:00.000-05:00

i think that it's important to remember that although we often find comfort in realizing that we are not alone and that other people do feel and go through many of the same things that we do, no one else on earth is EXACTLY like you. that may seem an obvious statement; an empowering one, or possibly a scary one. but the thing is, lately i've found myself comparing, well, myself, and my relationship, with my friends and their relationships and it's not done me good. i've stopped doing that. it does nothing but hurt me and make me feel isolated and sometimes inadequate. the truth is that there is no ONE "correct" path. and even though i've known what i ultimately want for the majority of my life, it eventually hit me that i had absolutely no real idea of how to get there. fortunately it's becoming more and more clear to me, and i think that's because i'm not thinking about things in regard to how they measure up to other people's standards or situations or to the way i'm viewed. i'm thinking about what works for me. i think i'm...hmm. i think i'm starting to...find myself.

it's so easy to get caught up in what you think you should be doing. it's so easy to get caught up in other people's expectations of you, and, in my case, the expectations i've always had for myself. i haven't lowered those, but growing up eventually forces you to realize that everything is not black and white. life is a gray, gray, gray area. there are lots of ways to reach your destination. every day is important, and every experience, and every person who comes into your life is going to shape you in one way or another. the key is allowing for that to happen. it doesn't mean that you have to give up your dreams or what you've always wanted for yourself, but priorities change and that is not always a bad thing. sometimes it helps to put things into perspective and allows you to map out that path in a way that makes sense for YOU. the moral of my story here? be strong and push forward, but let things and people influence you. you never know what you may learn about yourself.

i want to plug my mom's blog again right now since i have not been doing that at all lately! she's been writing some really good stuff so you should definitely check it out: http://youignorantsluts.blogspot.com

i'm sorry i haven't been writing much. i promise i'll be better. :) and tell arlan that we need to get that loveline thing up and running. youguys would watch that, right?

you've got yours & i've got mine

2007-12-05T04:50:00.000-05:00

there's a series on the WE network called "the secret lives of women" and the particular episode that i'm watching right now is about swingers. when it started, i actually sort of understood what the people were saying. it's not something that i'm even slightly interested in, in any way, but i got where they were coming from. as the hour's gone on, however, i'm comprehending this less and less. most of the couples say that it's actually easier for them to stay together because there's no need to cheat, and it's all about openness and honesty and having fun and fulfilling...things. logically, i get that. one of the men on the show just said that one of the common misconceptions about swinging is that you are at a high risk of losing your partner, when in fact, statistically it is the opposite, and is so as well for everyone that they know. and i mean...okay. but i think you really have to be a certain type of person for it to work for you. we are sexual beings, yes. we are intelligent beings, yes. but we are also emotional beings. and i just think that whether or not this lifestyle works for you depends on your own personal balance of those three things. i, personally, am certainly emotional above all else. all of the people featured on this show appear to be far more sexual than ANYTHING else, which may seem an obvious thing to say, but it's not like i'm watching cinemax after dark or something. this is a documentary series on a basic cable chick channel. it's not sleazy or especially graphic, just very matter-of-fact. my point, i guess, is that i think that a great number of factors must be very specifically in place for this lifestyle to work. did youguys watch "loveline" when it aired on mtv? it started out fairly informative and interesting, despite adam corolla (i love adam corolla; just stay with me). but as it went on, it turned into this ridiculous circus and every other question was, literally, "my girlfriend and i are thinking about having a threesome. is that a good idea? should we do that?" and every. single. time, dr. drew would say, "no, it's a bad idea, it's VERY risky, you're probably going to ruin your relationship, DON'T DO IT." but they just kept on asking.

yeah, that's really all i have to say about that. i miss loveline.

speaking of loveline, before i got my webcam, arlan and i tossed around the idea of having a show similar to that, only like...neither of us is a doctor and it wouldn't become a crazy freak show. oh and also, it would be less about sex. you know, like a show where youguys could ask us relationship and love questions and we'd basically just give our advice and opinions, for whatever they're worth. i'm pretty sure we were thinking that arlan would be the adam corolla to my dr. drew, only, you know, funnier. me, not her. she's already funny. adam corolla's funny. you get it.

more soon.

and you thought jessica was random

2007-12-02T05:07:00.000-05:00

sorry i haven't been writing much lately. hello, if you're still with me! :)

christmas is on my mind quite a bit. i think it's supposed to snow soon, which excites me greatly. i've also been watching many reruns of "dawson's creek" on the-n and i actually regret not having watched the last few seasons. they're not bad, and i now understand my friend rachel's love for jen. sucks they had to kill her. what else...

i broke the zipper on the inside of my newest purse. it's driving me crazy that i can't fix it, but it's not totally unfixable. (i have a certain boy in mind who may be able to work his magic.)

dude on dawson's creek just now said, "mr. newman was my father, and that bastard's long gone. you call me larry," which reminds me of one of my favorite "sarah silverman program" moments: "mrs. silverman was my mother. and she was a BITCH. i'm sarah." mind you, she was speaking to children.

my mind is all wrapped up in thoughts of christmas and (christmas) shopping and cell phones (mine's failing me and it's still under warranty so they're giving me a brand new one in a few days, hooray!) and my lovely boyfriend. other things too, but i don't want to jinx anything. basically what i'm telling you is that i am all over the place and i'm having trouble committing to a subject and writing about it. thus, pointless babbling.

alright, some craigslist personal ad fun...

TYPICAL , GUESS THERE ARE NO REAL WOMEN ON CL - 45

TYPICAL ,,,I HAVE RESPONDED TO MANY POSTINGS ON THIS SITE AND LOW AND BEHOLD , IT'S NO BETTER THAN GOING INTO CHAT ROOMS AND FINDING OUT THAT THE WOMEN YOU TALK TO ARE FAKE ,,, OR BOTS ,,, OR WANTING YOU TO PAY TO SEE THERE CAMS ... OR SOME OVERSEAS SCAM WHERE THEY SAY THEY LOVE YOU , LIKE IN 3 DAYS , THEN THEY WANT YOU TO SEND THEM MONEY ,,, WHAT THE HELL IS IT GONNA TAKE , FOR A GUY , THAT WORKS HIS ASS OFF ,, HAS ALOT TO OFFER , AND JUST WANTS TO FIND A REAL WOMAN , THAT WANTS TO BE LOVED AND ADORED AND TREATED LIKE SHE DESERVES ....

maybe it'll take not screaming your way through a personal ad. maybe it'll take calming the fuck down and retiring the internet as your means of finding someone. not that i think that it's a bad way - i've met many friends AND my current boyfriend via this marvelous thing which we call the world wide web (though not specifically craigslist), but if you're this hostile about your past experiences...perhaps it's time to move on. just a thought.

chocolate

2007-11-27T02:34:00.001-05:00

first: i love cats. i love my cat, i love all of the cats i owned before her, and i probably love your cat, too. cat people are defensive.

second: i'm watching more "sex and the city" on hbo on demand and it prompted me to google some theories and ideas. in my search, i discovered this, which i thought was interesting:

According to Dr. Crenshaw, oxytocin may indeed be the reason why women more than men tend to be "love junkies" or "the slaves of love."

Oxytocin and estradiol synergize to produce heightened sensitivity to touch. Apart from that, Dr. Crenshaw points out that little girls tend to get more cuddling, which generally produces a considerable degree of pleasure regardless of estrogen levels; as the girl gets older and parental cuddling gets less, she may suffer from oxytocin withdrawal.

click for source

puppy love

2007-11-26T00:07:00.000-05:00

why is it that, in movies, when women are single and lonely, they own a cat? why does the term "cat lady" exist? why cats? cats don't even need us. i saw something on animal planet a few months ago that said very little separates domesticated cats from wild cats and that's why it's so easy for them to survive on their own and multiply the way that they do. dogs, on the other hand, need lots of attention. they need cuddles and walks and they love it when you talk to them and they love to lick you. i know that it's impractical for someone with a small apartment to have, say, a german shepherd as a pet, but there are many breeds of smaller dogs that would be no more hassle in terms of care than a cat is. i've owned plenty of both; i know what i'm talking about. cats, big dogs, in between dogs, small dogs. parakeets, fish, gerbils...but i digress. anyway i just don't get the cat thing. i think in that situation, having only a cat would generally just make me lonelier.

so, basically i'm writing to say this: if i find myself desperate and alone one day, it will not be me and a cat. if i really think about it, i'm tempted to say that that scenario would only be an extension of the mindset that we only want what we can't have, or that certain people are only attracted to emotionally distant people. don't get me wrong - i like cats. but if anything, i'll be a dog lady. i need the kisses and the cuddles. i need to be needed. not to mention litterboxes: ew. that's just not right.

more soon.

tila your mom

2007-11-21T02:54:00.000-05:00

i really wanna just talk about tv. oh, but wait, movies too. okay. the other day i randomly caught this movie called "mr. jealousy" about this guy who's...jealous. actually lost one girlfriend in college because he wasn't spending enough time with her, due to the fact that he WAS spending so much time STALKING her ex-boyfriend. but the thing was, in the relationship that they focused on for the bulk of the movie, he actually did display pretty normal, chilled out behavior for the most part, but he totally ended up in a situation where the chick cheated on him with two different guys, both exes, and ultimately they broke up! and then they made him out to be the bad guy! i was so confused. just, like, watch that movie if you ever get a chance. it's eric stoltz and annabella sciorra.

okay. and then i watched that tila tequila show tonight and, like, first of all, if tila doesn't end up picking dani, can i get her number? because she's awesome. which kind of makes no sense because why is she on this show then. that's not to say that ellie (arlan's roommate, who appeared on the first episode) isn't awesome, because she is, but like...i don't know, just the fact that dani's still there suggests insanity, yet she seems so far from that. it's all very confusing. i'm gonna need to make charts. but see the thing is, i think amanda's cool, too. but every time they interview her, she talks about the show like it's a game. which it IS. but dani genuinely seems to take the emotional aspect of things seriously while at the same time appearing normal. i don't get it. anyway. so brandy (i don't know how her name is spelled so we're going with that) like never stops crying. she cried at elimination, after elimination, on her way back to the house, talking to tila, and then leaving the house. and she keeps saying she loves tila. look, i understand falling in love fast. but...seriously? i mean is she watching the show? has she been there? there have been like ten hundred other people around always and tila probably had to draw pictures and write their names on flash cards just to remember who they were. each of them got so little alone time with her, production has them playing all of these ridiculous games, and tila is the fakest bitch on earth. if brandy is/was really in love with tila, i feel that some therapy may be needed. and bobby, too. there is something WEIRD about bobby though. i can't put my finger on it. but did youguys see how the dudes cried when domenico left? haha. and i totally want a spin-off of this series called "dani and domenico" because they are the cutest.

do youguys watch "the hills"? how much do you hate heidi and spencer? especially spencer? seriously, how much? and how much of an idiot is justin bobby? i swear to god, spencer is like...if he is even a TENTH of the douchebag, asshole, dickwad that he appears to be on that show, that guy is the devil's direct spawn. SO gross and horrible. like, jesus christ. i can't even describe in words how much i hate this person on a reality show. it's the oddest thing ever. but have you SEEN him? what a psycho jerk.

i really needed to get all of that out of my system. there was no point but please leave comments if you have any thoughts or opinions because it's fun. and if i don't post again before thanksgiving, have a great one!

i didn't mean to make you cry

2007-11-20T05:54:00.000-05:00

i watched "i, robot" the other night. i was conflicted because i found myself rather drawn to the robot with the human-like, deep, blue eyes which was being taught to simulate emotions, but the very reason behind my theoretical, symbolic robot envy is that i am jealous that i feel so much while they feel nothing at all. that's a dilemma, folks. actually that's not a dilemma. a dilemma is when you have a problem, right, and there are different solutions, but they all suck. all of them. it's not just a regular old problem. it's a situation in which you must choose between the lesser of two evils. or among the least of...however many...evils...this has nothing to do with anything.

i'm sorry that i haven't been writing much lately. i have lots of reasons, all of which would bore you, i'm sure. anyway that movie was a trip, and i would totally analyze it more but to be honest with you, i didn't see the ending. so lemme watch it again and then we'll try that later.

how do you explain your emotions to someone? how do you explain to someone that it's necessary for you to cry sometimes, maybe more often than most people? everyone feels things differently. that's obvious, and it's also something i've covered here, many times. i was watching "the real world" on tivo earlier (i should have titled this blog "TELEVISION" instead of robot envy) and there's a guy in the house with a girlfriend back at home. they get into a silly argument on the phone because she calls him a nickname that he doesn't like. it's playful at first, and then suddenly he goes like...crazy and starts cursing at her and yelling and telling her to just stop saying it. she's totally shocked and confused and tries to talk to him, but he just keeps talking over her and yelling. she hangs up on him. he gets angry, goes out, gets drunk, whatever. the next day they're on the phone again and he tells her she shouldn't have hung up on him. she says he was being mean to her. he says he wasn't (he was, but regardless, i'm not a fan of hanging up on people, especially someone you love, when they're like literally on the other side of the world), and that she started the whole thing. they do a little arguing but it's not a major thing. they start to work it out. eventually she says, "i definitely cried a lot." and he just can't handle that. a minute later he asks her if she'll do one thing and promise that she won't cry anymore. she says that she can't promise that. he says he doesn't like it when she cries. she says she doesn't like it either. he says it hurts him more than it hurts her.

