I feel like I just took a week-long crash course in home networking. AT&T DSL is officially awful. After spending way too much money and way too much time, though, I/we finally got it figured out and now everything works, hooray! Until it doesn't work and then I have to call AT&T and sit on the phone with them for hours while they insist nothing is wrong...whatever.
I was homeschooled until I was 9, and then I decided to go to public school. Soon after the transition I'd often wake up with a forcefully melancholy feeling - it was very specific combination of lonely and scared and homesick for responsibility-free childhood, and on those days I'd beg my mom to let me take a mental health day and once in a while she'd agree to it and I'd sit at home listening to music and drinking tea and spending time with her and feeling cozy and by the end of the day I'd feel better. I'd go to school the next day feeling refreshed and ready for anything. For some reason today I woke up with the same exact feeling, which I haven't felt since those days in public school so many years ago. Maybe it had something to do with whatever my dreams were last night, but anyway I woke up and all I wanted to do was grab my old stuffed Piglet and cuddle with him under the covers until the feeling went away. Unfortunately I had to leave for work in a half-hour so I didn't have that option. But that sickly feeling has been haunting my insides and tinging my day slightly melancholic blue, and I don't know what to do to get rid of it.
I know I haven't had a change this dramatic since I went to college, and that transition was made easier by the fact that I had an instant community of people who were also going through a similar transition, plus I was ready as hell to get out of my parents' house and awayawayaway from their dysfunctions. I never got homesick for my parents' house, just for what I wished my parents' house was but knew it never could be. But today I'm homesick for...I don't know, exactly. Homesick for the community I had in college, and right after college. Homesick for someone to confide in every day besides my boyfriend (I do love talking to him and I love that we talk about anything and everything and practically all intimacy issues I ever had are blissfully gone...but I miss having girlfriends to talk to, I guess). Homesick for a time when I didn't have to work and I didn't have to pay bills, all I had to do was just learn every day and try not to spend too much money. Of course back when that was true I was busy wishing I was somewhere else doing something else. I need to learn to appreciate this individual moment exactly as it is. I need to start going to that Buddhist center down the street.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Random random
Oh NO I forgot to post yesterday! I don't even have a good excuse except that I just plain forgot. I'm not doing very well at this posting every day thing. And an old close friend of mine came to town to visit for the day and she's on her way over so I will make this short.
THINGS I DISCOVERED RECENTLY THAT ARE AWESOME
1) Plain yogurt and fresh blackberries crushed up in it - so much better than fruit-on-the-bottom.
2) Customers that make you remember what's really important. (I was venting to a customer about how tired and stressed out I was yesterday and he noticed the Buddha necklace I was wearing and made a mudra with his hands reminded me to breathe, and then we got talking about Buddhism and it made my whole day, possibly my whole week).
3) Friends who live hours and hours away and come to visit spontaneously anyway.
4) Iced green tea - yum yum yum.
5) Netflix working okay even though the internet's incredibly slow and malfunctional.
6) Stores with a good return policy.
7) Having off from work two whole days in a row.
8) Brahms' second symphony.
LOVE.
THINGS I DISCOVERED RECENTLY THAT ARE AWESOME
1) Plain yogurt and fresh blackberries crushed up in it - so much better than fruit-on-the-bottom.
2) Customers that make you remember what's really important. (I was venting to a customer about how tired and stressed out I was yesterday and he noticed the Buddha necklace I was wearing and made a mudra with his hands reminded me to breathe, and then we got talking about Buddhism and it made my whole day, possibly my whole week).
3) Friends who live hours and hours away and come to visit spontaneously anyway.
4) Iced green tea - yum yum yum.
5) Netflix working okay even though the internet's incredibly slow and malfunctional.
6) Stores with a good return policy.
7) Having off from work two whole days in a row.
8) Brahms' second symphony.
LOVE.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
I have a good excuse for not posting! It's because our internet was horribly, dramatically, hair-pullingly down for the past few days. I don't even know how many days it's been because it feels like an eternity, and no that's not because that's how addicted to the internet (should I capitalize internet? It doesn't feel right for some reason) I am, it's because that's how impossibly it was broken. I think I spent about four hours per day trying to fix it for the past two or three days and to no avail. Except then I came home today and it's just working, no one touched it and it just decided to work on its own. So, okay. I am skeptical and expect it to crash at any moment but I'm excited it's decided to work for now. Also, fuck AT&T. Except that's who my dad works for, so, nevermind.
