damn it feels good to be a (paper-pushing) gangsta

this is how i feel at work lately:

this is what i would like to do about it:

this blogs for you...rodney

happy 29th birthday my friend! I know that you generally only read this blog to find out if i am telling some story or another about you or if i quote you. so i thought i would use today's post for you. there are a few pictures i have culled from my facebook albums too.

what is there to say? you are a dependable and trust-worthy friend, you make my friend jessica incredibly happy and i am so glad you both moved to chicago. when you told me you would avenge my death (if something foul should ever befall me) this weekend it pretty much sealed the deal. we will be buds forever, even if that means going to your softball games on mondays and fridays, your improv performances (once you graduate) on whatever days those are and any other activity you sign yourself up for. i like that i get to watch guy movies with you and we can enjoy/mock them together, but for mostly different reasons. you are my favorite person to play wii with, even though half the fun for you is in beating me.

i also think you are pretty funny most of the time, except when you're salty. but you've kept those times to a minimum lately. also, our co-obsession with forgetting sarah marshall means that i never have to be misunderstood again when breaking into my impression of jonah hill's impression of russell brand as aldous snow. so i raise this glass of lemon flavored seltzer to you, rodney, for being so awesome!

for lilia

looking extremely unfashionable in italy the 80s

most love their mothers for all of the obvious reasons. they nurtured and nudged you into pajamas and eating your vegetables and taking cough syrup when you were sick. they changed countless diapers on your behalf and lost their youthful shape (if only for a short time or perhaps longer) in the pursuit of having you. there were stories at bedtime and homemade meals on the table, rides to ballet and swimming and horseback riding and anything else that might have entered a child's imagination, if even for a fleeting moment. there were presents carefully written onto santa's list placed under your tree and carefully laid out outfits with frills and bows and other bits and bobs that embarrass you now but which she just couldn't resist then. when you are a teen there are the countless sleepless nights you know she spent wondering where you were and then knowing that those restless nights didn't end when your adolescence did. there are the bills paid and the laundry done and the countless times that she said i love you even when you know you didn't earn it. because that is what mother's do. love unconditionally.

i was lucky enough to have a mother who did all these things for me. above and beyond for more of the time than my snarky self probably deserved. perhaps it is because she didn't have the benefit of the same motherly touch in her own life, or perhaps it is because it is in her particular nature to cajole happy outcomes out of less than perfect circumstances.

for those like me, lucky enough to still have the care and comfort of my mother, there is the added moments that go beyond the mother/child experience. now that i am 30 my mother is also my friend. she is a person who's advice and opinion i trust and although i sometimes want to react towards her like the child i used to be, deep down i know that she respects me enough to trust in my choices. i am lucky. i am so very very lucky. and like with most things i don't say it enough, i don't tell people enough or stop and appreciate all the amazing things and people that surround me. and the funny thing is that since blogging and writing everything down it has made it even more evident that i need to understand my particular bounty, and instead of railing against the lack, embrace the tangible, the embraceable.

there are a million things that i love about my mother, so in honor of her on this, her 37th mother's day, i have complied a list (she does love her lists!) of just a few of those things:

1. she has the most beautiful name i have ever heard and reminds me not only of her, but also of my late grandmother who named her
2. the way she makes eggs
3. her strange brand of feminism
4. that she defends me even when it's not warranted (unless i actually murdered someone unjustly, then she would turn me in)
5. she loves her food super hot
6. she never drinks coffee or tea with sugar
7. she talks really loudly and emphatically as if everything she is saying is the most exciting thing she has ever heard
8. she values my opinion on things like fashion and books
9. she was as wonderful a teacher as she is a mother
10. she made me the most beautifully crafted quilt when she was pregnant with me and she isn't all that crafty
11. she does everything 115% of the way
12. she never says never
13. she loves my father, even when he is a pain in the ass
14. she loves my brother and i even when we are unbearable pains in the ass
15. that she sometimes curses
16. that she'll tell me small things in confidence and it feels so special
17. that she marches to the beat of her very own drummer
18. that she likes to use phrases like the one above
19. that she won't apologize for who she is
20. that she taught me not to either
21. the way she rocks red lipstick
22. how she fought for everything she has and never says so
23. her ability to laugh at herself
24. her eggplant parmigiana
26. that she plans on growing old gracefully, but never slowing down
27. the fact that she has no idea how beautiful she is
28. that she encourages every idea or whim i choose to pursue
29. that she has 15 different nicknames for me including cookie, bubie and brunhilda
30. the way she taught me how to love by example

this list could go on and on, but you like things to be quick and efficient so i'll just say i love you mama. thank you. 