alright. she needed to release her emotions in that way. she wasn't crying to upset him, she was crying because she felt bad and she was overwhelmed. the whole conversation really struck a chord with me because i've encountered far too many people who've been so uncomfortable with emotions that i don't even know how to relate to them, and sometimes they even disappear from my life for good. it's easy for me to understand why he doesn't want her to cry. he feels guilty, and probably like her tears are unnecessary, and being the type of guy that this particular guy is, he has no idea how to react. but it's difficult for me to understand why he can't just accept her tears as her emotional release. i know at least some of you girls can relate when i say that it's a learned behavior of mine to hide my tears as often as possible, not to let people see me cry. not for the same stereotypical reasons that guys aren't "supposed" to cry - not because we feel or have been taught that it's a sign of weakness. but because we've had other people react to us in a fearful way when we've displayed a certain level of emotion. friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, maybe parents. i've learned that certain people interpret tears as manipulation. i've learned that certain people can't handle what they consider the responsibility of having "made" me cry. i just feel like i need to put it out there into the universe that nobody makes me cry but me. nobody makes me feel bad but me. as much as another person can be a factor in any way that you're feeling, you are always the one who ultimately decides how to handle it, even if, for the most part, your reaction is temporarily out of your control. i don't blame anyone for my feelings. i think that's a cop-out. but i do think that it's important to allow people the freedom of their own emotions. nobody likes to see anybody cry. it's sad, it hurts, and you feel helpless. we've all been there. but sometimes there is nowhere else for those feelings to go.

find whatever works for you. find whatever works for the people you love. if they need to be held, hold them. if they need to be tickled, do it, or left alone for a little while, respect it. but don't try to dictate the way that they exhibit their emotions. personally i need to know that someone cares enough about me not to make me feel that i have to hide an entire aspect of my personality. i've become afraid to argue because i don't believe that anyone feels i'm worth that. okay, maybe that's a whole other subject entirely. but my point is, allow others the freedom to be themselves. and allow yourself the same.

if we can't be vulnerable, we can't be loved.

a shot at sucking really hard

2007-11-14T02:30:00.000-05:00

i'm suddenly and terribly hooked on these ridiculous, trashy reality dating shows on mtv and vh1 right now. tonight i was watching "a shot at love with tila tequila" (which i do boycott in theory for a number of reasons) and during the elimination scene, they cut to an interview with the "italian" guy and he says that he hopes he isn't sent home, because he doesn't feel that he's had enough of a chance to really show who he is. it caused me to have the lamest of lame revelations (lame based on the source that brought on the revelation, i mean): that's how i've been approaching relationships for years.

i try so hard. almost like i'm selling myself. i always feel that it's inevitable that i will be left in the end, so at the very least i try to make the other person realize what he'll be giving up. i guess maybe it's my way of controlling things. i can't control the way that other people feel and behave, but i can control the way that i go about things. the only problem is, that's a terrible way of doing it. it doesn't allow me to live in the moment or enjoy the good things. it's just that i worry so much that i'm oblivious to situations, since i've been dropped so quickly so many times. it's hard not to develop a defense mechanism. (and it certainly doesn't help that even from the beginning of my last relationship, my ex would regularly make completely serious remarks about how it was going to have to end sometime. why even get into a relationship if you're literally PLANNING to break up from the very start? but i digress.) to be honest, this isn't something that i've only just come to realize. it was just that tonight, while watching the grossest of all gross dating shows, i actually...related. that shit is NOT real; i think we all know that, which is what makes this so sad to me. i have been approaching my love life like a dating show: cramming as much into the relationship as i can in the shortest possible amount of time because i don't believe i'll have the chance to allow things to develop naturally. but since identifying this issue, i've made a point of NOT repeating past negative thoughts and behaviors. it doesn't always work; i'm human and sometimes i slip up. sometimes i'm annoying, or too anxious, and sometimes i cry. but only time will tell how things turn out. and that has to be okay.

on another/related/stupid note, i'm totally bummed that midget mac was eliminated from "i love new york 2." and i'm even more bummed that i missed that episode. and just as a SIDE note, i know that i should not be watching reality tv because i do support the writers' strike. but my tivo, man...it's lonely. cold and lonely. one more episode of "the office." ONE MORE. i just...

hi, my name is sarah, and i am addicted to television.

you're my favorite person on earth

2007-11-09T01:48:00.000-05:00

i'm going to start off by telling you to read my friend rachel's journal, i'm addicted to words. she's an absolutely beautiful writer and arlan recently featured something that she wrote in this entry on yourdailylesbianmoment. ditto to arlan's comments about it, by the way. i couldn't have said it better myself.

they say actions speak louder than words, right? that's definitely true. but the thing is, i like words. a lot. words can lose their meanings, though. when someone says the same thing to you, over and over, you can start to tune them out. parents and significant others and anyone else with whom we spend significant time can start sounding like wind-up dolls; the same five phrases over and over and over again. when i was little i had a pee-wee herman wind-up doll. you'd pull the string on his back and he'd say, like, "i know what you are but what am i?" and...other stuff. i guess i wore him out because eventually if you just pulled the string and let it go, he would talk at super speed and in order to understand him you would have to hold the string while he talked and let go a little at a time, to slow it down. i know he was just a broken doll, but it seemed a good metaphor for when you're so sure of what someone's going to say, it starts to not even make any sense anymore. but we take actions for granted, too.

i like to give. i'm a generous person. i mean, don't get me wrong, i'm a taker too. i grew up a spoiled only child and i don't find it difficult to accept gifts or favors or compliments. but i was taught, by example, to give everything you have to other people. my family (i was raised by both of my parents and my maternal grandparents) certainly never had to, or tried to, buy my love. i got so many hugs and kisses and i love you's that i really consider myself the luckiest girl in the world. consequently, i'm quite comfortable with my emotions, i find it easy to verbally express myself, and i'm very affectionate. but i love giving people things, too. i just do. nothing ever seems enough. when i love you, i'll walk through fire for you. my family definitely had its problems but i grew up in an environment of unconditional love, and that is the only kind that i know how to give.

it's hard for so many people to accept things. compliments, love, gifts, favors...i respect that. but it hurts me to see people doing that because they don't think they're worth it. i don't know. the reason i'm generally so quick to accept other people's generosity is that i know that if things were flipped, i would do the same. maybe that's an entirely different subject, but that's how it is. it's how and why i operate the way that i do. honestly i often find myself saying or feeling that i give too much. cliche, i know. oh, the woman who gave too much; who loved too much. too much. is there really such a thing? i just wish that i could explain to people that this is me, and while i don't wish to be ignored or taken advantage of, this is not a mind game. if only i could be myself without putting pressure on other people. i don't know if there's anything that i can do about that, though. it's too hard to hold back. i have too much to give. i was given SO much myself, enough for five lifetimes. it is my joy and my burden. much like pepsi.

if you look up the word "emo" on uh...urbandictionary (or whatever, just go with it), there is a picture of my sad, black eyeliner wearing face. a single tear streaming down my cheek. youguys remember that sketch they did on saturday night live in the 90's of bob dole in the real world house and he overheard the other roommates talking about how much he sucked and then he cried one tear? that was funny. emo bob dole.

and on that strange note, good night.

live laugh love

2007-11-08T04:36:00.000-05:00

when i was 14, a woman who worked the concession stand at a movie theater in new york called me "sir." i was 5'2", long curly hair, wearing a floral shirt, and clearly female. she said, "can i help you, sir?" that's weird. i think we can all agree on that. but for the past...i don't know, five years or so, people have been calling me ma'am. now, as we've established, i am female. so i guess, technically, this is acceptable and appropriate. but i remember seeing a stand-up routine once, declaring that hearing someone call you "ma'am" feels like hearing someone call you "bitch." or, more specifically, "old bitch." it doesn't have a flattering ring to it. "sir" (provided you are speaking to a male) has a nice, dignified feel. my boyfriend and i discussed this the other day while we were at the grocery store and the people behind the meat counter kept calling him sir. i started to ask him...something, and he immediately said, "yeah, no, it's totally weird. every time." and i get it. he mostly felt that way because the dude calling him sir was definitely older than him. but we did agree that in general, sir just sounds much better than ma'am. what's that about? i could go on and on about this, obviously, but i'd rather just end it seinfeld-style if you don't mind. discuss.

aaanyway. speaking of time passing and people assuming you're old even though you are getting older but that's not the point, it's interesting to notice the way that each relationship we have changes us. friendships, romantic relationships, whatever. on the one hand, we have the opportunity to learn so much from our experiences, and on the other, so much damage is potentially done. i'm gonna quote some erykah badu lyrics now:

bag lady, you gon' hurt your back
draggin' all them bags like that
i guess nobody ever told you
all you must hold onto is you

one day all them bags gon' get in your way
so pack light

bag lady, you gon' miss your bus
you can't hurry up
'cause you got too much stuff

one day, he gon' say, "you crowding my space"
so pack light

girl i know sometimes it's hard
and you can't let go
oh when someone hurts you oh so bad inside
you can't deny it, you can't stop crying
if you start breathin', then you won't believe it
you'll feel so much better, so much better baby

let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go
betcha love can make it better
- "bag lady"

sometimes i notice that when i'm not doing particularly well emotionally and i feel like i can't control anything, it's because i haven't been listening to enough erykah. i won't even START about her because then i'll never stop, but i believe that she is good for the soul. and this song, regardless of how much i did/do not want it to be, has been my theme song for far too long now. i wondered when i would be able to let go; to stop letting my old baggage affect my new relationships and to stop blaming new people for past people who've hurt me. i thought it would be so difficult that it would take me years. and i'm not saying that i'm cured of that. we live and we learn; we live and we get hurt and we cry and sometimes we fuck up. but it's okay to fuck up. it's okay to BE fucked up. you just have to recognize your own personal hang-ups and keep yourself in check. i've accumulated insecurities and issues in the past year or so that i NEVER had before. i can't blame that entirely on one or two or three people, but every experience shapes me. i saw "why did i get married" recently and one of the characters is left by her husband who treated her terribly, only to later get together with and marry a wonderful man who treats her the way that she deserves to be treated. a year or so later, she sees her ex-husband and he doesn't understand why she has forgiven him, since he's realized how badly he treated her. her response is that she had to, because if she hadn't, she would take it out on her new husband and he is way too good for that.

ultimately we're all responsible for ourselves. no one can "fix" us. no other person can make us love ourselves more, or be less afraid, or be more secure or less angry. but i am learning one thing: the good ones stick around. the ones who are worth it, they stick around. and it becomes easier and easier to separate things. and eventually? you'll stop holding onto the old shit. because if you don't let go, you can't embrace the new. and at least in my case, the new is way too good to let anything get in the way of that. i want to be happy. that seems so obvious, right? but i don't know if i ever did before. try saying that out loud, not feeling sorry for yourself, not in a longing way. just in a very matter of fact manner. i WANT to be happy.

let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go.

i get it from my mama

2007-11-05T02:36:00.000-05:00

my mom is a great writer. she hasn't really written anything in a long time but i have been encouraging her to for as long as i can remember. last night i mentioned that, you know, mommy, you can have a blog. anybody can. so now she does.

my mom has a lot of things to say and she's the smartest person i know. i'm so happy that she has a forum in which to share all of her thoughts and ideas. so please read her blog and leave her some love. she's got one post up so far and lots of drafts just waiting in the wings. click the link and check her out: You Ignorant Sluts (title's explained in the description, don't worry, ha). she's also the second blog link over there to your right. --->

this is my 50th post youguys! i've now been writing here since july. it feels great and i love coming here and expressing myself and getting feedback from all of you. as a writer it's been a tremendous help in getting back into the habit of writing regularly again, and being a creative (i do use that term loosely, but you know, it's all relative, i suppose) person, i need the outlet. youguys will buy my novel when it comes out, right? ;)

more soon...

p.s: thanks to everyone who participated in arlan's uh...ELEVEN, wait no, TWELVE, webchats earlier. it was nice talking to youguys! i'll be back for them as often as i can. :)

i needed you that day, too

2007-11-04T06:29:00.000-05:00

i was watching "i think i love my wife" last night. one of the characters decided that another was too limited in his taste in music and insisted that they swap ipods for a period of time. my initial reaction was, NOOOOOOO DON'T LET GO OF THE IPOOOOODDDD! IT'S YOUR IPOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDD! but then i got over my initial panic and realized what a nice idea it was. music is my life. my ipod is my soundtrack (for the most part). how cool would that be to get inside someone's head in that way, and vice versa, for just a little while, and maybe feel what it's like to see things through their ears? maybe rain looks different, listening to kanye rather than madonna, or foo fighters rather than tegan and sara. maybe you just needed the perfect song so that you don't go CRAZY riding the subway, and you didn't even know that it existed until you popped those earphones in.

on another note, since i have been talking about love here a little bit lately, i was thinking that it might be a good time to promote margaret cho's marriage equality site, loveisloveislove.com. margaret is an incredible human rights advocate and activist. her empathy for people is so deep and strong, and i am constantly humbled by her selflessness and her fearlessness. i consider her heroic in the most basic and honest senses of the word, and regardless of her comedy career, no matter what you feel about the way she goes about expressing herself in performance, it is undeniable that she is an extraordinary human being. and so i urge you to visit that site, and also her official site, margaretcho.com. if nothing else, make a point to read her blog. if you're not inspired, then i simply don't know what to do with you. ;) if you wanna take it a step further, i highly, HIGHLY recommend her book i have chosen to stay and fight.

thank you, all of you, for your continued love and support. and if you're free at 2pm PST today, be sure to join arlan for her live webchat. i'm sure you can find out the details on her blog. i was there last night and i'll try to be again tomorrow. good stuff, boys and girls. good stuff.

what's simple is true

2007-11-02T04:56:00.000-04:00

one of my best friends is getting married next year, and today...er, yesterday (oh, insomnia), i went with her to browse some wedding bands. towards the end of our visit to the jewelry store, i had the sales people size my ring finger because when i was in high school and i was sized for my class ring, they said i was a size 5, but that ring was always way too big for me. i have had my suspicions for eight years now and it turns out i was right - i am not a 5! i am barely a 4, even. which apparently means that if i ever wanted a ring for that finger that would actually fit me, i would need to have it special ordered. moral of the story: i have freakishly small fingers. not that i want large fingers, but it just makes me feel, like...lame. like i have tiny child fingers. hmm. oh well. this was an interesting paragraph.

i've been trying to avoid talking about it, but i've been thinking a lot about love lately. i know i posted about it recently but it's still on my mind quite a bit. it's just so interesting to me because it means something different to everyone, but ultimately it really is all that there is to anything. i think that there should be as much love going around as possible. i don't think people should be so afraid to say "i love you" because life is too short and you never know what's going to happen tomorrow. it's three words that are so not a big deal but they can be just because of this huge issue if, say, it wasn't something you were used to hearing growing up, or you've been burned badly in the past. it just takes on this whole force of its own, like, it's not that hard to love, but to let your guard down like that can be so difficult. just speaking the words. why are we so afraid of being loved? it's a good thing. why are we so afraid to say it? to anyone, really. i'm not even just talking romantically here. my brain has been all over this subject lately, for many reasons. my life is very different now than it was even a few years ago, and it causes me to re-evaluate matters pretty regularly. but the thing is, something as sweet and as necessary and as HUMAN as love shouldn't be analyzed. it shouldn't be. i say it a good 10 times a day, whether it's to my mother or my pets or my friends, and i mean it so deeply every time the words come out of my mouth yet it somehow is not that big of a deal because without love, what are we? what are we doing? you know? i feel love, i express love, i am love. it's so easy yet so scary, because it hurts when it's taken away, whether it's someone taking back their words or leaving your life forever. but in the end, you should be free to say how you feel and everyone has the right to know that they are loved.

i feel like bursting into song! :)

aaaaaaaanyway. where the hell do i go from there? heavy, heavy, heavy.