After doing a Google search for "The Great Atlanta Experiment" and coming up with a million+ hits, none of which are this blog, I have officially decided no one reads this blog. So I'm going to stop writing all formally and weird and just start writing, for me, and putting it online only in case anyone ever stumbles on it somehow and happens to like it. So today I'm gonna talk about sexuality, but quickly because I have to go to bed soon because I'm opening tomorrow. (Disclaimer: THIS IS JUST BASED ON MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, please don't get offended.) I've been working a lot at my coffeeshop in midtown and it was hard the first few days because it's hard at any job the first few days, especially when everyone else knows each other so well and you feel like a clumsy ugly friendless fool. But once I get settled in I know I'll love it there because it is so gay. There are three rainbow flags in the store and the manager needs to hire some people but only wants to hire gay men because that's what brings the customers in. Everyone's gay and everyone's out and it's totally fantastic, it's like what every coffeeshop/town in America should be like in my opinion.
BUT. I feel less comfortable revealing my sexuality here than I did revealing it at the old coffeeshop I used to work at in another state, in a not-overwhelmingly-but-still-rather conservative town. Because when a woman tells an average straight person that she's bi, the straight person probably thinks "It's a phase" or "that's hot" or "she's probably just bi-curious" and moves on. In other words, they don't believe her but they usually don't get upset about it. But, in my experience, when a woman tells an average gay person that she's bi, the gay person probably thinks "How dare she? She's probably just bi-curious and doing it to get attention from the men and I had to work so hard to be comfortable with myself and come out to my family and friends and community and she's just trying to fit in with the cool gay culture that we had to work so hard at to create and that's not okay!". They don't believe her and get upset about it. I understand there are a number of people out there who use the bisexual label either as a stepping stone that allows them eventually to accept their actual gayness, or as an experiment in discovering how far they can stretch their straightness. BUT there are some of us in the world who are ACTUALLY BI. Legitimately attracted to BOTH men and women (and transgendered people too). No it's not a phase, no we're not actually straight and just curious, no we're not actually gay and just scared, we are actually bisexual, in every sense of the word. But since bisexuals can essentially pretend to be straight without necessarily compromising too much of their actual identity, I feel like the gay community is often less than willing to be inclusive and welcoming of us. It's incredibly true that I have a much easier time being myself in "mainstream" society, because if I'm in a non-queer-friendly area and I don't want to make waves. I can mention my boyfriend and everyone will assume I'm straight and the fact that I'm not straight never has to come up. For God's sake my mom still thinks I'm straight, because as long as I don't talk to her about the girls I've been with and been attracted to she has no reason to think otherwise. Gay people don't have that option - I get that. But bisexuals are still queer. I do in fact identify as queer and I do in fact think of myself as being in a queer relationship - my boyfriend and I often talk about women we are attracted to and are open to either of us hooking up with other women, and I know in a straight relationship that wouldn't happen. My bisexuality is a substantial part of my self-identity and it would be so lovely to be able to be open about that at my workplace. It's very possible that I could open up to the people I work with and they would totally understand, and accept me and not judge in any way. But I've had enough experience offending some gay people with my bisexualness that I'm hesitant to do that.
And now, after that rant, bed.
After doing a Google search for "The Great Atlanta Experiment" and coming up with a million+ hits, none of which are this blog, I have officially decided no one reads this blog. So I'm going to stop writing all formally and weird and just start writing, for me, and putting it online only in case anyone ever stumbles on it somehow and happens to like it. So today I'm gonna talk about sexuality, but quickly because I have to go to bed soon because I'm opening tomorrow. (Disclaimer: THIS IS JUST BASED ON MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, please don't get offended.) I've been working a lot at my coffeeshop in midtown and it was hard the first few days because it's hard at any job the first few days, especially when everyone else knows each other so well and you feel like a clumsy ugly friendless fool. But once I get settled in I know I'll love it there because it is so gay. There are three rainbow flags in the store and the manager needs to hire some people but only wants to hire gay men because that's what brings the customers in. Everyone's gay and everyone's out and it's totally fantastic, it's like what every coffeeshop/town in America should be like in my opinion.
