Not Everybody Talks

I am not maternal. I would not categorize myself under "caregiver" and when I walk into a room, I cannot sense what mood someone is in. I am in my own world and I have always figured, that is okay. When I need to talk, I do. I figured, everyone else speaks up when they need to, too. I am wrong, of course.

Luckily, when it is really, really quiet it occurs to me, the other person has interiority too. It strikes me, like a bible smacking me on the head. "Wake UP! You're Selfish!"

Tonight it was very, very quiet. In our kitchen. 1 am. My roommate massaged her own feet while I grilled a burger.
"We're both quiet because we're taking care of our own shit" I thought.

But it was quiet. And I considered that my roommate is from Japan. That she only just moved to his city of sin, this enormous city, a few months ago. She hasn't made friends yet. She has no family here.

"How are you?" I asked. She said she was fine. Twenty minutes later, after silence she put down her feet and she said "I am overwhelmed."

She wouldn't have told anyone that this night if I hadn't asked.

Does it have to be the dead of night for me to notice that somebody else may need something? How do you hone your skills at reading other people?

Split Personality

I can't believe how long it has been since I've posted. Well actually, I can.

It is scary to know what you want to do. It is scary to know what you want.

I go through periods during which I REFUSE to admit that I am a dreamer. I go through periods during which I tell people that I would be perfectly happy, excuse me, SO happy to just have a job in an office when I graduate. And I tell people that I am lucky, because I'll be happy doing just about anything.

I am lying. I am just afraid of the truth.

For some people, security works. It not only works, it is their ultimate goal. Their dream. I can understand that. If you came from a broken home where, say, your parents were raging alcoholics who drunkenly ranted about becoming an artist some day or had a new "invention" every day and "god damnit, that was my idea!" when they saw it on the televesion....if THAT was your childhood then of course, the Dreamer type becomes not so glamorous. Paying your bills and tucking your kid into bed, every day, feels like a dream come true in itself. And a 9 to 5 job is an absolutely respectable way to get that.

I could come up with a million scenarios as to why a person would be happy with stability and never even dream of much more.

But the thing is, I am not one of those people. I have been applying for internships as an editor, fact checker, researcher etc....but all for Offices. To be on a Staff.

I love my readers. So much. Many of them are women twice my age who are not writers by trade, many of whom I get the feeling have no plans of becoming one. But I believe that many of you have already found your personal happiness.

Now I am not saying it is EVER too late. It NEVER is. But I am 21 years old and it is sure as Hell not too late for me to become a writer by trade.

It is a never ending struggle to both appreciate the simple things and strive for the extraordinary. But I am going to go have a beer with my roomies now. It will always be important to me to have good friends to have a beer with and a steady, 9 to 5 job would certainly ensure that.

But while i have this beer, I'm going to dream of the extraordinary. Like publishing a book, or having my own column. I think it's possible to have it all. :)

Yogurt Is Not Old Milk

I learned last night not to indulge in all my cheap college habits in the same night. Spread throughout the week has proven to be fine. But last night I learned not to, in one night:

1) Eat the piece of steak that fell off the nachos onto the bar where people were just doing body shots, just because you never have enough money to buy red meat at home and can't stand to watch the piece go uneaten. Let it rest in piece next to the nipple ring that fell off someone there too.

2) Do not drink the bathroom sink water because it is taking too long to get the bartenders attention to ask for a glass of water. The guy that left the bathroom before you Did just joke about peeing in the sink. He probably wasn't joking. He did wear cut-off sleeves and a trucker hat after all.

3) Do not use the milk that is now visually moving slowly, like yogurt, in it's container, with your cereal at 3 am when you get home from the bar and have the drunken munchies. It's not "just how yogurt is made anyways" as you always tell your roommates when they watch you in disgust.


4) And when you wake up to the feeling of an alien tearing out of your belly, like in that one scary movie where a woman gives birth to an alien, do not wonder what's going on. You know what's going on. You did this.

I Was Hit On By A Hobo

It's funny that (among many other nasty, nasty ones) some of my ex's parting words were "fine, go. You just want to party with your friends" And while that is certainly not why I left, I have been doing my fair share of partying. Girlfriends, I've missed you:)

One thing I forgot about going out to bars and clubs in the highly inconvenient, but constant effort to deflect come-on's by men, while still trying to have a good time. But at least one thing I can say, is they sure do provide a little entertainment.

HIM: "Where's your boyfriend?" ME: "around here somewhere" HIM: "Wouldnt you rather have someone who is here, now?" My Thoughts: "Oh yes, anyone within the vicinity will do. Anyone at all. But I dont know, the guy next to you managed to spike his hair a little higher. And he is here now too."


HIM: "Wanna dance?" ME: "I just want to dance with my girlfriends (and when did the proper location to place your hand on a stranger move from the waste to the buttox?" HIM: "Are you gay" My Thoughts: "Buddy, you're not helping anything by feeding me answers"........Me: "Yes."

HIM: "I promise I'm not a hobo but----" My Thoughts: "Well i've stopped listening."


To single life!

