brush yourself off & try again

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

i'll be back soon...promise.

sometimes i feel i've got to run away

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

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

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

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"?

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

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

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

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.