BUT. I feel less comfortable revealing my sexuality here than I did revealing it at the old coffeeshop I used to work at in another state, in a not-overwhelmingly-but-still-rather conservative town. Because when a woman tells an average straight person that she's bi, the straight person probably thinks "It's a phase" or "that's hot" or "she's probably just bi-curious" and moves on. In other words, they don't believe her but they usually don't get upset about it. But, in my experience, when a woman tells an average gay person that she's bi, the gay person probably thinks "How dare she? She's probably just bi-curious and doing it to get attention from the men and I had to work so hard to be comfortable with myself and come out to my family and friends and community and she's just trying to fit in with the cool gay culture that we had to work so hard at to create and that's not okay!". They don't believe her and get upset about it. I understand there are a number of people out there who use the bisexual label either as a stepping stone that allows them eventually to accept their actual gayness, or as an experiment in discovering how far they can stretch their straightness. BUT there are some of us in the world who are ACTUALLY BI. Legitimately attracted to BOTH men and women (and transgendered people too). No it's not a phase, no we're not actually straight and just curious, no we're not actually gay and just scared, we are actually bisexual, in every sense of the word. But since bisexuals can essentially pretend to be straight without necessarily compromising too much of their actual identity, I feel like the gay community is often less than willing to be inclusive and welcoming of us. It's incredibly true that I have a much easier time being myself in "mainstream" society, because if I'm in a non-queer-friendly area and I don't want to make waves. I can mention my boyfriend and everyone will assume I'm straight and the fact that I'm not straight never has to come up. For God's sake my mom still thinks I'm straight, because as long as I don't talk to her about the girls I've been with and been attracted to she has no reason to think otherwise. Gay people don't have that option - I get that. But bisexuals are still queer. I do in fact identify as queer and I do in fact think of myself as being in a queer relationship - my boyfriend and I often talk about women we are attracted to and are open to either of us hooking up with other women, and I know in a straight relationship that wouldn't happen. My bisexuality is a substantial part of my self-identity and it would be so lovely to be able to be open about that at my workplace. It's very possible that I could open up to the people I work with and they would totally understand, and accept me and not judge in any way. But I've had enough experience offending some gay people with my bisexualness that I'm hesitant to do that.
And now, after that rant, bed.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
"So if you sleep until you're 18, just THINK of all the suffering you're gonna miss! High school, those're your prime suffering years right there!"
So I just rediscovered an old blog I used to have in high school that I completely forgot existed until last night. I can't believe I have 83 posts full of absolutely nothing important taking up space on the internet and they've been sitting there since 2002 - blows my mind. I feel old. It's a mess of a blog with lots of broken links and images and the site that had the background I was using on it must've been absorbed into the Great Abyss because now the background's gone and it's almost impossible to read the text and I'll probably take it down when I get a free moment. But since I'm feeling slightly nostalgic but mostly just thoroughly enjoying the ego-stroking satisfied feeling I get when I read through old journal and blog entries (because really, what's more self-aggrandizing than reading stuff you wrote when you were a teenager? because you inevitably have improved as a writer and a human being which makes you feel like you were an idiot back then but you're pretty much a genius now), I'd like to share one of my posts. *ahem*
so lately i've been very upset because of this whole lack-of-a-normal-boyfriend/girlfriend-relationship-with-jon thing. i mean, for god's sake, he was over my house on friday and, at night, we were in my room with the door closed and my parents were on the other side of the house, and we turned out all the lights and turned on the blacklight and lay on the floor no more than *six inches* from each other. but did anything happen? NO, of course not. and i was starting to get pret-ty fed up with it. so i planned to talk to him about it. just tell him that i want that kind of relationship, that i'm ready for it. but that i don't want to push him if he's not. but then...