"intervention" starts a new season on monday. i love that. "project runway" is back soon. loving it. and although i wish it weren't necessary, i also love sleep. so i bid you adieu; be well, love hard, y vuelve a mi. ciao, my darlings.

dear valued guests...

2007-11-01T04:26:00.000-04:00

don't youguys like how the opening of that tila tequila show on mtv is a clip from one of her...videos(?) and she's going, "believe me when i tell you this: if you ever leave me, i'll kill you"? yeah that's not creepy or fucked at all, is it? especially given the nature of the show. but let's not get into that.

sorry if anyone was frightened or scarred by yesterday's post. everyone realizes that i didn't write the italicized stuff, right? it's just one of those things that you read or see and you can't contain all of the information yourself, you just have to share it. so you're welcome.

i've fully come to and embraced the realization that i am meant to work with words and animals. i'm not meant to have people in my face constantly; i just don't have the knack for dealing with that. i am good at expressing thoughts and feelings to other people in order to relate and connect with them, not appeasing every asshole who crosses my path. i can sit and have a 30 minute conversation with a dog, but if you put a child in front of me, not a thought comes to mind. i don't have a clue what to say to them. it really does make me feel crazy, because everyone around me, in practically every situation, has something to say to just about anyone. they know the kinds of questions to ask, how to avoid awkwardness, and are often genuinely interested in including strangers in activities. i'll be honest: i'm not. i mean i have my moments, of course, and it's not that i'm terrible at interacting with people because when put in a group of shy types, i can be very loud and outgoing. and when people get upset, i know how to calm them down. but generally...i just...i feel so out of place. really misunderstood. i'm not really going anywhere with this, i just thought that i would share. sometimes sharing is good, see?

oh well. hopefully someone can relate to that. i'm all out for tonight. er, this morning, i guess. more soon, promise.

somebody's watching me

2007-10-31T02:05:00.000-04:00

i totally probably shouldn't be doing this but youguys...i have to. i belong to a community on a certain website which will not be named and the subject is women's health. this was posted there recently:

[EDIT: just to clarify, i DID NOT write the following]

I've been trying to get the guts to have sex with my boyfriend. When I finally decided I am compeltely ready things went bad.

I'm a virgin, and I do not touch myself. He is the first boy to ever touch me and hes only been touching me for oh say 4 months? But, we've been dateing 5.

Today I planned to have sex untill I noticed I have to stretch my god damn vagina out. So, he decieded he'd put one finger in a at a time. But, first he'd lick my vagina so it'd be super dooper wet [can't complain about that!] anyways, so the first few times he just licked away and then stuck a finger up there. Then we deiced to stick TWO fingers up there, this was not working because it hurt to bad and didn't let him get far at all. Then we left and went some place, when we got back we tried again, this time he got two fingers in up untill his knuckle, you know not the knuckle on the hand the one in the finger. [he says his penis equals about 2.5 fingers, I asked] ANYWAYS, after we couldn't get them in ALL THE WAY, he decided we should try putting one finger in and moving it around, this was alright the second time but didn't go so well the first time.

anyways, i'm just dyeing to have sex with him.
he was turning me on REALLY bad today.

does any one have any advice as to what 'we' should do to stretch my vagina out? [bceause, i suppose this is necessary if i want to have sex with him, yes?]

and please don't tell me i have to touch myself, because I won't.
and, i'm not sticking any thing up there that isn't his finger or penis ,thats weird.

i am not going to comment on this. it just is what it is. i can't handle it and i've run out of friends that i can read it to. so. enjoy.

moving on...um...happy halloween! i've done nothing to celebrate this year so far so tomorrow night (technically tonight), the plan is for me and the bf to watch a classic scary movie. i haven't seen most of them so choosing one shouldn't be hard. i also want to wear a costume and eat candy while doing that. so i may have to pick up a mask or something on my way over to his house. any suggestions?

thanks for the christmas related comments! they made me especially happy. because i love christmas. you know, like i said. i really do. i'm like an elf or like...clark griswold. you really wanna spend christmastime with me. trust me. if you ever get a chance, do it. i will SO be merry and jolly with you. and i have santa hats, like, to SPARE.

ANYWAY. so i briefly mentioned the hbo series "tell me you love me" in an earlier post. i can't decide how i feel about the actual show but i started watching and then i became invested in the characters, even the ones i don't like (which is...all of them now), just because i wanted to find out what happened. it's mainly about three couples and their relationship problems. two of the couples are married, and it's just gotten really fucking depressing. i'm not sure what the point of the show even is anymore because it's almost like they're trying to tell you that once you get married, everything goes to shit. actually, no. really what the message seems to be is that once you get married and you either have kids or start trying to have kids or get pregnant, everything goes to shit. the only couple on the show who's happy is the elderly couple, and they don't have any kids. the woman in that marriage is the sex/relationship therapist to the others. if youguys have ever seen this show, i'm really interested in hearing your thoughts about it.

i'm afraid that's all i've got for you right now. i have to get up in a matter of hours and i'm not feeling particularly analytical at the moment. but as always, and as i just mentioned, your comments are welcome. i'd love to hear anything and everything youguys would like to share about relationships, your...feelings, that tv show...holidays! anything. thank you so much for reading, again. it means the world to me.

p.s: read jessica's blog. always!

regarding mistletoe...

2007-10-30T04:26:00.000-04:00

i just want to remind everyone again that you don't have to have a blogger account to post comments here. you can check "other" and then type in your name, or you can choose the "anonymous" option. people have been asking me about it again so i just wanted to clarify. if you want to comment, you can! comment one, comment all.

sometimes it's difficult for me to write here because of the nature of my blog. i'm only good at writing what i know, and there's quite a bit of me here. at the same time, this is not my personal diary - i am writing for an audience, so i try to remain somewhat detached while still pulling from my own thoughts, ideas and experiences. when my brain is too cluttered with overwhelming thought; my heart too full of overwhelming emotion, i can find it hard to come here and just throw out ideas without making it too personal. this is my explanation to you as to why i'm not here writing every single day, though i want to be.

it's starting to get cold. at night and in the mornings, at least. i was driving at 7:30 yesterday morning and it was still getting light, and i was so frozen because my heat hadn't kicked in yet that i practically stuck in my hunched over the steering wheel position. i think i pulled a few muscles. i love warm weather and i love sunshine, but the cold reminds me that the holidays are near. i love christmas. i love christmas movies, christmas trees, the lights at the zoo, snow, hot chocolate, buying presents, getting presents, going christmas shopping at the mall while choirs sing carols or christmas music plays. santa claus scares me but i find comfort in knowing he's there while i'm shopping; children lined up and crying and taking pictures. makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. i love candy canes and i love stirring them into my hot chocolate to make it minty. i like reindeer. i love spending christmas eve with my family because it's the one thing we've ALWAYS done together, every single year of my life. i used to love spending the holidays with my friends, too, but that's more complicated these days now that everyone's spread out, drifted apart, and in relationships. i understand though. i'm just waiting for my chance to sit by a fire or a christmas tree while "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" plays softly and i cuddle with my boy. i'm getting too personal again, i know, but christmas...i just live for christmas. every year i say i'm going to put christmas lights inside my car, hang candy canes, and play christmas carols throughout the entire holiday season. this may be the year.

but most people i know - maybe not most, but certainly a significant amount - find christmas stressful. depressing, even. some of them dread it. this is something that i don't understand. sure, christmas is different now. my grandparents and my aunt and uncle are gone. my father is gone. i'm not spoiled with an entire livingroom full of gifts and my mom isn't lying next to me on christmas eve, urging me to hurry up and get to sleep or santa won't come. but i refuse to let christmas lose its magic. there's something about being inside a warm house with people you love when you know it's freezing outside that's so comforting. and i have good christmas memories. last year i cried on christmas. i cried because someone disappointed me. i cried because i wanted things so badly to be perfect but there's only so much that any one person can control. i set myself up. so this year i think i'll only have christmas wishes instead of expectations. and a gingerbread house would be nice.

i'm kind of like the department stores that already have the christmas displays up. sorry about that. i'll try not to write too much more about christmas until at least the week of thanksgiving. :) oh but one more thing: the best holiday song is sarah silverman's "give the jew girl toys." look into it.

mary-kate & ashley olsen

2007-10-27T03:47:00.000-04:00

did you know that you could do that? just cancel your relationship? like it's a rained out soccer game or a tv show? that's from facebook. i notice other people's relationship status changes and i saw an interesting combination tonight that i didn't realize was possible, so i went to the "edit" section of my profile to check it out and saw that. really i just wanted other people to ponder its absurdity along with me. i don't have much to say about it here.

regarding sex and the city: i KNOW they are making a movie. i KNOW that the show ended a few years ago. i KNOW that pretty much everyone who cares that they're making a movie has seen the entire series, or at least knows how it ended. i haven't, and i DON'T. i am catching up now. i did not like this show when it originally aired. it's NOW that i watch it. i don't know what happens in the end. i do not appreciate US and people magazine publishing photos from the set, spoiling things for me. i do not appreciate my mom telling me who is going to be in it (aside from the four main actresses, of course). i realize that i have no right to be this angry about it. i just need it to be generally known. DON'T TELL ME ANYTHING. about the show, or the movie. ANYTHING. thanks.

i know this is an odd, random entry, and i'm sorry. i'll try harder, i promise. but just one more thing: if the following means anything to you...

just to be clear - fuck you, fuck you, and fuck. you. have a great day! go fuck yourself.

...yeah, it was me.

otherwise, i love you madly and i'll miss you until we meet again.

dark & twisty

2007-10-25T07:17:00.000-04:00

you know what i like about "private practice"? it's not as intense as grey's anatomy. the characters are generally older. no irritating voiceovers. lots of addison, and not TOO much, which i was worried about. there CAN be too much of a good thing. that said, i don't think i'll care if it's cancelled. but for now i am enjoying it. yeah, i really just wrote a paragraph about that.

[random side note: my boyfriend and i were looking through a local paper last week and he flipped through the classifieds. we happened upon the specific part that was the equivalent of craigslist's "missed connections." it said something like, "hey doris, rose died. i'm single again..."]

i've been thinking a lot about a comment that someone left me here on the blog in response to my post about people not being able to accept love. she actually referenced grey's anatomy. the basic sentiment was that most people who aren't able to accept love don't feel that they deserve it, and they tend to close themselves off because they're certain that the more the other person gets to know them, the more they'll realize how fucked up they are and then they'll leave. i think that most people feel that way to an extent. obviously some more than others. but when it comes down to it, if they're worth it, they'll listen. and if it's meant to be, they'll accept it and hopefully even understand. and then they'll stay.

that's not to say that i don't understand people holding back to a certain degree in the beginning of a relationship. this is a concept that i've only recently come to embrace. i don't think it's a necessity, but for some people it's just natural, and for others, it's...safe. personally i'm pretty much an open book, but think about it: the best books you read slowly, savoring every page. you read them bit by bit because you don't want them to be over. of course, books do eventually come to an end, and so do people's lives, for that matter, but this isn't really a good analogy because people generally live longer than it takes for the average person to read a fucking book. but you get where i'm going with this i think. with a person, there is always something more to learn. and my favorite books? i read them over and over...and over again. hopefully that made some kind of sense to somebody.

speaking of books, i need some new ones. and now i'm thinking about christmas which means i can't write anymore right now. visions of reindeer and candy canes are dancing in my head. (i love christmas. like, in a rabid way.)

one nocturnal son of a gun

2007-10-23T03:03:00.000-04:00

i know i've been a bad blog mother. but i bought you a gift. no, take it. no really! take it. TAKE IT! ISN'T THAT NICE?? I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN, I SWEAR.

when i write here i like to explore ideas and i need to be inspired. right now i'm trying to clear my head a little, so this is going to be a very short one.

1) i was watching "californication" tonight. becca, the 12 (13?) year old daughter on the show, decides to move in with her dad, hank (david duchovny), and her mother is very sad about this. when she drops becca off, she is visibly upset and crying. becca refers to her mother as "highly emotional," to which hank replies, "all the good ones are."
to this, i reply: thank you for the validation, hank.

