My friend from D.C. calls me from a vacation in Phoenix, AZ. We were going to try to meet up today given that O.C. to Pheonix is only 5 hours. Alas, plane tickets were ballparking around $200 and a trip to meet in the middle around Blythe just didn't seem in the cards. This girl's a Rhode Island girl, a beautiful brown-haired, fair-skinned Portuguese woman used to foliage, snow, and city people who would never dare look you in the eye on the street. Though she'd been to Northern California, she had never been to the Southwest. There with her boyfriend who had a work conference, it probably wasn't on the list of places she would have chosen on vacation but she was intrigued nonetheless to explore this part of the country. She had gone to CVS to get a prescription and she couldn't get over the strange collaboration of people who make up the town.
I receive a text that says,"I'm so confused by this place." Over the phone minutes later she tells me,"These people are either incredibly friendly or stare at you like they know you aren't from here."
I ask her how she likes the mullets and we have a laugh. She then proceeds with a story from her first impression of Arizona the night before while retrieving some essentials.
At CVS, a nice, pretty girl was standing in line purchasing a pregnancy test. As most young women I know would concur, the act alone of purchasing a test makes us wonder if just waiting the nine months to see if something pops out might be less scary. Remember the store clerk in Juno? I would absolutely dread any mockery whatsoever from some bored-with-life dork behind a counter telling me,"Your eggo is preggo."
The girl approaches the counter to pay for her goods. This is the moment of truth. Will anyone say anything to me? Will they smirk? This is worse than buying laxatives, condoms, granny panties, or the jumbo maxi pads. This purchase says something about me. There's no ring on my finger, or a guy at my side anxiously awaiting results. This is a lonely purchase that suggests I'm a lonely girl who might end up being a lonely mom. She get's through the line, takes her receipt and bag, and starts out the door. In the late Phoenix hours, the clerk hacks out a,"Hope it goes the way you want it to!" as the girl exits the store. Way to go, moron.
The picture of Charlize Theron from Monster appears in my head. I say to my friend,"Let me guess. This clerk, was she a cracked out, older white lady with kinky, bleached hair, and lil' crystal meth pockmarks in her face?"
"Oh my gosh," she chokes,"Are you fucking psychic? That's too wierd, how did you know?"
I had to laugh. It's the Southwest, home of strange desert cretin and the crystal meth capital of the world -a.k.a. where they film too many episodes of Cops. I'm not psychic. It's a too-familiar picture in my head from numerous encounters where the same type of characters continue to play the same roles. The woman was an archetype of which I happened to just be familiar.
We laughed at the strangeness of some people in our societies.
Welcome to the Southwest, my part of the country.
Missed Opportunities = LKJFsdfk!!!
Wow...efff. I went to apply for a job as a flight attendant with JetBlue today (Spanish bilingual and English) as a solution to my travel bug... and I couldn't find the posting anymore. It was only posted 1 week ago. Did I miss it that quickly?
I am so bummed!
I am so bummed!
I'm Kind of Nuts and Startlingly Accepting of It
It's the first free weekend of a marathon month. Two weddings, a whirlwind weekend on the East Coast, run-ins here and there with friends, and rollercoaster-rides of relationships with people and myself have caught me in a state of fatigue. Truth is, I feel like crap but somehow I'm optimistic.
This transitional stage can't possibly last. I've been stalling-out for just long enough that I feel the light at the end of the tunnel. My motivation is returning. Period freak-outs still visit quite often but just keeping myself busy helps fuel the belief that, for once in a few years, things are going to go right. In fact, the rug has tripped me enough times that I almost seem to get it when it comes. It lets me know that things are off-course, and I'm stubborn enough that only catastrophe wises me up to it.
As sardonic as it seems, maybe I'm one of the lucky ones who suffers enough bad luck to wake up to my real purpose. Perhaps, as long as things are just ok we lack the clairvoyance to see that life isn't true to form, living to a true potential. Then again, some people are simply blessed with the happy gene and know what it's like to awaken with purpose everyday. Those people are good ones to keep around -they are full of wisdom which others of us lack.
One such gem I learned from one such happy person: "if you're not laughing at yourself, you're not paying enough attention." It is the principle of great stand-up comedy, websites like fmylife.com, and all things Chris Farley. Last Sunday night, I was having a shitty weekend. Literally...shitty. I was visiting friends and among a weekend when a black cloud of bad luck followed us around for a whole slew of other reason, the plumbing in the house broke twice. The first time, we were told not to shower or (ahem) flush all day long. As if the weekend was not bad enough, now I had to deny all bodily urges. Upon receiving the A-OK to shower, etc., the plumbing busted a second time after my shower, and sewage flooded the basement (where two guys live). I felt so terribly guilty for being the straw that broke the camel's back that later on I called someone I knew would make me laugh. And not just laugh -but laugh at myself. I called the one person who, almost without failure, I begin the conversation with,"Wanna know something completely fucked up?!" and receive a delighted,"Ooh, WHAT?!" on the other end. Sure enough, as the boys cleaned the basement, during which my offer to help was appreciably declined, I cackled hysterically over the phone with my friend to the point of tears because of how fucked life is sometimes. The weekend was, at times, so fucked that I just couldn't stand the stress of it all anymore. I had to laugh. The boys probably thought I'd lost it. Truthfully, I had. I had lost it so hard that I'd gone completely silly.