well, i've been deathly ill since saturday. okay, not *deathly* ill. but i've caught onto whatever this school-wide epidemic is, and i feel like shit, to put it simply. and yesterday jon turned seventeen (SEVENTEEN!! i *still* can't get over just how old that is) and got his liscense. he's a liscensed driver now. that is SUCH a big thing for both him and me. being the typical car-obsessed boy that he is, he's been waiting to get his liscense since the day he was born. and so now jon and i are *both* mobile, since he's offered to drive me just about everywhere. but ANYWAY, today after school he drove over to my house to visit me for a little bit. and he gave me my english homework that dave had given him to give me, one of his sweatshirts (hurrah! i know wearing your boyfriend's sweatshirt is the typical girlygirl thing to do, but i don't care. it's big and warm and comfortable...and besides, it has his scent :-P), and a letter. we've started writing letters back and forth to each other. and this one was *only* the sweetest thing i've ever gotten. it wasn't all lovey-dovey-sickeningly-sweeter-than-sugar-and-honey...it was basically about how the cd "simple things" by jim brickman "speaks his life, in music". he then went through the tracks and described how each one related to his life. and, well...among others....
"13) 'it must be you' - ....another 'you' song. it's about 'you' making the singer realize love again. sure, i never forgot love existed, i just didn't know where it went. i found it. in you."
i must've read the letter twenty times. and every time i got chills down my spine. and then i feel back into my pillows with a grin on my face the size of france. and, after reading it the first time (which was right after he left)...i realized just how *selfish* i am. here i am, with a sweet, sensitive, as-ideal-as-they-come boyfriend, and all i can do is complain about how there's nothing physical between us. who CARES if there isn't anything physical between us? i really shouldn't. there'll be time enough for that later. but in the meantime, i should be happy with what i have. and it's not like i have to work hard to find something to be happy with. i have found THE guy for me right now. and i LOVE him. *falls over*
[girl mode off]
peace,
manda
Pretty awful, huh? In case you're wondering, Jon and I never did have a physical relationship of any sort - it turns out he's probably gay and might have Aspberger's syndrome, except that as far as Facebook (why does it feel weird to capitalize Facebook?) tells me he still hasn't admitted to himself that he is either of those things. Unfortunate. We stopped talking after my freshman year of college when he dated a girl who was stalking me...drama. (Yes I'm aware the size of the font just changed, no I'm not going to do anything about it because it's being stubborn and I'm too tired to care very much.)
Anyway. Since this blog's called The Great Atlanta Experiment and not The Great Experiment In Reveling In How Much Of An Idiot I Was In High School, I'll write about Atlanta. Maybe I'll start making sure I write about my current location in every post. That feels like a good rule. Good. So Atlanta. I worked the morning shift today at my coffeeshop, except that it's not even remotely mine because I don't know where anything is still, it's only my second day working there, I don't know any of the regular customers, and worst of all I think everyone who works there must speak a different language than me. Why else would they look at me like I'm spontaneously combusting whenever I talk to them? The only person who works there who I've met so far who seems to understand the words coming out of my mouth is leaving on Sunday to go live in Spain for a year - awesome for him, tragic for me. I'm not kidding though - if I could draw I would draw you a picture of the face my coworker's make whenever I try to joke around, or ask them a question, or really say anything at all. In fact, I'm going to borrow from http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com (which is probably the best blog in the whole world) for a second and actually draw you a picture, just to make sure you understand.
...or not, because I just spent a decent amount of time trying to figure out AppleWorks' paint program and it's freaking confusing. Instead I will find the most accurate picture possible on Google. Just a moment.
Now picture a gay man doing that and that is no joke the face every single of my coworkers makes whenever I open my mouth.
EXAMPLE
Michael (coworker, 30-something, flamboyant): ...blah blah blah I sold 250 pounds of Reindeer blend last Christmas! Now I get to work morning shifts with only managers so I get all the tips!
Me: That's great! I only sold like 20 pounds of Reindeer, that's not even a tenth of what you sold!
Michael:...huh?
Me:I only sold 20 pounds.
Michael: ...huh?
Me: Um, nevermind. Where do y'all keep the extra straws?
Michael:...huh?
Me: Straws? Extra straws? Where are they?
Michael:...huh?