2) read lori's newest post. most of the things she talks about i can relate to right now, and i've been thinking about those things and dealing with them for a while. that post brought me sadness and comfort.

until next time, you will be missed...

p.s: alright i'm officially in love with the salt 'n pepa show.

feel my heart beating

2007-10-20T05:20:00.000-04:00

you know what i don't like about "grey's anatomy"? there is rarely a resolution. like when izzie wholeheartedly apologized to callie and callie said the most horrible things to her (me = aware that the previous combination of words is a fragment). cheating is wrong, and callie has every reason to be hurt and angry as hell, but it's not just about that. every time someone pours their heart out on that show, it's met with total bitchery and coldness. i know they try to be realistic and to not tie everything up with a perfect little ribbon, but it's not like there's much realistic about that show otherwise anyway. and the way they talk to each other is starting to make me hate every single character. alright, that's my rant about that. moving on.

i want to talk about love. it means something different to everyone. it really does. personally i don't think the word should be just thrown around constantly, because love does mean something and shouldn't be taken lightly. but more than that, i believe that people should be more open to it - feeling it and accepting it - and that you should love as deeply and as often as life and your heart allow.

so. scenario: caroline has rarely or never been in love, and is hesitant and uncomfortable saying "i love you" to other people - significant others, friends; even family. ralph is dating caroline. ralph knows that caroline has difficulty expressing love, so when she one day declares her love for ralph, he is ecstatic. his heart melts; he cries happy tears. maybe he feels that caroline's expression of love was especially meaningful since she doesn't normally share that so easily.

here's another scenario. ginger is a very open, warm-hearted, affectionate person who not only feels love often but she says it, too. to her family, her friends, and her significant others. she is dating johnny. johnny notices this about ginger. he either especially likes it or he's neutral but thinks she's awesome either way; whatever. but they date for a while and one day ginger looks into johnny's eyes and tells him that she loves him. he's happy but not surprised, necessarily.

okay here's my point. here's my question. does caroline's love mean more than ginger's? should it be more appreciated? i'm willing to bet that "love" means something different to each of these four fictional characters. should people be encouraged/forced to come up with what exactly their idea of love is and choose carefully when deciding to whom they should share/declare it before saying the words? there is no right or wrong answer, obviously. it's just something that i think about sometimes. and if you were once with someone and you felt love, whatever it means to you or meant to you at the time, and you said "i love you," and now you question whether or not it was REALLY love, does that mean...that it wasn't? SHOULD you question that? caroline would. i was once a caroline in that sense. i feel i've evolved into a ginger. i'm not saying that caroline is bad; everyone is different. everyone's had different experiences and everyone feels things differently. but what's the point in questioning your past feelings? and what's the point in holding in the way that you feel? don't get me wrong: i don't think you should tell someone that you love them if you don't mean it, especially in a romantic relationship. but if you feel it, i think you should say it. and i think you should say it a lot. that's my own personal preference there, that last thing. but i guess what i'm trying to say is, don't analyze it. don't take it back. ultimately love is all we have. it's all we need, if you will. to quote the oh so wise dr. bailey from grey's anatomy, when questioned as to why someone would do something so extreme as starving themselves to keep a boyfriend: "because people are stupid, and they just want to be loved." or something like that.

all of that said, i've had two people tell me they were in love with me, and they both eventually took it back. i don't know if either of them meant it in the first place or not. when someone takes back their love (how do you even DO that?), it hurts. it fucking hurts. falling out of love is one thing, but telling someone that you never felt it to begin with is quite another. so i guess if you need to do that analysis, i mean if it's going to save the other person, or you, that much pain if you don't, then do it. but don't be afraid to say what you mean, when you mean it. and now all that i can think about is the scene in "knocked up" when paul rudd and seth rogen go to vegas and get high on mushrooms and go back to the hotel room and have that ridiculous conversation about their girls, specifically the part when paul has his revelation that the biggest problem in his marriage is that his wife loves him so much, she wants to be with him all the time. he starts crying, and then goes on to say that he can't accept her love. and then seth is all, "you can't accept LOVE??" and proceeds to berate him, since that is all he wants from his girlfriend and she won't give it to him and it makes him sad every day. it's the funniest fucking scene ever, but it really strikes a chord with me. i know people who have trouble accepting love. that hurts me to see. as mario once said, "you should let me love you." but why isn't it that easy?

your thoughts on the matter are desired and cherished.

strong enough

2007-10-16T06:21:00.000-04:00

i'm finishing "mad love" on showtime on demand. i've probably seen it five times or so. it makes me think of that kirsten dunst movie "crazy/beautiful." in both movies the girls are mentally ill and the guys haven't known them long but fall head over heels in love, and they'll do anything to stay with them and make sure that they're okay, despite all of the things that they go through and put them through in the process. i know that this is a completely sexist thing to...wonder, but how realistic is that? guys can't seem to even put up with your average, run of the mill "crazy," much less a severe mental condition. i was watching "my super ex-girlfriend" last night, and yeah, it's a silly, fantasy comedy deal, but beyond uma thurman's character being a superhero, she's also deemed crazy. and luke wilson's character is known to attract only "crazy" women. and yes, it offended me a little. where are all the crazy guy movies? where are they? i guess i'm kind of flipping it here because most "crazy" guy movies involve stalking or murder. and i guess movies like "fatal attraction" and "single white female" exist as well, which certainly don't fall into the category of light and looney. so i don't know; these are just things that i wonder. i guess i just watch a scene like the one in mad love where drew barrymore's character is collapsed on the ground sobbing and her boyfriend is holding her and assuring her that everything will be okay, and i hope that when i get that way i can have someone there for me who doesn't decide the next day that it's time to get as far away from me as possible. i'm not attempting suicide or stealing cars or putting up magazine faces on walls for "protection," but i do cry. and guys don't like that. they don't - ask them. i'm not saying it necessarily makes them go away, but they really hate to see girls cry. they either don't know how to handle it or they feel responsible - or both - even if it has nothing to do with them. but this is a tip for any guys out there who can relate to what i'm saying and have found themselves in that situation: just hold us. tomorrow everything will be okay. we just need to know that we're safe and that we're not alone.

i want to tell you something, my blog friends. i don't like to hold shit in. i don't feel like crying every day. generally, in fact, i feel pretty good. i am a glass half full, optimistic, fun-loving kind of girl, even if my idea of fun falls more along the lines of coffee and conversation than doing shots and dancing on the bar (though the latter can be fun, too, minus the actual dancing on the bar thing...do girls really do that?). but i'm often too afraid to cry or open my heart to a guy that i'm seeing for fear of scaring him away. and i'll tell you one thing, that does no one any good. all that does is leave you (me) feeling alone when you're (i'm) with him, and also alone when you're (i'm) not. and it causes all of this emotion to build up that may eventually come out in the wrong form. it's just fucking unhealthy, is what i'm saying. and i don't think it's fair that we're led to feel that if we express our emotions, we run the risk of losing our guys. all i'm saying is that i want to be real. but movies like mad love and crazy/beautiful are not that fucking realistic.

i guess what i'm doing is equating mental illness with general emotion, and they're not the same thing. maybe i shouldn't do that. i'm just trying to make a point, i guess. and i absolutely describe myself as emotional, but i've learned over the past couple of years that to many people, and not only guys, this means moody, unstable, and constantly weeping and/or screaming. i think that's sad. i am an emotional person due to the fact that i am very much in touch with my emotions. i feel many things, both good and bad, and i feel them deeply and often. i feel them within myself, for other people, and about...LIFE. i laugh hard. i cry hard. i smile big. when i'm angry, i express it, but i'd rather have an unassuming, rational conversation than yell. all of these things are true of me. i'm not bipolar, i don't suffer from frequent and severe mood swings. i just feel things deeply. i allow that for myself, and i like to express it. and there is nothing wrong with that. i promise i won't bite...unless you want me to. ;)

(jaykay)

the most random of all random

2007-10-14T20:22:00.000-04:00

who loves cell phones? i do! it's that time of year again when lots of new phones are getting ready to come out, just in time for christmas. i'm getting jumpy. i like my phone a lot, but there's a new sidekick coming out, there's a new INTERNATIONAL blackberry for verizon; a new touch screen LG for verizon that should be out soon as well. if the internet browser deal was better on my phone, i would be content. but at the same time, you can't beat five bucks a month (for internet) and a 2.0 megapixel camera. so i'm going to stop bitching.

okay i have a question for youguys. what should i be for halloween? for the past few years, i've spent like 11 months out of the year saying, "i'm going to be _____ for halloween this/next year!" and then it comes around and not only do i not dress up, but i don't even celebrate. sometimes it's my choice, sometimes it's not. last year we were in new york celebrating my friend alix's birthday and birthday fun totally took over. but this year...i want to wear a costume, damnit. here are just a few of the many ideas i've accumulated over the past few years:

garth from "wayne's world"
beavis
robot (i've considered all different kinds; help me narrow it down!)
grapes
ipod
cell phone
vampire

input is much appreciated. seriously.

i'm really not a big fan of halloween, to be honest. that's mostly because it's during fall, which is my least favorite time of year. BUT, i do love the holiday season, and dontcha know that as soon as halloween's over, everybody seems to be in holiday mode. so if i get to dress up and eat lots of candy in anticipation of that, i'm down. i may even go to a haunted house this year. any excuse to drink hot chocolate, really. ;)

on a completely unrelated note, does anyone watch the new hbo show "tell me you love me"? the long and short of it is...mostly unattractive people, quite a bit of sex, not a lot of dialogue. lots of mom jeans. anybody watch it? can we discuss this?

gravity

2007-10-14T03:02:00.000-04:00

it has been WAY too long since i've seen "intervention." every time i search the guide for it, it is nowhere to be found. but just now i searched and two episodes came up! they air tomorrow! i'm psyched. that's really all i wanted to say about that. i was having intervention withdrawal. poor choice of words, sure, but the truth is the truth. IT'S THE TRUTH!

i am really jumpy and bored and not tired, despite the fact that it's 3am. i took a late afternoon/early evening nap and now i am wide awake. i am so desperately bored that i'm watching "just my luck" on hbo comedy for like the 14th time. i should not have taken a nap. sure, i was tired at the time, but that exhaustion really would have been more useful, like, uh...now. and to make matters worse, i don't really have anything i'd like to blog about. okay that's not true. but timing is a bitch.

i hope this is alright to do and i hope that if it's not, someone will let me know. there is someone very talented on myspace who wrote a blog a few months back that i believe was either deleted or is just...no longer available to read because i can't find it, but i saved it because it was exactly what i needed to hear at the time. i'd like to quote just a small part of it because i think it's so true and i hope she doesn't mind that i'm pasting her words here. just to be clear, i DID NOT write the following...

i think men are better at relationships. they manage to keep their independence, focus on their work, their hobbies, their desires, their friendships, so much better than women generally do. Women, on the other hand, get so wrapped up in the other person's life that they sacrifice their friendships, let their work suffer, and forget to brush their hair.

...but i wish i had. i have so many dreams and plans, and i WILL accomplish them all, but i love to love. i love to BE loved, i love to hug, to be held, to have someone to take care of, with whom to share my dreams and plans and my ups and downs...the list goes on. everyone ultimately wants that, i guess. and it's hard not to focus on it when you're with someone, especially someone wonderful, who deserves the focus and the desire and the attention. so how do i silence my fear of losing that? i don't want to be too caught up in anything to put my all into a good relationship. i also don't want to be considered lame for my relationship focus being TOO strong, in the sense that i neglect other things. i need to find that balance. for the first time in my life i know that right now, i NEED to find that balance. because, yes, my friends, i have a boyfriend. a sweet, smart, funny, fun, affectionate, adorable, awesome boyfriend who sees me for who i am and LIKES it. and i'm happy. and i do.not.want. to fuck it up.

there was a time when i would cry every time i left my (ex) boyfriend's house because i felt so confused, neglected, and unwanted. i tried to make that work for too long. i don't know why we do this to ourselves. and i don't want to get into that too much. but these days i drive home with a smile on my face and i'm all fuzzy inside. i love it. i don't want to lose him, but i don't want to lose myself either. mostly, i don't want to lose him by losing myself. i like people. i like my relationships with people. i'm good at them.

*deep breath*

balance.

edit: both of the intervention episodes were reruns. both of them. :'(

sleep it off till 12

2007-10-11T03:52:00.000-04:00

unfortunately i'm quite random so that's something we're all going to have to learn to embrace in terms of this blog. my initial intention and idea when i began this was to focus mainly on relationships and emotions, and i still plan to do that, but lately i'm feeling a little boxed in. and so i will begin to venture out a bit more, if that's okay with you.

if youguys haven't noticed, i really like tv. let me just mention a few shows that you really should be watching if you're not...
the sarah silverman program
gossip girl
america's next top model
LA ink
shows like "the office" and "grey's anatomy" and shit like that are obvious musts so i don't feel the need to list those.

okay, i don't want to talk about them. i just wanted to list them. check that shit out.

watch THIS. and PLEASE discuss.

alright i'm done talking about tv for the time being.

i had a bit of a breakdown last night. excerpt from my myspace blog:

i'm always lonely. always. i never feel completely safe, taken care of, or understood. it doesn't matter if i'm actually alone or with anyone else. i feel lonely, and desperate to connect, but afraid to try with some people for fear of scaring them away and most of my friends don't have time for me anymore or aren't around. usually movies pull me in; take me outside of myself, and i get so into them that i forget they're not a part of my life and it sometimes takes me hours to shake all of the emotions that they make me feel. but i watched a movie tonight, one of the saddest movies i've seen, and yeah, i'd seen it before, but it had been a long time. but it didn't make me cry. it didn't even make me sad. i was too much in my own head. and the thing that sucks is that i couldn't get myself to express the things i was thinking and the ways i was feeling. i held it in, and later i cried alone.

today i'm good. sometimes i think we just need to cry; to break down totally in order to realize what's really going on in our heads and our hearts. and i have come to some realizations. i got scared. but tonight fear turned to excitement. i'd also been holding in tears too long; not intentionally, but i had been. so for two nights, i cried my heart out. and now i can breathe again. it's that simple. i apologize for being cryptic, but in time, my friends...in time.

alright back to tv. i lied about that, sorry. i saw an actual commercial for that salt 'n pepa show tonight. i literally have no idea what they're talking about, what the show's about, or why they made it. but yeah...yeah, i'll be watching. of course i will be. oh and arlan brought up a good point about that series description: howwww was 2002 "the height" of salt 'n pepa's career? if somebody can shed some light on that for us i would be very grateful.

this shit is seriously all over the place. sorry. i strive to emulate jimmy kimmel and sarah silverman's relationship:
part 1
part 2

that, mis amigos, is love.

push it

2007-10-06T20:05:00.000-04:00

i have abandonment issues. many of my close family members have died and i've lost a few good friends as well (not as in death, just in general). this tends to affect my relationships. however, i have realized that if i'm in a good relationship, it's not as much of an issue because i'm never given a chance to feel all of those negative, panicky, "what if" feelings. but i still try to keep myself in check because i honestly believe that what is meant to be, will be. i know i don't usually act like it, but i do believe that. i'm just bad at letting go.

speaking of abandonment, i started to worry that since i haven't been writing much, youguys will leave me. please don't leave me! *grabs onto blog readers' collective, real yet figurative leg* i've just been busy, and now sick. but i'll be writing regularly again from now on.

and alright. back in '94, i LOVED salt 'n pepa. and there is nothing wrong with continuing to love them. and if they were to put out another album, i would get it. but do we really need a reality show about EVERYTHING?