I Chose a Comedy Over a Tragedy

Well, it's been a very long time since I've written.
I got sucked into a very unhealthy relationship. That's really all there is to it. I gave up a lot of what was important to me, including this blog.
I was made to feel like a selfish person for stating my needs--big or small.
I was made to feel so selfish for claiming them, that I stopped claiming them, and I made myself smaller and smaller to try and fit into the relationship. Finally i was in a very small corner, couldn't breathe too well and i said "i think we should break up."

I don't want the subjects of my blogs to mainly be about relationships. Perhaps the fact that they usually were when I was in that relationship, was the sign of a bad relationship. I began the relationship with the mindset "relationships shouldn't involve any thinking" and then I learned "they will involve *some* thinking" and I ran with that.....until I realized, "this relationship is involving too much thinking."

So, turning a new leaf. Something I realized that is very, VERY, important to me (and I realized it because of the complete lack of it towards the end of my relationship) is...LAUGHTER. COMEDY. I don't laugh because I don't care. I laugh because it's something we always have. Regardless of the effects of an event, the implications, the mood etc... you can always squeeze some laughter out of it. Comedy is such a strong force. It's gotten me through this break up, and i think it's going to get me to and Through some of the most intense experiences of my life. For those of you who have been reading my blog, if You hear me getting a bit mopey, Call Me Out. If i'm not laughing, i'm not myself.

Too Young To Think About Mortality?

I haven't posted in a while...I guess I'd say it's because things have stabilized in my life. I wrote a lot about instabilities in my relationship that now seem to be...non issues.

Somehow though, Stability seems to be an issue.

I experienced something the other day. A panic attack? Separation anxiety? Not quite sure. I just know I felt ten leagues under the sea and my heart was beating fast.

I had just been sitting at dinner with my boyfriend and his family.

Why did this happen?

It's going to sounds crazy, really it might, but I think that when something stabilizes in your life it allows you to suddenly, maybe just for a moment, look Far into the future. And that is what happened.

It was probably prompted by a phone conversation with my grandfather that morning. he was just standing at my grandmother's grave and telling me about his memories with her.

Later that afternoon my sister called to say that her and her boyfriend broke up.

Then that evening my Guy sat me down and wanted to know my thoughts on him moving to my hometown (which would in fact be closer to me than where he is now)

It was probably the first two things on that list of happenings that made me react to the last item on the list. We were just sitting at the table, peacefully, happily, STABILY, and suddenly I looked forward. Just for a second, I could see days and years and ages of my life passing with this guy and then death.

It may be because I had absolutely no question in my head at that moment about the relationship. When we have something we are working on/figuring out/fixing, we are fixated on the immediate. I had been fixated on the immediate for a long time and this was the first time I looked forward, even as far as mortality.

I suppose it's not that strange. But it was not pleasant either. I can't be going to lie down in the middle of dinner over these little attacks on a weekly basis. that is not functional. But how do we control this? Does anyone have any experience with what I'm talking about?

I Pissed Off My PlayThing

I was a plaything to my last boyfriend. Plain and Simple. Good guy, really he was, but he was stressed, high-strung, cynical—when it came to real life. We functioned because we didn’t talk about real life. I asked about how applications to medical school were going “oooooh, you know. But let’s just not talk about that right now,” and he’d pull me onto the bed.
“Are you still fighting with your Dad?”
“What? Oh, it’s cool,” and….he would pull me onto the bed.
He didn’t want me involved in his stresses. I was not a part of that Real world, O.K. But the trouble came when I realized….he didn’t want to be a part of my real world either. When I began to notice, after I’d give an animated account of a new blog I’d discovered that day, or a job I was excited about interview for, he would pinch me on the arm and say “well that’s great”. And. Pull me. Onto the Bed. He was great at finding funny movies for us to watch, or new restaurants to get take out from, or little articles he found amusing to read to me. But we never talked about ANYTHING serious.
This was what I said when I broke up with him:
“I don’t think you realize I even exist when I’m not in front of you. I don’t think you are able to come up with one single picture of what my days look like during the week when we are not together. And that’s exactly why you don’t take me seriously! That’s why you only make plans last minute with me, or flake on me. Because you don’t realize I’m a real person with real stresses and real things that take up real time! And you don’t realize that, because you don’t want to.”

And this is the phone call my current boyfriend made to me last night.
“I feel like you don’t value what I do at all, like my work. Every time I start to talk about anything work related, you make a joke and move the conversation somewhere else. I don’t feel like you take me seriously at all. But if I didn’t talk about my stress and my work, my life, for godsake!, you wouldn’t even know what I’m doing with my days!”

Ok. He’s right. It’s true, I make jokes. But it’s because…I feel incompetent, inferior even, when photography, lawsuits, money, GROWNUP things are brought up for which I don’t have any of the jargon. More importantly, I do it because I love him and I want to provide FUN for him. I want to bring in a LIGHT mood when he is stressed. I want to make him happy when he is unhappy. It’s not that I don’t take him seriously! It’s that I take him so seriously, because he is so kind and caring and hardworking, that I want to provide for him a BREAK from all that. Wait! Don’t You understand?!...
……Oh. Uh OH. I think it’s me who understands now. I think maybe I understand my EX a little bit more? I think I understand that we can do the exact thing someone did to us…to someone else. Without even realizing it.