Me: Nothing. (off to find straws by myself)
And then Zach (the only guy who seems to understand what I'm saying) came in and said the way I label our bottles of tea (with the name of the tea, the date it expires, the time it expires, how much tea it is and my initials, like we're supposed to label them in other words), looks like a Calculus equation. "You were a math major, weren't you?" he said. "Um, nope, I just make my a's like triangles to confuse the hell out of people apparently." Zach laughed at that and Michael looked confused. And then I went home. Moral of the story: transferring to a new store after working at one particular store for a year and a half is CONFUSING, but not as confusing as every word I say is to the delightful gay Atlantans I work with. Cheers.
8.4.03
[girl mode on]so lately i've been very upset because of this whole lack-of-a-normal-boyfriend/girlfriend-relationship-with-jon thing. i mean, for god's sake, he was over my house on friday and, at night, we were in my room with the door closed and my parents were on the other side of the house, and we turned out all the lights and turned on the blacklight and lay on the floor no more than *six inches* from each other. but did anything happen? NO, of course not. and i was starting to get pret-ty fed up with it. so i planned to talk to him about it. just tell him that i want that kind of relationship, that i'm ready for it. but that i don't want to push him if he's not. but then...
well, i've been deathly ill since saturday. okay, not *deathly* ill. but i've caught onto whatever this school-wide epidemic is, and i feel like shit, to put it simply. and yesterday jon turned seventeen (SEVENTEEN!! i *still* can't get over just how old that is) and got his liscense. he's a liscensed driver now. that is SUCH a big thing for both him and me. being the typical car-obsessed boy that he is, he's been waiting to get his liscense since the day he was born. and so now jon and i are *both* mobile, since he's offered to drive me just about everywhere. but ANYWAY, today after school he drove over to my house to visit me for a little bit. and he gave me my english homework that dave had given him to give me, one of his sweatshirts (hurrah! i know wearing your boyfriend's sweatshirt is the typical girlygirl thing to do, but i don't care. it's big and warm and comfortable...and besides, it has his scent :-P), and a letter. we've started writing letters back and forth to each other. and this one was *only* the sweetest thing i've ever gotten. it wasn't all lovey-dovey-sickeningly-sweeter-than-sugar-and-honey...it was basically about how the cd "simple things" by jim brickman "speaks his life, in music". he then went through the tracks and described how each one related to his life. and, well...among others....
"13) 'it must be you' - ....another 'you' song. it's about 'you' making the singer realize love again. sure, i never forgot love existed, i just didn't know where it went. i found it. in you."
i must've read the letter twenty times. and every time i got chills down my spine. and then i feel back into my pillows with a grin on my face the size of france. and, after reading it the first time (which was right after he left)...i realized just how *selfish* i am. here i am, with a sweet, sensitive, as-ideal-as-they-come boyfriend, and all i can do is complain about how there's nothing physical between us. who CARES if there isn't anything physical between us? i really shouldn't. there'll be time enough for that later. but in the meantime, i should be happy with what i have. and it's not like i have to work hard to find something to be happy with. i have found THE guy for me right now. and i LOVE him. *falls over*
[girl mode off]
peace,
manda
Pretty awful, huh? In case you're wondering, Jon and I never did have a physical relationship of any sort - it turns out he's probably gay and might have Aspberger's syndrome, except that as far as Facebook (why does it feel weird to capitalize Facebook?) tells me he still hasn't admitted to himself that he is either of those things. Unfortunate. We stopped talking after my freshman year of college when he dated a girl who was stalking me...drama. (Yes I'm aware the size of the font just changed, no I'm not going to do anything about it because it's being stubborn and I'm too tired to care very much.)
Anyway. Since this blog's called The Great Atlanta Experiment and not The Great Experiment In Reveling In How Much Of An Idiot I Was In High School, I'll write about Atlanta. Maybe I'll start making sure I write about my current location in every post. That feels like a good rule. Good. So Atlanta. I worked the morning shift today at my coffeeshop, except that it's not even remotely mine because I don't know where anything is still, it's only my second day working there, I don't know any of the regular customers, and worst of all I think everyone who works there must speak a different language than me. Why else would they look at me like I'm spontaneously combusting whenever I talk to them? The only person who works there who I've met so far who seems to understand the words coming out of my mouth is leaving on Sunday to go live in Spain for a year - awesome for him, tragic for me. I'm not kidding though - if I could draw I would draw you a picture of the face my coworker's make whenever I try to joke around, or ask them a question, or really say anything at all. In fact, I'm going to borrow from http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com (which is probably the best blog in the whole world) for a second and actually draw you a picture, just to make sure you understand.