---> lookie here <---

i mean, seriously. it's been so long since i've seen them that i didn't even recognize them in that picture at first. there doesn't even seem to be an angle. we just follow all kinds of people around with cameras now, like that ryan kid who has his own show on mtv. who IS that kid?? can i have my own show please? i mean i loooove reality television but it's getting absolutely fucking ridiculous. am i wrong?

ah well. i know this was short and sweet but i'll write again soon. and for anyone who was too lazy to click on that link:

yeah.

west coast adventures

2007-10-03T02:45:00.000-04:00

somehow i'm still exhausted from all of the travel, so i have nothing of substance that i'm able to adequately put into words at this moment. SO, to tide you over, i will post just a few photos from my california trip. this has nothing to do with much of anything, and don't expect many pictures in the future, but for now - enjoy.

arlan and i hung with our moms in hollywood

we went to the ellen show

we hung with jessica

we saw terra, and arlan's finger got in the picture disguised as THE SUN and hotel cafe has...well, NO lighting

the ocean in malibu

palm trees in santa monica

bye bye :)

palm trees & powerlines

2007-09-30T14:46:00.000-04:00

hey guys, short post because i'm stealing internet at arlan's (not arlan's internet but uh...somebody's) and my computer's about to die, but i just wanted to say thank you for continuing to read and comment even though i haven't been writing! i haven't really had a chance since i've been here. i leave to go home tomorrow night so i promise i'll be writing lots next week.

one more thing: our friend terra naomi is playing at hotel cafe in hollywood TONIGHT. if you live in the area at all, you should definitely come. she's temporarily home and then she's back to england indefinitely. so check her out while you have a chance!

words of comfort

2007-09-22T01:16:00.000-04:00

i leave for los angeles in five hours. i'm still washing clothes and packing, i still have to shower, i still have to sleep, and i only slept for three hours last night. I AM A MACHINE. no, no, i'm not at all. i can hardly even function on little sleep. i took about an hour nap earlier today and my friend jaz came over to pick me up for a quick shopping trip and she practically had to peel me off the bed. it is nearly impossible for me to get up. ever. at this point i realize that i will have to sleep for the entire flight. thank god it's direct.

there are many subjects i'm still very excited to blog about here but i don't have the brain energy for it right now. so instead, i will tell you what i'll be doing on my trip.

my mom and i are going together for her birthday. we're staying with my bff arlan. her mom's coming too. we are going to be so cute, us and our moms. we're going to attend talk show tapings, see our lovely friend terra naomi play at hotel cafe (september 30th; be there!), go to lots of restaurants, and personally i plan to spend as much time in the ocean as possible. i tried to look into parasailing but i couldn't find any good specific info on where to go and how to go about it in LA. i'm totally visiting high voltage tattoo ("LA ink"), whether or not i actually get tattooed. i must meet kat von d and see that shop.

i have nothing more for you right now, but i'll try to write while i'm in california. i may not get a chance but i will try. i'll be home october 1st. have an awesoooome week and a half! happy fall (even though i hate it)!

afk; bbs

2007-09-20T14:02:00.000-04:00

this was meant to be posted last night but oh well.

a million ways to break my heart

2007-09-18T07:27:00.000-04:00

this post is interactive. i am writing purely to ask you, my readers, what you are interested in. what kinds of topics would you like to read about? do you have any questions for me? i want to know. i have a constantly growing list of topics, but i have to be in the mood; i have to be inspired. therefore i am always looking for more so that i have more to choose from. from which to choose. so if you've got any suggestions, or you just flat out feel like ranting, complaining, or singing the praises of anyone or anything, leave me comments and let's get a dialogue (and my brain) going!

your turn. :)

edit: oh and for your daily/weekly/whenever i feel like it dose of craigslist personal ad nonsense, i present the following to you, to which i say...wow.

TO ALL TYPES OF WOMEN - 22

I AM A 22 YR OLD MALE LOOKIN 4 VERY SEXUAL WOMEN WHO ARENT SCARED TO HAVE SEX OR GIVE A BLOWJOB AS A FIRST IMPRESSION. I DO ALL SIZES AND LIKE TO B SENT NUDE PIC TO PHONE FIRST B4 MEETING MY NUMBER IS [each individual number spelled out]

0 to 60 in 3.5

2007-09-16T05:57:00.000-04:00

i find a lot of comfort and freedom in the fact that if i want to buy a new box of crayons at 4am, i can just make the 30 second drive over to the grocery store and get them. that's not something that i did tonight, but just knowing that i could have made me feel better about my dwindling crayon collection. i'm going absolutely nowhere with this; i just wanted to share it with someone.

if youguys haven't taken the time to check out the links over there to the right, you really should. they are some damn good blogs and most of them are my friends. if by some chance you weren't referred here by arlan's blog, definitely check that out. she and i celebrate our 12th year of friendship this month! happy anniversary arlan! haha. i am SO old, youguys. so old. i know i'm really not, but i have a good amount of younger friends and they make me feel old. i thought hanging with the younger folk was supposed to keep you young. but no, i just feel old. old, old, old.

speaking of age and maturity and all that, i've been thinking about it a lot lately. in many ways i'm mature for my age, while in many, i am the opposite. it's really strange to realize. growing up i was the only child in my house, and my parents spoke to me and treated me like an adult, and other adults always said i was mature. sometimes it posed a problem at school, because even though i was rarely scolded there, when i was, it absolutely infuriated me because they were treating me like a child and i wasn't used to that. i still have an issue with authority. like if i go to a show or something and security talks to my friends and me in a way that i find demeaning, i never just do what they say. i always stay there and speak to them rationally and try to get them to look at me and realize that we're not high school kids trying to overstep boundaries or break rules. they usually don't look at me or listen. it stays with me for hours and sometimes even days. this is why i generally follow rules - not because i necessarily respect them, but because the idea of being spoken to in a way that suggests i'm some sort of child or nuisance upsets me SO much that i can't even bear to think about putting myself in that situation.

also, i love music. i've always loved music. i've always loved going to shows. but lately i don't go to as many, and i really don't travel for them as much. granted, money is an issue, and factor in the reality that i rarely have anyone to go with anymore, but also, it's usually not worth it for me. i mean there are certain bands and artists that i MUST see, and i love being at shows, but i don't like going just for the sake of going anymore. i don't like to stand around for hours just to see live music, whatever it may be. but some of my younger friends can do it so easily and often. damnit, it makes me feel old!

but see i got to a certain point, probably around the time that my father died (i was 17), now that i think about it, when i stopped being mature for my age. that's really only set in, in my mind, in the past couple of years. it was like i felt like i had this maturity beyond most kids my age for so long, and suddenly everything caught up. and now, at 25, i realize that not only was that the case, but i've actually regressed. i can't say exactly why. i'm sure it's a multitude of factors. my father died. my maternal grandparents and an aunt and uncle, all to whom i was close and helped raise me, died. all of them died within a few years of each other. suddenly i looked around and everything was different. i went from having a big family network to just me and my mom. i wasn't ready for that. i have other family, it's true, and even though i see most of them often, i'm not very close to most of them. i've suffered from depression for my entire life, and it got worse and worse as my family members got sick and died, and even worse afterwards when my everyday reality was so completely different. i guess maybe during all of this time that i spent going to funerals, crying, hiding out, trying to cope, and avoiding everything, everyone else matured. they went away to college. they dated more. they moved out. they learned how to take care of themselves in a way that i still haven't. i'm really good at taking care of other people, and i'm good with emotions, but i don't know the first thing about buying a car, getting things fixed, budgeting money, renting an apartment. in the last couple of years i've definitely learned the value of a dollar, but i couldn't begin to weigh in on whether or not [fill in the blank] is a reasonable price for a house. i can correct the spelling and grammar in a published novel or a resume all day long, but if you tell me it costs *this* much for my cat's shots, i have no idea if i'm being ripped off. going to bed early is not something that i can do, despite how tired i am or how early i need to get up. certain "immature" behavior really irritates me, even though i'd still rather go to toys r us than, say, bed bath and beyond. i don't take stupid risks; that's just not the person i am. i'm afraid of many things and i like to stay alive and not bleeding or arrested. in that way, i am responsible. but if a friend is thinking of taking tomorrow off work just because and asks me what they should do, more often than not my response is, "fuck yeah! let's go to the mall!" i want love, but i have no desire to settle down. i have friends who are getting married and having kids! i'm excited for them, and for being able to be a part of these things, but those things terrify me. not that i don't want kids; it's just that there's so much more i want to do first (everything), and the idea of being in a good relationship is much more appealing right now, especially considering i've never actually BEEN in a good relationship. i think that should probably happen before i start thinking about having children. and i don't think i'll ever have the desire to have kids before i'm with someone who i really love, because raising children on my own does not appeal to me at all. for me it's all about sharing it with someone. i don't know. it would be good to meet someone who really GETS me. that would be nice.

that was quite a rant, i'm sorry. and i certainly didn't tie it all together as well as i could have. but i think worrying about making sure these posts are all polished, sparkly, and tied up with ribbon is what has been keeping me from blogging more often. so from here on out, expect more honesty, more randomness, and less neat and tidy paragraphs. and expect another post soon.

lock me up & throw away the key

2007-09-14T06:00:00.000-04:00

"maybe he just didn't like you that much." these words were spoken to me after i told someone a story of a breakup that happened seven years ago, which began with me being CHASED by a guy to whom i wasn't very attracted. eventually he won me over, and within a fairly short period of time, he decided to stop talking to me and then proceeded to act like nothing ever happened. i won't go into it here. but when i was telling the story recently, i did go into details. and that was the response that i got. it disturbed (angered, offended, hurt) me on many levels, but i think it mainly upset me because if you do know the whole story, that's not a very logical explanation of the way things turned out. if the intensity and relentlessness with which he pursued me translates into just not liking me that much, then what means that someone DOES? jesus. and i should also mention that this guy knew me for a year before the dating took place, so it's not like he had NO idea what he was getting himself into. but that response has been haunting me.

i was watching "john tucker must die" for the second time earlier, and there's a scene in the movie where john tucker tells the the girl he's falling for that he knows he comes off a bit strong sometimes, but he doesn't know how to do things any other way - he just does everything with his whole heart. the basic sentiment (despite the plot of the movie and the fact that, yes, i am talking about john tucker must die, starring brittany snow and ashanti) being that if he really likes someone, he sees no need to play games and he doesn't know how to hold in the way he feels. he talks and acts in big ways. it makes me think again about that stupid online quiz i took that told me that the reason i don't have a boyfriend is that i'm too forward. meanwhile, every guy i've ever known or known of has really liked it when girls take the initiative in dating. i don't want to sit here and analyze guys in general, because i know that everyone is different and i'll never really get an answer. i'm not even sure what the question is.

i leave you with this to ponder: why is it that when guys pursue girls it's considered romantic, yet when a girl does exactly the same thing she's labeled "crazy" or "desperate"?

9/11

2007-09-11T08:53:00.000-04:00

9/11 affected me greatly. i cried and had nightmares for two weeks. i was in the city two weeks before the attacks took place; we flew out of la guardia at the exact hour that the planes struck the buildings, exactly two tuesdays before. i had friends living there at the time. i still have friends living there. my next time visiting new york was four months later.

i was lucky enough not to lose anyone. if you did, i am so sorry. i can't believe it was six years ago. think about it, because it's important. look around at the world right now. six years ago on this day, we were all united. that lasted longer than a day, but not forgetting isn't the same thing as holding onto the feeling. maybe not all the time, because life must go on. but just for today, close your eyes and feel it again.

new post soon.

earth girls

2007-09-08T04:18:00.000-04:00

i was just watching "sex and the city" on hbo on demand. i'm still trying to figure out which character i'm most like. i don't know why i find this so necessary but for some reason i do. i'm the kind of person who likes to have answers to things, and for things; to know where i stand, and what's likely to happen. i don't like it. for as much as i don't like to label things, especially myself, this sort of attitude lends itself to...well, nothing but labels. i've never claimed not to be a hypocrite.

well, let's take a look at the ladies in question:

samantha. i'm not a bit like samantha. in fact, i still think she's just a soulless slut, despite my friend rachel's insistence that she changes her ways in the end (i still haven't seen the entire series so don't ruin it for me!).

miranda. i'm a little like miranda, i guess. let's see, she's usually alone, pessimistic, and often wears unflattering clothing. okay maybe i'm not much like miranda.

charlotte. i would NEVER have dated anyone like tre. i don't dress like her. i'm not as naive and i'm not as proper. but she's sweet, and she's optimistic. so i think i'm a little like charlotte.

carrie. according to my grandfather, i look like sarah jessica parker. i don't know why he watched sex and the city, but he made a point of letting me know that. interesting, for a (75 year old) man of few words. anyway, carrie. she writes. i write. the other characters are fairly extreme (if that even makes sense), whereas she's relatively...normal, for lack of a better word. i should probably stop saying "for lack of a better word." get a thesaurus! i said to...myself. um. i'm just stomping that normal idea right into the ground, am i not? yeah. she's usually in a relationship, or at least dating someone. up until recently i can't say that was me. she analyzes everything. i used to think that i was mostly carrie with a touch of charlotte until i saw the episodes where she was so emotionally closed off and couldn't let aidan in, and that...so not me. i'm nothing if not open. i have "committed" written across my face. you know, in the good way. so at that point, i decided that i was nothing like carrie. but the episode i just watched was focused mainly on carrie's newfound cynicism. don't get me wrong - i consider myself an optimist to the umph degree; despite everything, i always believe that situations will turn out alright and that big and wonderful things await me. but once you've been burned, really burned, and you've been knocked down a few times? you tend to do a double take more than once in a while. so, in short, i still don't have a sex and the city label. but that's not the point of any of this.

in that same episode, carrie and charlotte go to an affirmation seminar, run by a woman who promises that if you do the things she says, you will find love. she says if you repeat certain affirmations with which she provides you, it will happen. she says, "love will come to you only when you truly believe you deserve it." i think that's true. it's easy to look around and see that it's true. but the thing is...i believe that i deserve it. i've always believed that i've deserved it. i've got issues and things to work on just like anybody else (read: i go to therapy), but i love myself and i know what i'm worth. i also know what i'm capable of. so where is the love? what is it waiting for exactly? better question: why do i want it so badly?

i don't know if i believe that there is only one person out there for everyone. i think i believe in soulmates, but not necessarily in the romantic sense. i just wonder why something so difficult and rare to find is something we need so much. i wonder why we hurt each other so much. i wonder why there are so many love songs and why...there are none about me. hmph.

and with that, i present to you the following ad from the craigslist personals:

Do not have time to date... - 27

Looking for a female partner, Do not really have time to date, possibly lookin for someone to move in if the vibe is good and do partner type things. Has to do well with children and someone that is neat. I will explain later more into detail. Please submit picture as I will send you one back.