one more fold in the brain...or not

long beach sunset fall 09

a short catalogue of current thoughts:

1. apartment project for over my bed
2. pie

3. home
4. isobel
5. the dishes in the sink
6. love
7. julian casablancas solo album
8. hash browns
9. writing
10. the cure
11. paperwork

12. money
13. the ocean/sand/summer sun
14. bills
15. my mother
16. rain/thunder/lightning
17. summer clothes
18. facebook
19. tina fey
20. my lunch sandwich
21. my messy room
22. teaching
23. failure
24. being in bed/sleep
25. this blog

fair's fair

last week i was talking to someone (i honestly can't remember who) about fairness and the way life doles out breaks and benefits and outcomes. the way that karma doesn't always seem to directly hit its mark, or benefit a do-gooder and that sometimes life's justice is meted out in uneven chucks. i can think of people on both ends of the spectrum. those who deserve more breaks than they get and those who haven't really had to suffer at all.

when i think about these scenarios, the name paris hilton comes to mind. i'm not really sure why. but i think, there is a girl who has had every privilege this world can offer. she was born into a family with money and power, she is thin and blonde and is not completely unattractive and has a trust fund, and despite her obvious need to receive attention from the media and the public to achieve some sort of perverted celebrity, her life is pretty charmed. she couldn't even handle sitting in a jail cell for what 30 days by herself, because she had probably never been asked to be alone with her thoughts for that long. or suffered the indignity of being grounded by her obviously indulgent parents. sure, sure i know what you are saying, who am i to judge anyone's circumstances or life experiences or know what they go through on a daily basis? fair enough. but i am guessing that hilton never worried about where her next meal was coming from, or her next soon-to-be-neglected pet for that matter. the harsh words the media throws her way are generally fair, deserved and she is the one that put herself in that position in the first place. she never worried about a roof over her head or a retirement fund. she never even had to think about an actual career. she can walk through this world with her head in the clouds and still end up, at the end of an 80 year run, on top. one could even say that her lower iq is a benefit, because she doesn't even have to recognize how useless and disposable she really is. ouch.

and so you don't think i am just hating on paris, i too have lived a fairly charmed life. besides a bout with lyme's disease that left me perpetually sick for several of my formative years and the curse of being a chubby adolescent in a society that worships the thin, i have had a pretty good run. i can pay my rent, put food in my mouth, clothe myself and once in a while go out to a nice restaurant or the movies. i have also had the benefit of both my parents as both an emotional and monetary safety net, underutilized yes, but ever present. my childhood experiences have made me resilient and sensitive, yes, aware of the physical and emotional pain inflicted on others by circumstance or trickery. either way is wicked and fate is a fickle mistress. but knowing that my parents are there when i make a misstep and fall off the tightrope we all walk, permits me to live the highwire lifestyle i have taken to in the past. i paid for graduate school myself, took on the loans, the crushing debt that i will be paying for until i am 65 and probably far beyond that (no exaggeration), but when my plane landed in the states, they were the ones who picked me up at the airport and it was their house that i lived in until i could get back into the workforce. others aren't afforded these benefits. i know that the fates have smiled on me thus far and i am thankful, i just wish others could get the same treatment.

my mother's life is a good example of the random assignment of pleasure and pain by the universe. when she was 5 my mother lost her mother to ovarian cancer. but that wasn't where the loss ended. my grandfather, who i suspect was always a selfish man tempered by a caring, giving and traditional woman, spent no time disrupting the lives of his children. my mother's siblings, much older, were out of the house by then, but my mother too young to even understand what had happened, was shuttled to her aunt's house, so that her father could return to italy. her aunt only spoke italian and i am sure that the transition was scary and frustrating and through it my mother learned to be accommodating and pliable and, in some ways, invisible. and although both of her parents were italian, my grandmother had only allowed english to be spoken in the house so their transformation to typical american family could be complete. when my grandfather returned to the states almost a year later, he had a new wife and she was with child. my mother returned to their home, but all traces of my grandmother were removed from the house. the rest of my mother's childhood and adolescence was marred by incidences of unfairness and bitter remarks and soul crushing cruelty at the hands of loved ones.