...or not, because I just spent a decent amount of time trying to figure out AppleWorks' paint program and it's freaking confusing. Instead I will find the most accurate picture possible on Google. Just a moment.
Now picture a gay man doing that and that is no joke the face every single of my coworkers makes whenever I open my mouth.
EXAMPLE
Michael (coworker, 30-something, flamboyant): ...blah blah blah I sold 250 pounds of Reindeer blend last Christmas! Now I get to work morning shifts with only managers so I get all the tips!
Me: That's great! I only sold like 20 pounds of Reindeer, that's not even a tenth of what you sold!
Michael:...huh?
Me:I only sold 20 pounds.
Michael: ...huh?
Me: Um, nevermind. Where do y'all keep the extra straws?
Michael:...huh?
Me: Straws? Extra straws? Where are they?
Michael:...huh?
Me: Nothing. (off to find straws by myself)
And then Zach (the only guy who seems to understand what I'm saying) came in and said the way I label our bottles of tea (with the name of the tea, the date it expires, the time it expires, how much tea it is and my initials, like we're supposed to label them in other words), looks like a Calculus equation. "You were a math major, weren't you?" he said. "Um, nope, I just make my a's like triangles to confuse the hell out of people apparently." Zach laughed at that and Michael looked confused. And then I went home. Moral of the story: transferring to a new store after working at one particular store for a year and a half is CONFUSING, but not as confusing as every word I say is to the delightful gay Atlantans I work with. Cheers.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
MAGIC! IT'S THE ONLY ANSWER!
But seriously. How do people come up with ideas for blog entries? I've never felt less creative in my whole life. I'm sprawled on the floor in my living room and my boyfriend and two friends of ours are similarly sprawled across some furniture and everyone's on their laptops and I think this is how people of our generation hang out now, each with their own computer sitting in their lap as a guard against actually interacting with and paying attention to anyone in the room. Anyway I didn't really have anything to do online, I already paid all my bills and checked Facebook and both my emails a billion times today and what else is there to do online? Web comics, but I'm caught up on all the ones I like (Hark a Vagrant, Dinosaur Comics, and everything else awesome). So I thought "I know! I'll update my brand-new beautiful blog!" And then I opened up a new post page and sat in front of it for probably a full five minutes and felt unimaginably stupid. So what should I do? Abandon this post and go doodle around somewhere else online? NO, because I'm not a QUITTER. I'm gonna make this post work, yes I am.
What do I want to share with zero people reading this right now? That an old acquaintance from high school just thoroughly tricked me and had me convinced he was in town for the night and was asking me to get a drink with him before he admitted he was actually in Texas? That one of our friends is playing a loud violent video game on his computer and obviously doesn't want to talk to us and only wants to use our internet and I'm a little bit offended but mostly just upset that there are loud shooting noises in my living room now? That I think our dog is depressed because of the move and because she misses her old co-owner and one of my best friends? That every time I talk to my mom now she asks me if I want to stay with my boyfriend during grad school next year (assuming I get in) or if I want to break up with him at the end of this year and that question's driving me crazy already and I absolutely hate that she asks me it every single time we talk?
No, I want to mention magic. And specifically why there isn't any in my life, or our lives. I've been watching "Pushing Daisies" all day and now I want everything in my life to be as magical as in that show. I don't understand why the colors in my life aren't beautifully vivid, why death isn't only semi-permanent, why pies can't serve as anti-depressants, why my life isn't filled with purpose right now like everyone's on that show. But now it's gotten late and I'm tired so that's all I'll say on magic right now. Good night America.
What do I want to share with zero people reading this right now? That an old acquaintance from high school just thoroughly tricked me and had me convinced he was in town for the night and was asking me to get a drink with him before he admitted he was actually in Texas? That one of our friends is playing a loud violent video game on his computer and obviously doesn't want to talk to us and only wants to use our internet and I'm a little bit offended but mostly just upset that there are loud shooting noises in my living room now? That I think our dog is depressed because of the move and because she misses her old co-owner and one of my best friends? That every time I talk to my mom now she asks me if I want to stay with my boyfriend during grad school next year (assuming I get in) or if I want to break up with him at the end of this year and that question's driving me crazy already and I absolutely hate that she asks me it every single time we talk?