You may not be disappointed. I am 6'3, lean, and have a reserved humorous personality...

...okay. so at 27, he's already run out of time to date and is looking for someone to move in? to just launch into a relationship? and don't forget, she must be neat and good with children. sounds like he's looking for a dog, not a girlfriend. but my personal judgment aside, on the one hand, i envy him. he's THAT ready to just...skip everything, go off of an initial vibe, and just BE with someone. on the other, it's like...has it already become that much of a chore? at 27? a nice vibe is reason enough to move in with someone and stop looking? that makes me depressed, kids or not. it makes me realize how difficult it can be and how desperate so many of us are. at the same time, it reminds me of john cusack's marriage proposal to laura in "high fidelity," followed by a rant about fantasy girls and that none of that is real and his proclamation: "i'm just tired of thinking about it."

you know how they say that instead of always wanting what you can't have, you should focus on wanting what you do have? well, i don't know. maybe it really is that simple.

let it marinate

2007-09-05T00:37:00.000-04:00

sometimes i go to craigslist and i look through the personals, mostly for entertainment. sometimes i message people, for different reasons, but it's mostly just something i do for fun. (and i know i'm not the only one who has a small wish in the back of her head that i am, in fact, the beautiful brunette from the grocery store who inspired that particular missed connections ad.) sooo i was there just now, and i came across this one:

ok so here it is...
I am single and I am very busy
... and I am lonely
don't have time for the full on relationship,
I need someone to talk to and snuggle,
spend some free time with, laugh and have fun...
no pressure or dramma,
sounds good right?,
if you are sexy, ambitious, fun loving, easy going,
creative, intelligent, open minded, kind of odd,
not ghetto, hillbilly or psycho,
please email me.

okay. my first thought upon reading this was, "no time for a 'full on' relationship? so he just wants someone he can use?" but i kept an open mind and i reminded myself that, despite what i personally want for myself, this might be the perfect situation for a certain girl and there's nothing wrong with just wanting someone to cuddle with and talk to, right? no major commitment. okay. i can get down with that. well, not me personally, but...her...or you, maybe! or...someone. then i finished reading the ad and it occurred to me that that is quite a lot of criteria considering he doesn't want a...well, full on relationship. more power to him, i suppose, but you can't always have your cake and eat it too. speaking of which, how stupid is that expression? what the hell are you supposed to do with cake if you don't eat it? i say we change that expression. suggestions welcome.

anyway, the feminist side of me (which, let's admit, is...all of me) gets pretty offended reading something like that. i just want to jump up and defensively shout, "so you assume all women are dramatic? so you just want some vacant, emotionless whore who will come running every time you call, to whom you have no responsibility?" but again, i have to put things into perspective. this kind of thing is just difficult for me to understand.

but really, i don't think it's the nature of the type of relationship he seeks that really hit a nerve with me. i think it's the fact that he said he's "too busy" for a complete (for lack of a better word) relationship. it's one thing to want to keep things light and fun because you just want some action or companionship and you're not in the right mindset to deal with the heavier stuff, but i really think it's another to simply be too busy. i don't know. i mean, when does that end? and if you're really too busy to make time for that sort of thing in your life, maybe you should wait until you're...not. i guess what i'm basically saying is that it sounds like a cop out to me. your lame reasoning for not giving the other person all of the things that they need and deserve.

and now i return to my viewing of "kissing jessica stein" on the oxygen network.

all you must hold onto is you

2007-09-04T06:27:00.000-04:00

okay, i know i've been seriously neglecting youguys. it's partially because i was putting off the "four eyed monsters" post because i wasn't inspired, and partially because i haven't been feeling well. but for now, i'm just going to put off the four eyed monsters thing until i feel up to writing about it (i think i may need to watch it again) and just get back to writing regularly. and so here we are.

i took a silly online quiz recently entitled "why don't i have a boyfriend?" a friend of mine took it also. her answer was that she was too shy; mine, that i'm too forward. HA. okay then. i'm trying to learn from that but i'm not really sure what to take away from it. i prefer being upfront about things; open and honest. but that tends to scare guys away. i guess i'm too intense, but the thing is, i honestly feel like they think i expect more immediately than i really do. just because i'm telling you that i like you doesn't mean that i expect the world. i'm just being...well, honest. you don't have to be on my level, and you don't have to be afraid. just accept it for what it is and unless i repulse you, let's just see what happens. that's the way i see it. i guess i just need to figure out a way to relay that message a little better.

really the only thing that you can do is put yourself out there, say what you mean, and see how things go. see how the other person responds. there's no sense in not trying at all because you'll always wonder, "what if?" also, you're GOING to be rejected sometimes. might as well get used to it and not let every little thing break you down. and i learned recently that although learning from your past and your mistakes is very important, it's equally, if not more important, not to drag all of your baggage into each relationship or potential relationship. don't punish that person for things others have done - it's not fair. that may seem obvious but it's much easier said than done. if you're not able to maintain a certain level of naivete, i think you're doomed. jaded is no way to be when it comes to relationships of any kind because the other person is only going to try so hard until they just get tired of your constant eye rolling and bitching. it's not like the movies - most people are not going to chase you until you realize how amazing they are and fall into their arms and you both live happily ever after. and even if they do chase you well beyond the point that they should and you DO fall? chances are they're going to end up dropping you in the end because they were only about the chase. so you might as well just be yourself from the beginning and give things a chance. i know that was a little contradictory but that's life, i guess.

the moral of the story is this: live and learn, but don't limit yourself. don't count people out, and don't stop trying. know that you're worth it, and if you get knocked down, dust yourself off and try again, you can dust it off and try again...try again. /aaliyah

thanks for continuing to read, youguys, and for all of the comments and messages and myspace adds. i really appreciate it. thank you. i love getting to know you and i hope you'll continue to reach out to me. AND, if you have any suggestions regarding what i should write about, don't hesitate to let me know! anything you'd like to hear my take on, or whatever, tell me and i'll add it to the list. there's an actual list.

p.s: i could watch the movie "just friends" on loop all day, every day. ryan reynolds and anna faris are good for the soul.

"are you greek?"

2007-09-02T14:40:00.000-04:00

i'm going to the greek festival in a couple of hours. i'm going with some friends and a couple of our moms (including my own). mainly we eat, and then we pretend to shop, try to enjoy the dancing, and then we leave. personally all i can think about right now is rice pudding.

a few years ago i went to dinner at a chinese restaurant with my friend and the host asked me if i was greek. out of nowhere. i told him no, that i was actually italian. he went on to tell me that i looked greek, and i could be greek, and his fixation on it was just really strange. remember, this was a chinese restaurant, not a greek restaurant. so now i wonder, when i go to the greek festival, do they think that i'm one of them? i just wonder. that's all.

anyway i'll blog about "four eyed monsters" tonight when i get home so you have one last chance to check it out (i really mean it this time)...

i swear, i'm generally an optimist

2007-09-01T05:22:00.000-04:00

i know i said i was going to post about "four eyed monsters," and i will. i just haven't had a chance yet. i will write a new blog SOON, i promise! but for now, you have one last chance to check it out before you have no idea what i'm talking about so go! :)

p.s: to quote enid from the fabulous ghost world:
"i think only stupid people have good relationships."
ugh. life sometimes.

25 going on 5

2007-08-31T00:54:00.000-04:00

i've been coloring a lot lately. when my friend rachel was here visiting from england, i bought a big box of crayons with a built-in sharpener on a whim and it was awesome. there are bits of crayon everywhere; in my keyboard, on my hands, and sometimes i find it in my hair. but they need to make the crayons stronger because i've broken like a third of them in half already. i draw stupid things that suck, but it's just so fun to press down and create all of that color.

speaking of art (and i use that word loosely - in my case, i mean), youguys should check this out. it's amazing.

25 going on 13

2007-08-30T03:48:00.000-04:00

i've never played spin the bottle. and i know other people my age who never have either. i think about it a lot and i don't really know why. maybe it's the idea of not having to initiate anything; not having to assume, but just doing what the game tells you. the rules are simple: the bottle points to him, kiss him. the bottle points to her, kiss her. it's like a test drive. it doesn't cost anything (i don't mean like a prostitute, but you know, emotionally. okay i just fucked up the metaphor), and you get to go car to car without having to commit. yes, i'm still just talking about kissing. i may have gotten a little ahead of myself, yeah, yeah.

anyway um...what? oh, right. so then i'm 25, right? and yeah i still think about spin the bottle and i still want to play it for the first time. but lately i've been thinking a lot about speed dating. you know, like in "the 40 year old virgin"? you go from table to table for like five minutes or whatever and talk to different people and see if there seems to be any kind of connection there. i just think it's interesting. how much can you learn about a person in that time? i guess it depends on who you are and what they're willing to reveal. personally i could learn a lot about a person in five minutes if they were game. i would hope they'd be game if they're actually at fucking speed dating. that would be lame otherwise. does it cost money? it must cost money.

when i'm first getting to know someone, i like to ask lots of random questions. they don't have to be particularly deep or thoughtful or...anything. just things like, what's your favorite color, cereal, when's your birthday, do you drink coke or pepsi...these things are handy to know later on. and the coke or pepsi answer says a lot about a person. and mountain dew people are their own breed.

i don't know where to find speed dating. i wonder what kinds of people actually do that. people like me, apparently. i wonder how many people there have played spin the bottle. maybe i'll add that question to my list.

the 5,000 people you meet on the internet

2007-08-29T03:29:00.001-04:00

hi there. again i wanted to remind everyone that you CAN comment here without having to register for anything, because some people are still asking me about that. you can comment anonymously by checking "anonymous," or you can just check "other" and then type in your name. or your nickname, or your stripper name, or whatever your heart desires.

my myspace account was "phished" tonight. if you don't know what that means, it means that (apparently, though i don't understand how) someone else has gotten a hold of your email address and password and myspace has somehow caught that it wasn't you (how, i have absolutely no idea, because i have often signed in on another computer while i was still signed in on mine and nothing ever happened) and blocked your account so you can't post bulletins or send messages or leave comments or anything. so then you have to click on the prompts to change your password and with that, your page is unblocked. okay. now i know that this happens to people fairly often (though i only started hearing about it recently), but i've had myspace for four and a half years and this was the first time it ever happened to me. personally i think it's some kind of weird myspace bullshit thing that has nothing to do with a third party "stealing" your password or whatever. but that aside, i'm angry. i had to change my password, after four fucking years. nonsense, i tell you. i don't like my privacy messed with in that way. well, in any way actually. who does, i guess.

i just needed to vent about that really. but then i started thinking about social networking sites. personally i think they're amazing. i know that i'm not talking about anything groundbreaking here and i really don't need to elaborate, so i'm not going to. it's just one of those things that i take for granted every day, like...electricity! you flip the switch and you have light. and it's actually amazing. think about it. and every single day i have access to people from all over the WORLD. i can find old friends, make new ones, find people with similar interests, ask people i don't know very well questions about different cities and events and shows and...WHATEVER, and i can keep in touch with my friends in different cities and states and countries. i can keep up with their lives without necessarily having to wonder why they haven't emailed me back today, or if it's a bad time to call...everyone is just...THERE. just sit there for a minute and think about that. think about the people you've met because of myspace (or facebook, or whatever). or even just "met." think about the people you may have totally lost touch with or have become closer to because of it. think of the people and the things you've discovered. i guess this post is more of a prelude to my post about "four eyed monsters" than anything. which reminds me, go watch. ;)

i'll write again soon...

find me a find, catch me a catch

2007-08-27T22:54:00.000-04:00

first order of business: go to myspace.com/foureyedmonsters, click on "videos," and watch all three parts of the film (80 minutes total). and then please watch all of the filmmakers' podcasts, and then, if i haven't totally lost you by that point, check out their individual myspace pages (arin's and susan's). you have four days to do this. friday i plan to blog about it, and i want people to know what i'm talking about. so get to it. after this post, of course. :)

okay. so again, i was watching "confessions of a matchmaker." the woman featured didn't know how to flirt. or at least that's what patti (matchmaker) told her. i guess i agree, from what was shown. patti told her that she doesn't show enough signs to let people know that she likes them. so i started wondering about myself. patti's three main flirting tips were 1) be nice, 2) flip your hair, and 3) make physical contact (touch the other person's hand or arm or whatever). obviously she was just giving her a place to start; they were just tips, they weren't set in stone. i don't really consciously flirt. i guess some people do but i would assume that most people...don't. sometimes i worry that i was too flirtatious with someone i shouldn't have been, or that i wasn't flirtatious enough with someone i was really into. i wonder if the other person even noticed, or if he cared. or if HE was flirting with ME. i don't know. i don't know, i don't know, i don't know. okay and here's something else i'd like to discuss...

guys with lots of chick friends. i meet a lot of guys who have lots of chick friends. i think it's great. i think it's great when guys and girls can just be friends. but i don't quite understand it, because i don't really have...ANY guy friends. i mean, i have a few, but none of them are good friends (except for my ex-boyfriend) and i rarely see them (and that includes the ex-boyfriend) because...i don't know, i just don't relate well to most guys. i don't get them; they don't get me. so sometimes i can't tell if a guy is into me, or if i'm just another chick friend. i think guys and girls, or girls and girls, or guys and guys, depending on the preference, are naturally a little flirtatious even if they're not *interested*. and i'll go a step further even and say that guys and girls in general are often that way, despite sexual preference. i've noticed it a lot. i've been in those situations a lot. so how do i know if someone likes me unless they tell me? i guess i don't for sure. i can always take the risk and put myself out there, of course, and i never had a problem doing that before. but recently i've been involved in so many bad...things, that i have discovered a level of insecurity in myself that i never even knew i had. i'm afraid to sabotage things, to say too much too soon, to NOT play the game. guys say they hate games, but when you don't play them, they seem to have a habit of disappearing or freaking out, even (especially?) when that's the last thing they say they'd ever do.

