Dean's List.

Do you ever wonder if you're doing the right thing?
Possibly in the middle of all your industrious vigor you stop for a moment and think, "Wait, am I going in the right direction?"

I had one of those moments today.

I also looked in the mirror and finally saw my age beginning to show. My eyes were tired and motionless. I no longer had the lively curious eyes I once had as a child.

One time while my mother and I were waiting in a parking lot, I climbed to the front seat and mimicked her. She pulled down the visor and checked her make-up and I copied her movements, staring at myself  in the visor mirror. I want to be a woman so badly. I wanted to wear nylons, and heels and press soft Chanel lipstick across my lips. I remember something distinctly that day though. I looked in the mirror and I tried very desperately to see myself as an adult, a full grown woman. And I did. Except the image scared me. For a split second, I saw bags beneath my eyes, lifeless skin that was losing color and droopy blank stares. I jumped back for a moment and shut the visor immediately. I thought maybe I had watched something that made me see that face in the mirror, because I convinced myself that was not me in the future.. I was going to be that perky sophisticated woman who wore Ann Taylor suits and performed every task with the finest delicacy.

I looked in the mirror today, and I saw the same exact image I did in that car visor as a child. Except I didn't turn away and I didn't deny that was my reflection for a single second.

I'm exhausted.

Yay-sayings.

Little Sister 

Prayer... 
"Oh Lord of the Rings, please help us!"
08/16/12

On the subject of firing... 
Alyssa: "Mom, what if someone punches someone else at work?"
Me: "That's a strange question to ask..."
Mom: "...Usually it will result in termination."
Alyssa: "THEY KILL YOU?"

An attempt to use the word "Humongous"...
Alyssa: "THIS TIRE IS HILARIOUS!" while smacking a large tire.

Attempting to escape boredom on a SF road trip...
Alyssa: "List the first thing that comes to your head"
Chris: "Zimbabwe!"
Alyssa: "No! It has to be something real!"

On the subject of Vegetarianism...
Alyssa: "Is Eden a vegetarian?"
Me: "No, why would you ask that?"
Alyssa: "Because she looks like one."
Me: "What does a vegetarian look like?"
Alyssa: "Sometimes they look Indian."
12.25.11.

Taking the game M.A.S.H. a little too seriously... 
Me: "H doesn't stand for House anymore, it now stands for Hospital"
Alyssa: "I think it's a good thing if we live in a hospital. If I'm married to the Elephant Man that will be good for us."

My Mother 

On the subject of Billy Corgan's past relationships...
Mom: "He dated Courtney Love?"
Me: "Yeah."
Mom: "Gross, she's disgusting, she's such trash."
Me: "Well I figured they're both musicians. Kurt Cobain married her..."
Mom: "So? Kurt Cobain was on heroin, he would have married a trash can."
1.16.2010.

A lesson on letting go...
Mom: "That's always been my motto you know? Bridge under the water."

Misheard...
Aunt: "It's all moist in the morning and it smells all mildewy."
Mom: "Gross! It smells like a wildebeest? I don't even know what that smells like!"
9.13.2009.

Remembering Sadie Hawkins 1985...
Me: pointing at a dance photograph "Who's Quiet Riot?"
Mom: "Some band. Had to get those because Granny wouldn't buy me a Judas Priest shirt. She was all 'Oh, no...that guy betrayed Jesus..' and refused to buy it."

My Grandmother

A zombie version of "They ask for a hand and take a limb"...
Grandmother: "It's like someone asks to hold your hand while they are chewing on the other one"

Family, Friends and Loves

Remembering the days of bartering... 
Chris: "Remember when people used to barter for massages?"
Lauren: "Then someone started raping people and messed it all up."
Joseph: "Nah there's an adult services sections now."

On the subjects of Hoochies...
Me: "Aren't those girls cold?"
Sam: "No... Hoochies don't get cold"
Chris: "Is it because they don't have any souls?"
VGA's 2011.

On a rabbit's diet...
Me: "Did you know rabbits can actually eat newspaper? I read it in the rabbit book, I'd think too much would could kill them, you know from all the lead in the ink."
Chris: "Really? I thought it was because of all the bad news..."

Staring at a flyer of NBA All-Stars...
Chris: "I don't know why Whitney Houston isn't on here. She's my favorite All-Star."
2008!

An explanation of Sweetness...
Me: "Chris, why are you so sweet?"
Chris: "...one time my Mom made a cupcake with sugar and I ate it?"

Jacqui and her burro... 
Me: "Yeah that's a nice car."
Jacqui: "You know, I'd like to own a donkey...they're just practical."

Discovering Highland Park...
Anna: "Did you know DOG is GOD spelled backwards?...Oh look we're in Italy, again!"

A first concert...
Me: "Is this your first concert?"
Erin: "I...uh...have been to a...um...rodeo?"
8.27.11.

A day at the Observatory...
Erin: After making weird motions with her hands "Don't look at me like that, I was born this way. Lady Gaga said so."
8.27.11.