just thinking about it makes me want to scream and cry and throw things around and i turn beet red and want to write letters and make phones calls and change history. my mother, however, remains calm and accepting in the face of her own memories. she tries to recall the brighter moments of her formative years. don't get me wrong, she recognizes the emotional inequity between say her childhood and my father's. she knows that things didn't happen like that for other kids her age. perhaps it was the skills she acquired in that year that she lost her mother, where she learned to take things as they come and not ask why of someone or something  that can't answer back. i don't think it is a coincidence that she doesn't believe in god.

i think of my mother often in times of other's hardships. i compare their reactions to hers. she has never complained, she is not just a glass half-full person, she is a glass overflowing person. i used to wake up each morning to a knock on my bedroom door and the words "rise and shine!" she is the personification of positivity to the point of annoyance. but however she chooses to approach the world she has earned it, and even in my crabbiest of moments i have to remember that.

but the universe didn't throw all shit experiences at my mother. i feel that in some ways, there was an evening out of the karma imbalance for her in the form of my father. she met him at 16. they have been together for more than 40 years. they love each other like couples at the end of hollywood romances love each other. they spend all of their time together. sometimes my mother complains that my dad needs to get his own life, he is all up in her shit (my words not hers) and that his retirement is really cramping her social life. but this is their banter. this is the way it has been since she was a lovestruck teenager or should i say she still is a lovestruck teenager. and for my father's part, he gets it. he gets her and understands the quirks of her personality that were borne out of those childhood years. he admires her for her resilience and fortitude and all of these other attributes that helped her survive in tact and with a smile.

i have friends that have lived charmed lives, some recognize it and others not so much. i also have friends that just can't seem to catch a break, life keeps lobbing them grenades and as much as they try to avoid them, some shrapnel this way comes. i don't know how it works out there in the universe, i don't know how to turn the tables or alter the course of events, i don't even know if karma and fate or anything exists, although i feel like there is some sort of energy out there. and since i don't believe in god, or allah, or whatnot what do i have but my weirdo new age mumbo jumbo? i do have control of my own actions and through my words or advice, hope that i sometimes inspire the positive actions of others. but sometimes there is nothing you can do and bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people and the only thing that gets you through is that one day you'll see the roles reverse. and the people who have wronged the ones you love get there's and the people you love find people to love them as much as you do. 

this is what popped up when i googled karma

i can see you

so as sam, amanda and i were discussing our blogs and writing them and reading them and others reading them (so meta and circular we are) i pondered if there was a blog site hit counter. amanda said that indeed one existed. i said sam should most definitely get one on her shit because she gets a bagillion hits each time she posts, because she is awesome. currently her counter stands at 778 and i installed that shit at the end of last week. impressive. it is interesting to see how many people track you even if they don't technically "follow" you through blogger or whatnot. and although this blog host should give you feedback like facebook does for the administration of a fan page, it doesn't.

i went a huntin for one of these new fangaled contraptions and found me a fancy one. see it at the bottom of the page. although sam rejected this one because it was too busy or too annoying or for whatever reason she gave me, i love this one simply because i can see all of you by location. now that doesn't mean i actually know who is reading, but it gives me a general idea. for example, i think steph's sister read the blog i wrote about her because she is the only person that i know that lives in the city that she does. i know that my friend in wichita has checked it out and also a bunch of people in illinois suburbs that i have never visited. it also lets me know that my ex-boyfriend and now just friend (i guess i should just start referring to him like that) is perhaps stalking this site now (he can be a little ocd) because i have a large number of hits from dublin. either that or he thought my writing was so impressive he got our mutual friends there to read it too. either way i am flattered.

for those who live in larger cities it is harder for me to figure out, but at least i know more people than my 12 "followers" are reading. i was happy with just the 12, but now i really feel honored. so thanks for thinking i am somewhat interesting, or at least odd enough to check out every once in a while. i will attempt to live up to the recognition and stick with this thing for as long as i can. so far it has been a little over a month. wow a year is a long time to commit to something. but don't be shy, click the follow link and i'll show up in your google reader AND i'll know who you are for definite. it's a win win. and if that is too much of a commitment i understand, but just know that i'll be stalking my counter contraption waiting for your town name to pop up.