...i don't have an answer.

i thought i read people well, but maybe i don't. or maybe i do, but we're all just too different, or confused, or too afraid of rejection. they have websites where you can send anonymous messages to people via email to let them know that they have a secret admirer. that person then guesses who it is or sends out a response to who they want it to be, and if you have a "match," then you're both informed and you can go from there. i think that speaks volumes. tell me if you don't agree.

unconditional love

2007-08-27T02:43:00.000-04:00

i don't know if anyone watches "confessions of a matchmaker," but i do from time to time and last week there was a woman featured who owned lots of birds, cats, and sugargliders (is that one word or two?). patti (the matchmaker) accused her of creating a "surrogate family" with these animals because she had so often been let down in relationships, and said that she was filling a void with them. the woman admitted that this was, most likely, the case. now i'm not crazy; i recognize that in extreme cases this could absolutely be a problem, but it's just true that animals love you in a way in which people are simply not capable, save for maybe your mother. depending upon how you look at it i guess. they're always there, unconditionally. they don't judge you, they cuddle you and lick you when you're sad, and most importantly, they don't speak. they just listen. and some of them listen very attentively. call me a cat lady if you wish (though "dog lady" would actually be more appropriate), but i know that the love of a pet is a very special thing, and it's something that you can count on. i've always liked animals more than people.

my cat rusty used to love it when i sang to him. i would play music and it made him happy. when i cried and told him about my problems, i swear to god he understood. just talking while having him near me always gave me a better sense of clarity. and every pet i've ever owned (well, dogs and cats at least) has been able to sense when i'm in a sad mood and they've always comforted me. i don't have to ask, and even when i do, they don't expect anything in return. i'm not saying that humans aren't capable of unconditional love, but think about that concept for a minute. UNCONDITIONAL love. loving someone without any conditions at all. despite anything they've said or done. that's not an easy thing to do.

i can think of a handful of people who love me in that way, for sure. the more people i meet and the more i'm disappointed in life, the more grateful i am for those people, and for my pets. maybe my dog doesn't have the capacity to love me as deeply as another human being does, but she will love me and cuddle me until the day she dies. you can call that sad, you can call it pathetic, you can call it cynical and strange. but it's true. i look around these days and every day i have one less person or thing that i can count on. so i appreciate every creature on this earth that gives me a little more time and a little more faith, because god knows i need it.

waffles buttercup cookie

2007-08-26T02:39:00.000-04:00

my beautiful and lovely friend kaitlyn made the above banner. i know it's not clickable here but i'm kinda html retarded and i just included it in a bulletin on myspace and it is clickable there. so.

thank you kaitlyn. i was picky about it and i made her redo things about ten times, and i promised her in the end that i would write an entry about her in exchange for her time, effort, and creativity. so here goes.

i met kaitlyn in february of 2004 at a sugarcult show in cleveland, a day before my birthday. my bff laura knew her from the sugarcult message board. i wouldn't say we clicked that night, but we all got together again a couple of months later and ever since then, she and i have been good friends. she is sweet, funny, huggable, and she's always there to listen. she hugs me when i cry, she's ridiculously understanding, and she has the best dogs ever in the world other than mine. she is one of those people i feel like i've known forever, and i love her very much. go to her myspace and leave her some love for helping me promote my blog and for being an awesome person. :)

new blog soon; i've got a whole list of topics...

save yourself, then save the world

2007-08-24T03:26:00.000-04:00

i just don't want to be unhappy. those words kept repeating through my head earlier as i was watching fucking "elizabethtown" for like the fourth time. i don't even like that movie. i just don't want to be unhappy.

movies are awesome. things happen in movies that never happen in real life. and when they do happen in real life, they're usually (in my case, always) too good to be true. i am a child, a teenager, and an adult of television and movies. of mtv and hollywood. of US weekly magazine, access hollywood, and american idol. i am idealistic. i am, in a word, a dreamer. okay that's two words. dreamer was supposed to be the word. and sometimes i feel like the only one.

i search for what i've done wrong. i listen and i love. i change negative behaviors, or at least i try. there's a thick line, in most cases, between being yourself and being who you want to be. i've been living for the future for so long, waiting for life to begin, that sometimes i don't know who i am right now. maybe it's not something to search for. maybe that's a job for other people. maybe i should stop trying so hard and just let them do their job.

what i want in life is to help people. to connect with them. who am i? i'm a fan. i'm a fan of music and writing. other people's experiences and creativity inspire me. i want to be that person for other people, i always have. i think that most people feel that way. i just like to think that i'm one of the lucky ones who knows which path i want to take in order to achieve that. but fear is a powerful, powerful thing.

i sabotage myself every day. i sabotage relationships, potential relationships, job opportunities...even chances at being just a little happier for today. why? fear. fear of failure. failure isn't failure if you don't really try. that's the way it feels anyway. but that's complete bullshit. not trying? that's the fastest and lamest way to lose. "little miss sunshine" taught me that.

so why do i so often allow fear to control me? i've lost people. i can't stand the idea of losing any more. i want things. i can't stand the idea of being knocked down. and so i live in purgatory. but really it's my own personal hell that i've created. i hate fall and i hate spring. they're the transition seasons. i'm an all or nothing sort of girl and thus far, this has not served me well in life for the most part.

there's no quick wrap-up here; i could say so many things, like, "but now things are going to change" or "i'm tired of being afraid and i'm going to live life to the fullest from now on," but the truth is, tomorrow is another day, just like any other. it's another opportunity and i'll try to take it as such. my bed is way too comfortable. sometimes i think that is my biggest problem in life.

talk to me.

new blog soon

2007-08-24T00:25:00.001-04:00

being drunk IS an excuse

2007-08-22T16:24:00.000-04:00

...i know most people don't agree with that. or at least that seems to be the case. but i can tell you from experience that i've certainly done some things while intoxicated that i would never do sober. not that i've done anything too crazy or particularly dangerous, because i'm just not that sort of person (sorry), but there is one incident at least that i can think of off the top of my head that NEVER would have happened had alcohol not been involved. i absolutely assure you. i don't even remember half of it or how it started, and i regret it to this day. and this is why everyone gets one chance with me.

now, too far is too far, so i'm not saying that i would necessarily take anyone back after certain incidents just because they'd been drunk. i'm just saying that i understand, and it's not a black and white issue to me. so when someone fucks up and gives the "excuse" that they were drunk and i hear the other party involved retort, "being drunk is no excuse!"...i just can't say that i agree. i put excuse in quotes because there's a difference between excuses and reasons. and i believe that that's a reason. it may be a lame one, it may suck really, really hard, but i truly believe that it is, in many cases, a legitimate reason. when i was younger, everything to me was black and white. now i look around and all i see is gray.

what's my point...well, i guess it's that you should listen to people. every situation is different. you may need to break up with someone because they cheated on you and that's not something you'll ever be able to get over, and you should, because everyone should follow their own morals. but judging someone is an entirely different thing. as joan cusack said to the older boy who tried to statutory rape her niece in "raising helen": "you're not a bad person. this is just very, very bad behavior."

can you hear me now? i love you.

2007-08-21T05:55:00.000-04:00

this is my phone. i have a very close relationship with my phone. most people don't understand it. they don't really think about cell phones or care too much. but i had some cell phone drama. enough cell phone drama that i was determined that, the next time, i was going to have a GOOD phone. i was going to know everything about my phone; its strengths, its weaknesses, its features and capabilities. so i started to research cell phones on the verizon site and other sites like phonescoop.com and i quickly became obsessed. eventually i ended up with the lgvx5200, which was a decent, solid step up from my previous samsung, but it was by no means fancy. so i continued to obsess. i had the lgvx9800 (the "V") for one day, but at the time i didn't feel that i needed it and it was too bulky for me considering i'd always had small flip phones before, so i took it back the next day and got the 5200. anyway, as i was saying, the obsession continued. one day on a whim, while i was in a verizon store, i asked an employee if there was a newer model of the V coming out anytime soon. he informed me that, in fact, there was - the enV. i NEEDED this phone. long story short, once it came out last december, i stared at it online every day until my mom got it for me as a christmas present. i still love cell phones, but i don't obsess over them anymore. now i have found what i was looking for.

why am i talking about my cell phone? because i love it. why do i love it? it's on me 24/7. it's my connection to everyone. it has many features, and no one feature suffers for the sake of another. it's a good phone and it's a good tiny internet device as well. awesome for texting. great speakerphone. amazing camera. i have to look at, touch, and use this thing a hundred times a day. i need to be satisfied with it.

without my cell phone, i feel lost and a little scared. i would leave the house without money, my driver's license, and my keys before i would leave without my cell phone. my logic? if i need any of those things, i can always call someone to bring them to me. i can reply to important emails from the grocery store. i can talk to my best friends for four hours straight because the battery is that good. that's important to me because most of them don't live here and i don't see them often. my phone is close to my heart because it connects me to the people i love.

all of the pictures i took this summer while rachel was here are on my phone. if i'm bored in a doctor's waiting room? tetris. and...okay, i have a bit of a problem when it comes to ringtone purchases but i think it's under control now. i think 23's a good number, don't you?

i love technology.

p.s: fuck the iphone.

waiting on the world to change

2007-08-20T03:00:00.000-04:00

i'll write something new soon, but right now i want to share with youguys a post from one of my myspace blogs last month. if you've already read it, i'm sorry, but i re-read it last night and decided that it was something i wanted to post here.

...

one of the best things i've ever read is something that margaret cho said: "life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think." i think it sums up life pretty accurately. unfortunately it's not really that simple. how many people do you know who only feel and don't think? and vice versa? i like to focus on the second part, but when it comes down to it, i love hard, i feel pain very deeply, and most of the time i can't seem to let my brain make my decisions for me. i know that i'm lucky because i can find the humor in situations more often than the average person i think, but we're not talking 50/50 here. i think back on when i was very depressed and i went through a fairly significant numb stage. sometimes i need to remind myself of that because hands down it was the scariest feeling ever. i didn't cry, but i also didn't laugh. i was just empty. it's ironic that now i'm constantly searching for ways to numb everything. i have this liquid lidocaine that was prescribed to me by my doctor the last time i had a serious sore throat but no actual infection. it didn't do anything because i was supposed to gargle with it and it just stayed in my mouth and numbed my tongue. i gave up on it pretty quickly. but now i use it for canker sores because it does a better job than throat spray at least. sometimes i look at the bottle and i wish i could fill the bathtub with it; that i could submerse myself in it and not feel a thing on the outside, and maybe it would seep into my brain or something, i don't know.

i think as life goes on, you learn to laugh more. you learn that taking yourself too seriously will deprive you of so many good experiences, and life is full of so much bad that you just can't afford to miss those. unfortunately, for me at least, my brain learns these sorts of things much faster than my heart. my heart is slow on the uptake. i wish i could put myself into one category but i can't. that's why the best movies are the ones that make you laugh AND cry. i need the tears to remind myself that i'm alive and compassionate. and i need the laughs to remind myself that there is still so much more to look forward to.

people tell me that i'm strong but it certainly doesn't feel that way. they say that courage isn't the absence of fear, but moving forward in spite of it. or something like that. i don't know where my place is in all of that. i've moved forward when i've been forced, but i've also held myself back in many ways, in many cases for as long as i can get away with it. i'm still just trying to figure things out like everyone else.

in the meantime, i'm tired of being afraid. so many people in my life inspire me and i want to start focusing on that. but right now, RIGHT now...i'm going to go to sleep and dream of the ocean carrying me away. and when i wake up, i'll go to my psych appointment and tell him that i'm feeling disappointed and hurt, but hopeful. because somehow, no matter what happens, something inside of me always KNOWS that it's going to be okay and that big things are coming. so even on the days that i waste entirely, even on the nights that i cry myself to sleep, even on the mornings/afternoons that it's all i can do to force myself out of bed...i know that a better day is coming. and that's why i continue to bitch about my stupid problems. i have to get the poison out to leave room for the good stuff.

p.s: i've come to the conclusion that mermaid movies are, as a rule, AWESOME.

getting to know me more

2007-08-19T03:28:00.000-04:00

there's always the "about the author" section in novels. they mention a few things that the author has done, like a mini resume, and then end with something cutesy and semi-relevant to the story, like, "she lives happily in london with her husband, two dogs, and endless supply of stiletto heels." (i read a lot of chick lit.) i started to wonder what mine would say. maybe: "she resides in ohio with her mother and great aunt, where she watches a lot of tv and avoids real life for fear of failure." nice. i'm generally not very good at summing things up but...that pretty much does it. i like to kid myself a lot i guess but when i look at the big picture, dreams and plans aside, that is frighteningly accurate. and now i'm just depressed.

real life. real life can be lonely. i have one best friend in new york, one in california, and one in england. i said goodbye to new york bff two weeks ago, england two days ago, and california six months ago. fortunately i do see her again next month. and everyone should be where they want to be and where they need to be, pursuing the things they love and having the lives they want. and don't get me wrong - i do love to travel. but in a way, it just seems like so much wasted time. so much time without them. so much time not sharing experiences. so much time apart when life is so, so short.

but i know that mostly i think about these things and i feel this way because i'm not busy. i'm not satisfied. i'm not really happy, even though i am excited about the future. too much time to think is not always a good thing. and old friends are precious and irreplaceable. but new friends are fun. new friends are exciting. new friends are necessary. and new friends will become old friends if you let them. and if they don't, at least you had a good laugh and maybe even a shoulder to cry on during that one hard night.

okay so who saw "intervention"?