A mans dying wishes...
Toddy: "if i should die while i'm awake... while i'm going i want to think of the times i was a kid playing outside the house, while my grandpa watered the grass, my grandma cooking in the kitchen and the sun was setting i'll go a happy camper if i can think of that those long summer days when you're a kid...seems like the evening took forever to come.. i always enjoyed that time in between"
8.29.11.

On Italian literature...
Dr. McCormick: "Italian? Oh no. I only speak dead languages."

Believing you're English...
Me: "Do your best British accent"
Thomas: "Gov'na Gov'na chip chip cheerio!"

Member? Member that time?

Once while I was heavily inebriated I wrote out this philosophical theory on a napkin. I read it the next day and it didn't make any fucking sense. Really, it didn't make ANY fucking sense. I don't even think the words I used formed a full sentence. Nonetheless, I laughed it off, ripped the napkin into shreds and vowed never to leave evidence of my drunken ramblings.

I'm reviewing my livejournal and guess what I found?
You betcha. Another drunken rambling.

You Are Here.

There are stack piles of luxurious architectural magazines that are collecting dust in the garage.

In the spring of 2011, I was introduced to experimental poetry and John Berger. Things such as Flarf, and other forms of expression without the conventional, frankly boring, rhyme scheme. After reading Berger's Ways of Seeing, I was confronted with an issue that I did not discover until one day I found myself with my face completely planted in an Architectural Digest magazine.



I have lived in apartments all of my life, and the occasional houses I did live in we had rented for no longer than 6 months. I stared at the piles of magazines I was collecting of luxury homes and wondered for a moment why I was so infatuated with them? Did I want to be an architect? An interior designer? By the time I was 19 I drafted a blueprint of my most ideal home. It had 5 bedrooms, three floors, a two-story garage, a game room/theater and a library. I stared at those blueprints hoping that they would lead me closer to what I really wanted.


But what was it that I wanted? I was attending college for a degree in English Literature not Architecture. Yet I could not break away from these magazines that had my jaw floored in mystification.

Suddenly it hit me: It wasn't the house.


Not only was I collecting years worth of luxury home magazines, but I also collected fortune upon fortunes from cookies. I had to ask myself: Why are you doing this?

Home.




I held onto these images hoping that one day I would build and find my own home. Really, I was buying into this product that each image was selling: You are Here. You are Home. You are exactly where you want to be.

Every moment that I spent staring at the pages of these magazines I was being mystified by this false impression that these images are right where I belong. There are no families in these pictures, they are all empty - move in ready. (Above) Look at that desk, cluttered with images of smiling faces, fond memories, and treasured books.

For a moment I was convinced that putting myself in these images would change everything. I tore out the pages and depicted what these pages meant to me, and solidifying the paper to glue was like inserting the key to the lock of my freedom. I packed the magazines up in box, threw the fortunes away and never looked back (of course unless one of the magazines required butchering).

I held onto two fortunes:
"All we are, is the result of what we have thought." (and more importantly, "what we have acted on")

the other was "To do nothing, is the be nothing." These I hold to be very true.

As of now, I am twenty-three years old...still searching for my home, but I know for a fact that it is not within the pages of an Architectural Digest Magazine.

Get out of your Head and into this Party...

Called Life.

You were expecting a pants party weren't you?

What am I talking about? Life isn't a party. I guess it depends on what kind of party person you are.
I've taken this metaphor beyond what I intended.

I made three U-turns today.
Three.

All so I could get to this goddamn coffee shop I've been wanting to try for the past 3 months.
By the second U-turn I thought, "You know, if it's really going to be this much of bitch you might as well just hit up one of the 5 Starbucks lined up along both sides of the street."

Suddenly this ferocious voice came from within, "Dammit! You are going to that damn coffee shop! TRY NEW THINGS!" I don't know where this imprisoned house wife came from. I sounded like I've never tried coffee in my life.

I walked in, stood staring at the menu for a good 2 minutes and thought, "Jesus, these prices are ridiculous...but they sound so delicious"

$9.45 later, I'm sitting in a booth glancing around the room to gather what kind of place this is.

The people are young - mid twenties to early thirties. All business casual. I pulled out my Heart of Darkness and for a moment felt really intimidated. I didn't know what to do with my plate when I was finished, and debated if I should leave a tip. I left my dish on the counter, gave my thanks and walked out hurriedly. The sun was bright enough to make me squint and I was smiling as I felt one of those refreshing Californian breezes.

I walked out of that coffee shop severely concerned. I spent so much of my brain power worrying about if I was doing something properly that I completely missed the point. I wanted to go there because I thought I'd thoroughly enjoy it, and clearly I stressed myself out to the point where I did not. I walked to my car still sipping on the remains of my Eagle Roca, scraping the bottom of the cup for chunks of chocolate like an oblivious child.

Then I realized that was exactly where I needed to be - in that moment.