  

nashing my teeth

last night i went to kate nash's all ages show (as evidenced by the older man in the center of this picture) and it was dynamic and interesting and it made me like her more than i thought i ever could. during her second to last song, as she stood on a pitch black stage, one flashing red light intermittently lighting her face, growling into the mike i am electric i am electric i was transformed into a 15 year old fan girl, smiling in the dark at the inspired words of my new girl crush. i especially liked the message (minus the mention of cocaine) of mansion song. the lyrics of which i am posting below.

mansion song

I fancy the hip rock 'n' roll scenester
I wanna be fucked and then rolled over
Cause I'm an independent woman of the 21st century
No time for nits, I want sex and debauchery
I read glamour and the guardian
I like flowers and I'm hardy and I take cocaine
I don't give a fuck about her
I want your name

I can get fucked like the best of men
Like the best of men
Like the worst of pain
Inflicted on another young girl again
Impressed by another guitar hero
He's a top score and you're a zero
You're out of your league
There ain't no rubber on the tracks it's gravel
You fall hard, cut quick and it's an STD, a cut knee
You're a side of stage grasp, a laugh
An aftershow party in a bath
Fucked and expected to be fucked
A gasp from an uninformed intruder
The crowd go wild and things get ruder
They're already out of hand and there's no-one here to take your hand.
It's a cold shower and a scramble for a dirty pair of knickers,
don't get yours mixed up with hers now get out of bed, get out of bed, get out get out get get out of bed
Get up, get down and get undressed!
Cause that's what you do best, strip, strip strip n shag, fuck get fucked 'n drag, and be impressed,
by the better sex, take a piece of raw vegetable and hold it to your breast
and say you stood for nothing.
You were just a hole that lacked passion, another undignified product of society.
That girl should have been a mansion.

the tenseness of future past imperfect

so i have mentioned briefly here and there that i have been attempting to date in this city. it has been a lackluster endeavor so far and not one that i really wish to chronicle. my hope is that one day i'll just start writing about fun things i'm doing with so and so and in that way it won't have to be a huge announcement. but my last two dates got me thinking about the evolution of my current dating life and the oft left out proper rules of dating that our parents benefited from, but seem to be alluding us in this fast-paced interneted world.

i remember when i moved back to my hometown. i landed there after dublin and felt stuck in every aspect of my life. i was back in my parent's house, working at a florist/hospital gift shop, dating my then boyfriend long distance from IRELAND and trying to figure out what the fuck i was doing with my life. one day as i was sitting in the relative calm of the hospital gift shop when an old high school classmate's mother walked in. now this woman was never very nice. not to me, my parents, my best friend, other classmates. she saw me as competition always. her child didn't always see me this way.

the girl seemed to discount me as any real sort of competition in school and for college placement not based on my intelligence but my relative disinterest in academics. she saw me, i think, as a comedic foil to my other friends. i tended not to pick up the required readings, kept papers to their stated minimum and never over prepared for anything. in my junior and senior years i carefully planned my schedule so that is was the perfect blend of ap classes, art classes and study halls (which i would also spend in the art room). while others learned the intricacies of physics i was unfurling rolls of film in a darkroom. i had long before given up the notion that i was going to be some great scientist, dressed in lab coat white and full of new discoveries. i pondered the idea of being a geneticist for a hot minute because that shit fascinates me, but i liked words better than formulas and calculations and dissecting poor, preserved animals.

i think i have digressed.

anyway this woman walked into the store and gave a surprised look and said something like, 'well what are you doing here?' and i was all 'duh, working. do you need a get well card or perhaps this large lollipop to shove in your obnoxious gob?' no i didn't say that. i smiled my sickly sweet 'if you know me, you know i fucking hate you right now' smile as she said something else like 'well what have you been doing then?' as if this couldn't possibly be it, this couldn't possibly be your JOB, but not in a flattering way, it was more in a way that said, 'well i always thought one wrong turn and you would be right here.'