A, Z, and everything in between. and after.

2007-08-17T17:18:00.000-04:00

i got a new keyboard. no more issues with my A and Z keys. it was water (pepsi) damage. that is all i'll say about that. except also that the guy at the apple store was totally judging me and i'm a bad computer mother even though i try really hard.

my friend rachel left today. she'd been visiting from england since the middle of last month. it's weird when you've been around someone that much and then they're just suddenly gone. well, not suddenly, i guess. i knew she'd be leaving and she packed her bags and i drove her to the airport and watched her walk toward the terminal until she was out of my sight, so it was expected. but you know what i mean. it's always weird. it's alright though, not that i don't miss her; it made me sad when i went into my room and saw pink dye from her hair on the pillow she'd been sleeping on, but i know we'll see each other again soon. and it will never stop. and she's starting a whole new chapter in her life by moving away for school next month and i'm going to really start focusing on some things, this blog included, so hopefully the next time we see each other we'll have more options and we'll both be...happier and farther along in life. smiley face.

i just want to say thank you to everyone who's been leaving comments and emailing me and adding me on myspace (i JUST made my profile private today so unfortunately you will have to add me now if you want to view it)! it's been nice hearing from all of you and talking to you. that's really what this is all about for me. and i know many of you have found me through my good friend arlan, so most of you have already read this if you're interested, BUT, just in case you haven't, she interviewed the band girl in a coma for suicidegirls.com and you should read it. oh, and direct quote from her: "if you know anyone that has a suicidegirls account, tell em to leave a comment on it. cause like...i don't want it to be 0. that would suck balls."

so i had less than three beers last night and by 9pm i was totally passed out on the livingroom floor of my friend jaz's apartment. i got up an hour later and came home but i never drink anymore so that's what happens i guess. i just get really tired. and my head hurts. and sometimes my stomach hurts. i swear my tolerance hasn't been this low since i first started drinking. but it's more than that now; it just makes me feel bad. but last night it was mostly tired.

i have to promote another friend now, and she is the brilliant terra naomi. she's got a new video out for her new single, "not sorry." you can view the video, see other videos, and read all about her in arlan's aol post HERE, and you can check her out on myspace here. though i imagine most of you have already done so. :)

i have so much to say all the time about all kinds of relationships and just human behavior in general, but i like other things too. one of those things is tv. i'm obsessed with "intervention." please tell me i'm not the only one. late tonight/early morning tomorrow i'm tivoing two episodes. the description for the first one is "daughter has two addictions and mother is bulimic." that is a lot in one show. i can't wait. now don't get me wrong - i don't get like some sick pleasure out of watching these people's misery, but a lot of the feelings they describe that lead to the addictions are things that i can relate to and the whole thing is really interesting to me; the way everyone interacts and the lengths people will go to and the things they're willing to give up. and i also love it when everything turns out well. it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. so really it's the best of both worlds. it could totally be the trashiest, like, guiltiest pleasure sort of thing ever, but i honestly think that the way it's done is usually pretty helpful and opens viewers' eyes to many things they wouldn't necessarily understand or be exposed to otherwise. anyway, if you like intervention, let's talk about it and tell me your favorite episodes and stuff.

frequent blogging will follow from here on out. stay tuned.

the truth is...i miss you

2007-08-13T05:17:00.000-04:00

i'm not one to come to for advice anymore. i used to think that i was, but now i know that i'm not. i can give you my perspective from the outside and i can provide clarity and logic when needed, but really when it comes down to it, i'm just guessing like everyone else. what makes sense to your brain doesn't necessarily make sense to your heart. and even if it does, it doesn't mean you've got ANY control over anyone but yourself.

i feel like we haven't been properly introduced. hi. i'm sarah. i live and i learn, just like you; for some reason, i just feel the need to blog about it. not that everyone and their mom doesn't have a blog these days, but perhaps you don't and in that case, that is the only difference between us. the thing i love most in the world is singing. and i love writing. this blog is something i've been thinking about starting for years. i want to write so many things. i want to connect with people and i want to help people. i want to do that through music and writing, and this is just my first step. i'm often lonely and i don't want to be. i'm often alone and i do enjoy that. make of it what you will.

my A key seems to be working okay now but now my Z key is giving me problems. so that means i can blog right now, but i still may have to part with my computer for a period of time. i have an appointment at the genius bar in less than 15 hours. i'll most likely follow through. we'll see.

i have a friend i can't live without. no matter how long we go without speaking or seeing each other, she's just in my heart like no one else on earth. sometimes i don't understand the situation. sometimes i'm okay. sometimes all i need in life is to talk to her and then i know everything will be better. but it is what it is and this is one example of me not being the person to give advice anymore. it hurts when i'm not around her. time goes by in minutes, days, weeks, months, and years, and there is still a place in my heart labeled with her name and that never changes. it is my biggest source of emptiness other than my lack of creative outlet, but i'm working on that one.

there was a guy i dated who made me believe it could be different. made me believe we wanted the same things. thought he could kiss me hard and finish my sentences and spend hours talking to me as we interrupted each other because we both had so much to say even though we'd just met and then thought that i could just be chill about the whole thing, even though we bonded over our mutual intensity. or so i thought. but as much as i want to punch him in the face, i have to admit that he was the rebound guy. my last relationship had damaged me severely. it was a dream break-up; we talked and talked until i felt better and he was there for me just like he always said he would be and we're still friends and now i know that i can be friends with an ex and not always think they're assholes. but the issues in the relationship stay with me and i'm now wracked with insecurity in a way that i never was before. i shouldn't have tried to jump into anything directly after that. everyone needs time to heal and i'm no exception. in fact, i'm at the top of that list. but i still think the mutual intensity guy deserves an ass beating, i won't lie. i feel disrespected, misled, and lied to. but once we had that final talk, i was over it in about a day. all i needed was the talk. why is it so hard to talk to someone? i'll show you crazy. goddamn Z.

anyway i guess the moral of the story is that 15 good years of friendship means i'll cut you a lot of slack if things change. two weeks of acting like you're the perfect guy, followed by crazy accusations and ranting means you're an asshole.

i shouldn't blog late at night. early in the morning. i shouldn't. but i did. and i will.

i'm obsessed with mandy moore's song "can't you just adore her?" from her new album, "wild hope." she's touring soon but i can't see her because i'll be here when she's in california and in california when she's here. i'm upset, so youguys should see her for me. which reminds me, i need to get tickets for the used/army of me and motion city soundtrack.

share your relationship/friendship/crazy people/lovely people stories with me. tell me what shows you're going to soon; what music it is that you're in love with. you don't have to register for anything to comment. you can comment anonymously or click on..."other," i think? and then just type in your name. you can email me if you don't want to comment.

it's 5:45 in the fuckin' morning and i'm going to sleep. only four more days with my british love, rachel.

no "A" in team

2007-08-12T02:14:00.000-04:00

my A key doesn't really work; i have to pound it several times (3-8, approximately) to make the letter show up when i type. the ibook and i have an appointment at the apple store on monday night, so no blogging until at least tuesday. but i promise from then on, i will blog my heart out. thnk you.

paint a perfect picture

2007-08-05T03:40:00.000-04:00

youguys know this song "beautiful girls" by sean kingston? first of all, is sean kingston 14? because the way he looks confuses me. anyway, this song...my mom loves it (hi mommy!). she mentioned it to me one day recently and i didn't know what she was talking about but then i looked it up and realized i'd heard it on the radio a few times. he says "suicidal" in that song so much. it's all, "you're just too beautiful, girl, that's why it'll never work, you have me suicidal, suicidal..." i don't know what any of the other words are. it might make all the difference, i don't know. but basically what i get from this song is that the chick is way too hot for him so he can never REALLY have her and now he's gonna kill himself. when i think of the song all i can think is him going, "suuuuuiiicidal, suuuuuuiicidal," over and over again. it's depressing. and it romanticizes suicide. and then earlier today i saw his performance of that song on jimmy kimmel live from the other night and it wasn't so good and i don't know where i'm going with this except to say...the song is called "beautiful girls." and i want better than...THAT (sorry, mommy).

so on thursday i was a part of this, but perhaps the most interesting thing that happened as we all huddled inside the tent screaming and freaking out while wind busted through screens and thunder broke the sky and rain and hail pounded down around us was me being pelted in the shoulder by half a lemon. speaking of throwing things, why do people feel the need to throw things at shows? especially, like, their own shoe, for instance? what are you doing? no, seriously, if you are one of those people, what are you doing? you can comment on these posts, you know. so comment and tell me what you're doing. take me through your entire thought process in a situation such as this.

and now, speaking of comments, thank you to everyone who has been leaving me feedback and who's been visiting this site. i appreciate it more than you know. i've been a little slow on getting started, i know, but i've been doing a lot lately and i have a good friend from merry old england in town (hi rachel!) so i have been preoccupied. but oh, the things to come. i tell you what.

speaking of SHOWS, i saw THE ms. erykah badu in detroit last night. her final song was one of my favorite songs; one i'd never seen her do live before and never thought she would (even though she is quite unpredictable). it's called "green eyes." it sounds like three or four different songs all in one, and it goes through just about every emotion you go through after a break-up, from denial to anger to sadness and ultimately acceptance. you should probably hear it. or buy it from itunes if you have morals. or money. or both. what was i saying?

cohesive, this is not. that's difficult for me. i'm learning here. i'm learning.

fear breeds hatred breeds violence. listen. accept. love.

don't hate the player

2007-08-01T14:46:00.000-04:00

i was thinking that there's just no way to avoid the game. everyone says, "oh, i hate games," in terms of relationships but it's like...everybody does it. i think probably (maybe?) when it's really, really right, like when you're finally with the person you're truly meant to be with forever (if that happens), maybe there's no thought of the game because there's no time for thought because everything just falls into place and oh, what a wonderful thing that must be. but in the meantime, when do you call? how long do you wait? how much do you reveal? when do you know if he/she likes you as much as you like them? i mean people say shit all the time but it doesn't mean it's true. i learned that the hard way recently, once and for all. i don't really have any answers here but basically i've come to the conclusion that you either play the game or you don't date. that's just the way it goes. i hope someone proves me wrong soon.

i want to get into all of these things about love and how do you know when something's for real and if you end up easily getting over someone does it mean you didn't feel as intensely as you thought you did or just that you're getting older and more jaded or more accepting or more boring...but i don't have time. i'm off on a mini road trip with my british friend rachel today through friday. but i'll get to all of that, i promise. and i just want to thank everyone who's reading so far. i welcome your feedback as well. why are "good morning" and "good afternoon" basically considered greetings but "good night" is a farewell? maybe i'll just start saying "aloha." anyway it's afternoon and i leave you now, so good afternoon.

p.s: thank you to kaitlyn and arlan for the input on my blog title. and thanks to arlan for telling her friends and fans about me. i swear i have much more to say. just keep coming back. :)

i'm an orange moon, reflecting the light of the sun

2007-07-30T22:06:00.000-04:00

i was thinking last night and i realized that every time i've been interested in someone immediately, like REALLY interested, it always turns out badly. i get too blinded by everything that seems so perfect and everything that seems exactly right on the surface and i jump right into things. it doesn't give me enough time to realize that i am being - or am certainly going to be - used. or that the other person involved doesn't necessarily want the same things that i do even if it seems like they do. i've realized that it's always turned out better when i haven't been interested in someone as a potential romantic partner right from the start. moving slowly is a very good thing, and sometimes (not always), maybe even most of the time, it allows you the opportunity to figure things out. to get to know someone. that may seem obvious. i'm probably just insane. but regardless, this is what i've realized.

but what do you do when you DO have an immediate attraction to someone? for me it's really difficult to ignore. i'm always afraid that if i don't let them know right away that i'm interested that i'll lose my chance, because that has happened to me before - more than once. but that way of thinking has gotten me nowhere and will never get me anywhere and all it leads to is confusion, self doubt, anger, and pain. this is where fate comes in. we all have free will, of course. and i always think back to that part of "forrest gump" in which he's trying to figure out whether you decide your own destiny or if everything is already mapped out for you from the beginning. he concludes that it's probably a little bit of both. makes sense. but in the end, i believe that everything happens for a reason and that what will be, will be. que sera, sera. it's just hard to...let go, just let go, when you want something so much. it's hard to wait. i've always had this odd sense that i'm running out of time.

on another note, i like to believe that karma exists, which is why i think it's pointless for us to waste our time on revenge. but in order to truly own that belief, you've got to put positive energy out there. treat others as you'd like to be treated.

i'm not a jesus freak, and i went to catholic school for 13 years which means i know jack shit about the bible, but...

love is patient and kind;

love is not jealous or boastful;

it is not arrogant or rude.

love does not insist on its own way;

it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.

love bears all things, believes all things,

hopes all things, endures all things. -- 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

...how can you argue with that?

i'm not a robot...

2007-07-28T18:19:00.000-04:00

...but the word makes me laugh. robots in theory are funny to me; robots in actuality scare the shit out of me. so if you get me a robot shirt, we're cool. if you create and deliver my robot twin to my front door like that chinese guy who was on jimmy kimmel, we're not friends anymore. but as much as i don't wish to cohabitate with one, i have to admit that robots have something good going for them. they don't feel...anything. alright, i know that's very emo and the tin man needs a heart and all that, but really. robot love, if it were to exist, would be so simple. and i'll be honest here: not only am i a complicated girl, but i'm GLAD that i am. i embrace it. i know that as deeply as things hurt me sometimes, that only means that the good things feel THAT much better. my emotions run deep, yadda yadda. but some days, as they say...are better than others.

and now i have not only writer's block (yes, already), but also a headache, which is just one more condition in a list of many from which robots do not have to suffer.

but i'll be back (get it?)...

like the terminator.