I know that I'm quite often writing in a dark mood. My blog is black, my t-shirt is black, many of my idols are genuinely fucked-up people (many with great talents), and I can have a downright cynical sense of humor. One of the best parts of not fearing the dark, though, is that I'm no stranger to the pessimistic, the awkward, the ill. In that, I possess the great gift of occasionally making light of my pain. There you have it: I am no blanket statment. I'm good, I'm bad, I'm brutally honest and yet deceive myself. I'm human. Who would have thunk it? Ultimately, what in this world is not some kind of wonderful contradiction? Here is mine.
So before poking in with uplifting critiques about "life is about the journey, brah," let me live with the thought that sometimes that journey is totally, completely fucked. Honestly, I'm thinking it with a smile on my face.
This transitional stage can't possibly last. I've been stalling-out for just long enough that I feel the light at the end of the tunnel. My motivation is returning. Period freak-outs still visit quite often but just keeping myself busy helps fuel the belief that, for once in a few years, things are going to go right. In fact, the rug has tripped me enough times that I almost seem to get it when it comes. It lets me know that things are off-course, and I'm stubborn enough that only catastrophe wises me up to it.
As sardonic as it seems, maybe I'm one of the lucky ones who suffers enough bad luck to wake up to my real purpose. Perhaps, as long as things are just ok we lack the clairvoyance to see that life isn't true to form, living to a true potential. Then again, some people are simply blessed with the happy gene and know what it's like to awaken with purpose everyday. Those people are good ones to keep around -they are full of wisdom which others of us lack.
One such gem I learned from one such happy person: "if you're not laughing at yourself, you're not paying enough attention." It is the principle of great stand-up comedy, websites like fmylife.com, and all things Chris Farley. Last Sunday night, I was having a shitty weekend. Literally...shitty. I was visiting friends and among a weekend when a black cloud of bad luck followed us around for a whole slew of other reason, the plumbing in the house broke twice. The first time, we were told not to shower or (ahem) flush all day long. As if the weekend was not bad enough, now I had to deny all bodily urges. Upon receiving the A-OK to shower, etc., the plumbing busted a second time after my shower, and sewage flooded the basement (where two guys live). I felt so terribly guilty for being the straw that broke the camel's back that later on I called someone I knew would make me laugh. And not just laugh -but laugh at myself. I called the one person who, almost without failure, I begin the conversation with,"Wanna know something completely fucked up?!" and receive a delighted,"Ooh, WHAT?!" on the other end. Sure enough, as the boys cleaned the basement, during which my offer to help was appreciably declined, I cackled hysterically over the phone with my friend to the point of tears because of how fucked life is sometimes. The weekend was, at times, so fucked that I just couldn't stand the stress of it all anymore. I had to laugh. The boys probably thought I'd lost it. Truthfully, I had. I had lost it so hard that I'd gone completely silly.
I know that I'm quite often writing in a dark mood. My blog is black, my t-shirt is black, many of my idols are genuinely fucked-up people (many with great talents), and I can have a downright cynical sense of humor. One of the best parts of not fearing the dark, though, is that I'm no stranger to the pessimistic, the awkward, the ill. In that, I possess the great gift of occasionally making light of my pain. There you have it: I am no blanket statment. I'm good, I'm bad, I'm brutally honest and yet deceive myself. I'm human. Who would have thunk it? Ultimately, what in this world is not some kind of wonderful contradiction? Here is mine.
So before poking in with uplifting critiques about "life is about the journey, brah," let me live with the thought that sometimes that journey is totally, completely fucked. Honestly, I'm thinking it with a smile on my face.
Simplifying
My belly is blaring. I'm starving. It's 6:37 p.m. It becomes apparent that I've been working on this new layout so long that I've clearly forgotton to eat.
There are still some kinks but overall I like the more basic appeal that will allow me to showcase photos without distracting swirls and colors in the background. Website like Pyzam.com (where my former background came from) do have some interesting layouts to offer, I realized, if you are 15. Hey, I never said I was fashionable but I do realize my own mortality. That crap with the swirly thingamabobs and blaring colors should have stopped years ago. All I really need, anyway, are the essentials (tunes, fotos, and lots of blah, blah, blah). Really, I could have done without all the overkill. Less, as they say, is more.
There are still some kinks but overall I like the more basic appeal that will allow me to showcase photos without distracting swirls and colors in the background. Website like Pyzam.com (where my former background came from) do have some interesting layouts to offer, I realized, if you are 15. Hey, I never said I was fashionable but I do realize my own mortality. That crap with the swirly thingamabobs and blaring colors should have stopped years ago. All I really need, anyway, are the essentials (tunes, fotos, and lots of blah, blah, blah). Really, I could have done without all the overkill. Less, as they say, is more.
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