so i very matter-of-factly let her know exactly where i had been, in just the right way, not bragging see, because that is gauche, but using key words in combination with the right delivery. if performed correctly it would puncture her bravado and be like a slow steady leak of her big balloon head. it landed just as i had wanted and upon learning of where i had been the previous year she pursed her lips and said 'oh well then isn't that nice.' after a beat she proceeded to walk backwards out of the shop. i think she knew if she turned her back on me i might just lob an ohenry bar at her head. you can't shame someone that doesn't have any bitch.

i knew that my position at the gift shop was only temporary and that made it easier to get past my own inner 'what are you doing here?' thoughts. it also helped me deal with the fact that i was still living with my parents and that my relationship was costing me both monetarily and emotionally. after our breakup, i made a move to be in a more career oriented job, i moved into a house with my friend and starting living my life back on one continent. but all of these decisions to be more permanent, more adult, more tied to my hometown just made me feel more stuck.

my first year after the breakup was a blur. the new friends i had made at my new job, blended with old friends who had returned home post-college and combined they tried to shake me out of my malaise. but everyday was like walking through thicket, a fog-filled field with no beginning and no end. i was easily turned around, easily broken down, easily separated into parts that hardly functioned and parts that didn't function. i wouldn't emerge from the rubble of my past unscathed. my inability to shake my feelings and my desire to continue speaking to my ex did me no favors and my friends found it difficult to stand by and watch. there were lines drawn, silent wars waged. and all the while, beyond the crying jags and the constant feeling that my heart might just rip right down the middle, with the friend complications and pressures of a busy job, the overwhelming feeling of never getting free, of being mired in the present by the choices of my past were unshakable. unbearable. my feet were locked in concrete shoes of my own design. i had chosen to move back, i had chosen to wait it out and give my relationship a chance. i played the odds and ended up with a middling result.

people encouraged me to date. my friends would take me out, get me drunk, introduce me to strangers and point me out to eligible men. it was ineffectual. i ended up in too many corners of too many bars to count. my parents also wanted me to move on. they wanted me to find a job and a home that they didn't own to live in, and happiness with some guy who would want to stay on the east end. i raged against this. i had never wanted to return and i saw the disappointment in the eyes of old friends when, upon seeing me around town, would say, but you were supposed to get out.

i half suspected that my parents thought i had an expiration date. my particular brand of uniqueness makes me, initially, what they call a hard sell. i am stubborn and opinionated. i don't really feel the need to people please and generally like to call bullshit on bullshit people. they both constantly mention that i will need a "flexible" guy. by this they mean someone that will bend to my will. although it is a running family joke, i generally do not find it funny. mainly because it is not in the least bit true. i never respect people that let others run roughshod over them. and i also think dating a pushover would get really boring super fast. for example i found my ex's desire to be difficult about the simplest things both the worst and the best thing about him. in return, he didn't let me get away with anything, ever. i do have plenty of positive attributes but when weighed with my age, looks, debt, gross income and gardening and housekeeping skills, i guess they thought i better get myself the hell out there and quick. but i was having none of it. i think i felt as if dating someone would make it all permanent and tangible in a way i never wanted it to be. i lingered in that state for most of my time on long island.

i dabbled with a slight crush here and there, but overall i stayed single and untethered. i wanted my next move to be on my terms, a location of my choosing at the time of my choosing, for reasons of reclaiming self-possession and purpose. my love life, i reasoned could wait out this period of my life with me. with both the emotional and forward looking parts of myself left unsatisfied for so many years, i would make moves more quickly towards what i wanted.

it still took four years.

when i was saying goodbye to co-workers and friends during my last weeks at home before moving here, i had a running joke. people would ask, 'you hoping to find love out there in the midwest, with those nice milkfed boys?' or some variation. and my response was always, while living here i was able to say it was the lack of decent eligible men that kept me single, but if i go out there and still can't get a date, then i am going to know it's me.' but i didn't ever consider that it really was me.

but for the first year and a half here my still dateless/boyfriendless existence was starting to prove my hypothesis. it could be me. i would return home or visit friends in other cities and they would ask expectantly if i was seeing anyone new. it got easier to let them all down as time went on, eventually i just learned to cut them off in the introductory paragraph to my life update.

i'm doing good, nothing too exciting happening, jobs good, still not dating anyone, bought a new bookcase, have a standing date with my friends every thursday, been reading at this show every few months or so. moved out on my own, thinking of bringing my cat to live with me here.