No, I want to mention magic. And specifically why there isn't any in my life, or our lives. I've been watching "Pushing Daisies" all day and now I want everything in my life to be as magical as in that show. I don't understand why the colors in my life aren't beautifully vivid, why death isn't only semi-permanent, why pies can't serve as anti-depressants, why my life isn't filled with purpose right now like everyone's on that show. But now it's gotten late and I'm tired so that's all I'll say on magic right now. Good night America.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Day Ten is Day One
I'm flashing back to my childhood right now because it's 1:57 in the morning and I'm sitting in the dark at a computer, listening to music through my headphones and drinking relaxing tea and doing nothing on the internet, wishing I could sleep but secretly happy that I can't. I'm pretty certain I spent nearly every night for my first seventeen or so years of life doing exactly this. Only back then I was sitting in my mom's big swivel leather desk chair at her big gray desktop computer in my parents' house in New Jersey, and now I'm curled up on the couch on my laptop in my boyfriend's and my apartment in Atlanta.
This blog is an exercise. I'm not a writer but I love to write and I haven't been doing much of that lately. So when my boyfriend and I decided to move to Atlanta for a year (because I wanted to move to a city and that's the city he's lived in most of his life), I decided to promise myself to write every day for the year in my journal. It would be fun! And good for my brain! Yay writing! Except then I realized that I'm a slacker through and through and I would think about writing in my journal every day and then never ever do it, not even once probably. So while I am fully aware that this blog will almost certainly never be read by anyone (and I'm not telling anyone I know about it to make sure it stays that way, and to make sure I don't censor anything or subconsciously write for certain people or whatever), the mere possibility that it could be read by anyone at all is what will keep me posting every day. It's like exercising with a friend every day, only instead of exercising it's sitting on a couch typing and instead of a friend it's the whole entire world wide web, or more likely no one. I have no idea what I'll write about, if I want there to be a theme or a central topic or if I want this to be in story format or journal format or if I'll make up things to write about or if I'll even get anything out of the experience besides 365 posts full of ill-conceived nonsense. I guess I'll figure it out, or I won't.
But if you do happen to be reading this, here are some things you might want to know about me because I'm sure they'll come up later and I wouldn't want you, dear reader, to be confused.
STUFF ABOUT ME
- I play the violin mediocre-ly, and this year is really about preparing for, applying to and auditioning for graduate schools so I can get my master's of music in violin performance and hopefully go teach and play somewhere. The goal is to play less mediocre-ly and more awesome-ly.
-My boyfriend (who I'll come up with a code name for eventually, or something) and I have been together two and a half years, and we've been living together for a year of that. He's very important to me and I love him dearly and I don't know if I want us to be together after this year or not. We also have a dog who is the love of our lives.
-I work for a coffee corporation making almost minimum wage, so I pretty much can never afford to do anything. I know I could probably go wait tables somewhere and make much better money but I hate waiting tables so much that I'd rather live in abject poverty. Okay, not exactly abject poverty. Mediocre poverty. Is that even a thing?
-I used to like to think that I had very complicated, advanced, intellectual religious beliefs and worldviews that were a combination of at least six different world religions. But then I started reading about Buddhism and realized that everything I thought I had discovered by myself had already been discovered way better billions of years ago by lots of awesome Indian people, who also discovered lots of other way better amazing things that I never even thought about. So now I'm Buddhist, except I haven't taken refuge in the Three Jewels like Buddhists are supposed to. It's still too much of a commitment for me. Probably some day soon-ish, though.
-My parents and I have very complex relationships that we'll be working on for our whole lives. I wouldn't say it's very dysfunctional any more, but it definitely was for most of my life. Consequentially, I have some psychological shit I've been working through for a while, mostly anxiety in different forms, plus some genetic stuff like OCD, etc. Thanks to a fantastic (ex)therapist and fantastic friends and Buddhism and music and life, at this moment I'm in the best psychological place I think I've ever been in in my life. Except maybe when I was very little and everything seemed so amazing and so simple.