and in this way it cut off the possibility of the conversation.

but then a few months ago i realized it really was me. but not for the reasons i thought. all these years i believed that i was a hard sell. that it was going to take a really special someone to get me and love me and take me for who i am. and that may still be true, but the fact was that i wasn't even letting anyone know who that was. i was someone completely different with strangers and acquaintances than i was with closer friends. my representative was awkward and closed off, not open to newness and change, impatient with certain personalities and judgemental of others all in an attempt to keep the unknown at bay, my heart closed and my nights desperately free to ponder why, in fact, no one ever asked me on a date. i was stagnating in my belief that no one was going to love all of me ever again. not really recognizing that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. and then one day i cut off all my hair and everything changed.

i will admit to you internet ether, what i only told a few close friends at the time. i had kept my hair long for so many years on a promise to myself that i would not cut it short again until i was married. at first, it was just a silly thought, a whim that i was passively satisfying. but it soon began to weigh on me. each year, as inches grew, i felt more and more burdened by its very existence. it was always my most coveted asset, my hair. it was the thing, in my mind, that made me beautiful to others. people throughout my life, would remark on its texture and thickness, its ability to look great with minimal effort and the color oh my god the color! when i was younger i wasn't allowed to cut my hair, my father forbade it, subscribing to the traditional labels of femininity or some shit. by 16 i walked out of my bathroom, down the stairs and into the living room clutching a thick, long, reddish brown ponytail that not five minutes before had been attached to my head. my dad looked horrified, my mother seemed to brace herself on impact. one of them uttered why? i answered something like, i wanted to.

and just as i had felt that day, so too had i eventually reached the end of my proverbial hair entwined rope once again. last may i decided to shed my mane and forgive myself for not sticking with the silent pact i had made. and with the ponytail seemed to go a fair amount of self-censoring.

no longer able to hide my face from anyone, everything i thought or felt was now writ large upon it. i made moves, broke previously erected barricades and started, after several months of mental preparation, going on a series of blind and semi-blind dates. and it was awkward and painful and silent and sometimes not silent. but it was all new and that adrenaline high was the feeling i kept with me while recapping the evening with friends, especially when the date went just so-so. and this leads me to the original idea that started me on this long and winding road.

dating etiquette is a difficult thing to navigate, especially in this day in age when it is so easy to ignore those we deem unpleasant or not second date worthy. i myself fell prey to this after one first date. before we parted from the first, the boy, who my friends and i have dubbed swiss cheese, asked if i would want to do it again. i said sure, because i feel i never make a great first impression. afterwards, i emailed him to say thanks again for a good time (note: not great!) and he responded asking again if i would like to meet up. i replied asking what was he thinking for a second meet up. no response. i was heading out of town for a bit, so i thought maybe he would contact me when i returned, i even emailed him to let him know when i arrived back in chicago. nothing. and although i wasn't wholly devastated from the passive rejection like i would have been months before (this open dating policy has taught me to take things in stride) i was still aggravated by the person's obvious inability to be polite. i wasn't asking for an explanation, just an email back that said hey, i'm no longer interested. especially since he initiated talk of a second date!

in a desire to set an example or change dating karma or just be a decent person, i made a pact with myself that i would never do what swiss cheese did to me. i would be upfront and if at all possible, honest within the parameters of niceness. it is the harder thing to do, but don't we owe it to each other on some sort of basic human level?

so this weekend, after the second of two just so-so dates with this guy who had stated that he wanted to see me yet again, i decided i had to just bite the bullet and make a move to stop another date. i decided to email him and let him know that i thought he was very nice, but there was no chemistry between us. blah blah blah. it was difficult and awkward and it took me a full 20 minutes for wordy me to write two sentences just so, but it had to be done. it was the right thing to do. and i was happier knowing that he wasn't going to wonder forever why i didn't return the voicemail that was sure to come on monday.

just as that mother had made me feel less than for working at the gift shop, and swiss cheese had made me feel less than for whatever reason he gave himself, i never want to make someone feel less than. because sometimes things just work out or don't work out. sometimes life leads you in directions you never thought you would turn and sometimes you cut off all of your hair because you need to be free of something or everything that it stood for and discover that what you thought defined you, only held you back and that people may just like the new you better anyway.