I've already slacked a little bit because I wanted to start this blog the day we moved in, August first. Should I have capitalized that "first"? But then we didn't have internet and every time I went to the cafe down the street to use their free wifi I had twenty-six other things to do online and blogging never crossed my mind. So even though we've lived here for ten days I'm deciding today is Day One of this 365-day blog. (There are 365 days in a year, right?) The album I was listening to is over now so I'll stop here, go watch some Hey Arnold on Netflix (which we just got two days ago and is arguably man's greatest invention since Post-It notes except now I'm afraid I'll never read), and hopefully fall asleep after that. If you're reading, whoever you are, hope you can get some good sleep too.
This blog is an exercise. I'm not a writer but I love to write and I haven't been doing much of that lately. So when my boyfriend and I decided to move to Atlanta for a year (because I wanted to move to a city and that's the city he's lived in most of his life), I decided to promise myself to write every day for the year in my journal. It would be fun! And good for my brain! Yay writing! Except then I realized that I'm a slacker through and through and I would think about writing in my journal every day and then never ever do it, not even once probably. So while I am fully aware that this blog will almost certainly never be read by anyone (and I'm not telling anyone I know about it to make sure it stays that way, and to make sure I don't censor anything or subconsciously write for certain people or whatever), the mere possibility that it could be read by anyone at all is what will keep me posting every day. It's like exercising with a friend every day, only instead of exercising it's sitting on a couch typing and instead of a friend it's the whole entire world wide web, or more likely no one. I have no idea what I'll write about, if I want there to be a theme or a central topic or if I want this to be in story format or journal format or if I'll make up things to write about or if I'll even get anything out of the experience besides 365 posts full of ill-conceived nonsense. I guess I'll figure it out, or I won't.
But if you do happen to be reading this, here are some things you might want to know about me because I'm sure they'll come up later and I wouldn't want you, dear reader, to be confused.
STUFF ABOUT ME
- I play the violin mediocre-ly, and this year is really about preparing for, applying to and auditioning for graduate schools so I can get my master's of music in violin performance and hopefully go teach and play somewhere. The goal is to play less mediocre-ly and more awesome-ly.
-My boyfriend (who I'll come up with a code name for eventually, or something) and I have been together two and a half years, and we've been living together for a year of that. He's very important to me and I love him dearly and I don't know if I want us to be together after this year or not. We also have a dog who is the love of our lives.
-I work for a coffee corporation making almost minimum wage, so I pretty much can never afford to do anything. I know I could probably go wait tables somewhere and make much better money but I hate waiting tables so much that I'd rather live in abject poverty. Okay, not exactly abject poverty. Mediocre poverty. Is that even a thing?
-I used to like to think that I had very complicated, advanced, intellectual religious beliefs and worldviews that were a combination of at least six different world religions. But then I started reading about Buddhism and realized that everything I thought I had discovered by myself had already been discovered way better billions of years ago by lots of awesome Indian people, who also discovered lots of other way better amazing things that I never even thought about. So now I'm Buddhist, except I haven't taken refuge in the Three Jewels like Buddhists are supposed to. It's still too much of a commitment for me. Probably some day soon-ish, though.
-My parents and I have very complex relationships that we'll be working on for our whole lives. I wouldn't say it's very dysfunctional any more, but it definitely was for most of my life. Consequentially, I have some psychological shit I've been working through for a while, mostly anxiety in different forms, plus some genetic stuff like OCD, etc. Thanks to a fantastic (ex)therapist and fantastic friends and Buddhism and music and life, at this moment I'm in the best psychological place I think I've ever been in in my life. Except maybe when I was very little and everything seemed so amazing and so simple.
I've already slacked a little bit because I wanted to start this blog the day we moved in, August first. Should I have capitalized that "first"? But then we didn't have internet and every time I went to the cafe down the street to use their free wifi I had twenty-six other things to do online and blogging never crossed my mind. So even though we've lived here for ten days I'm deciding today is Day One of this 365-day blog. (There are 365 days in a year, right?) The album I was listening to is over now so I'll stop here, go watch some Hey Arnold on Netflix (which we just got two days ago and is arguably man's greatest invention since Post-It notes except now I'm afraid I'll never read), and hopefully fall asleep after that. If you're reading, whoever you are, hope you can get some good sleep too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)