New Year

The past few weeks have been a little on the crazy side. From visiting family and friends for two weeks to being quarantined in our apartment with the flu, fiance and I have been through a lot. After getting online this morning for the first time in days, I was bombarded with "Happy New Year" spam. I didn't even realize at first that today is New Years Eve. Usually I get rather excited about this day. It never fails that I feel hopeful on New Years. It's almost like this unspoken promise floats in the air that we are forced to breathe in filled with hope for better times in the coming months. There is nothing different about today compared to any other day. Yet, we gather with our loved ones and drink our faces off in the hope that the coming morning will seem just a bit brighter than days past. The hangovers the next morning seem shorter. The world tastes sweeter. I, for one, have many hopes for 2011. I hope to get back into school. I hope to find a job that challenges me and helps satisfy my need for fulfillment. I hope that we will be able to continue to make enough money to pay the bills and buy the groceries without worry. But when it comes down to it, I don't know if any of this will actually happen. That's part of the mystery of life. I can only hope.
But there is something that feels different about this year. Knowing that the date will no longer be 2010- that it will be 2011. Knowing that in June of 2011 I will be getting married to the man I love. No, he's not the man of my dreams. In fact, he is better than that. He has shown me that the man I dreamed of had flaws. This man that I am marrying knows me better than I know myself. He cares for me and loves me no matter my flaws. And tonight is a promise that 2011 is coming quick. And I can't wait to make that next step.

It's been a while...

It's been a while since I've had the chance to get on here. And I don't really have the time right now but I'm doing it anyway just to remind myself that I have this place to write. Finally having a full-time job is wonderful but it's already much harder than I anticipated. It's taking a toll on fiance and I since now we REALLY don't get to see much of each other. Oh well. Its time for me to go already since I just remembered I have to not only drop off the rent check but also get gas in my car. yay. I'll hopefully get back on here soon to write about our NYC trip a couple of weekends ago. That one will be funny. Promise. :)

The Future is Uncertain

Unfortunately, this isn't going to be one of the funny life story blogs. This one is a bit more philosophical and, honestly, I'm writing it to get the words out of my head. I have no idea what I want to do in the future. I want to teach. I want to learn. I want to edit. I want to write. I want to act. I want to collaborate. I want to create. And I have no idea how to do all of that without sacrificing anything else. Fiance has his plan set out and is making the steps forward every day. I, on the other hand, am a little worse for wear. I went to school because I have a passion for literature and theatre. I don't want to compromise my passions just to have a job that pays the bills. Yet here I am. Doing just that. I know it is hard to find a job that will both pay well AND be a career rather than a day job, but that is what I want. Maybe I'm still too young and jaded for thinking that that is possible. I'm not sure. But I would give just about anything for that to happen. I don't want to be another cog in the machine. I want to be great. I keep getting told that I'm too naive in my plans to become a teacher. But I mean it when I say that I want to teach. I want to give this gift to students who may not have ever known it existed. I want them to have dreams. And I don't want to take those dreams away from them. I want to push them to discover themselves in ways that I was not pushed. I know that we all have times where we're simply flailing around without anything to grab onto. I know that life rarely turns out exactly the way we wish it to. But here I am, hoping and wishing that it will be different for fiance and I. That we will make it through without compromising. That we will attain all those dreams. I'm too optimistic to admit that things may not turn out the way we want it to. And I'm honestly afraid of that moment when I will be forced to admit that there is no happy ending as far as my dream career is concerned.

Anxiety

Grips me in her cold talons once more
Stealing the breath from my lungs
My heart beats down the doors of its cage of bones
Feeling the darkness
Loving the darkness
Knowing the darkness
Much better than knowing my thoughts
Every inch of me is moving
Yet I'm still folded up in this chair
Waiting for the darkness to envelop or move on
Shaking apart from the inside out
Wishing her grip would tighten
And tighten
And tighten
Until the talons break.

Long is the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up to light

Today is the anniversary of the death of John Milton. If you don't know who John Milton is, then just go ahead and stop reading. Or continue. That's fine too. Milton and his little attempt at an epic poem, also known as Paradise Lost, was the bane of my existence during my final semester of my undergrad career. I sometimes think to myself, what would have happened if no one wanted to write down what he was saying? Is Milton really the author if he never actually WROTE anything? Why don't any of the scribes get notice? After all, they had to sit around and write down everything this old blind fellow decided to say. And that does not seem like a good time for anyone if you ask me.
Nonetheless, today is the anniversary of said blind man's death. He wrote an interesting piece of literature that I still wouldn't consider to be an "epic" as it is lacking some of the conventions necessary to be called such. Yet, it is a poem that I would suggest reading- just don't over analyze it. Take it at face value and enjoy the easy to quote lines. Use them in every day conversations to confuse people. Lord knows I do. And remember, that Milton may have "written" it, but he never saw a damn word of it.

How Willow Smith Almost Burned My Apartment Down

After picking up fiance from school last night we decided we wanted to cook up some of the nice fillets that we had in the freezer. They were a gift from my parents when they came down and took me on a crazy grocery shopping excursion so we wanted to make sure that they were extra tasty. As fiance usually does the hardcore cooking, I decided that I wanted to learn. I season them up and place them in the skillet without any problems. Flip them a couple times and they're looking scrumptious. Then something fiance says reminds me that I wanted to show him Willow Smith's performance of Whip My Hair on Ellen. After checking the fillets I proceed to my computer and bring up said performance on the ol' tube of you. We sit around the table and watch the video of a 10 year old wanna-be-Rihanna and commence commenting on it. Lost in the catchy-ness of this performance, I completely forget about the steaks in the skillet... on the stove... the gas stove with fire underneath the burner. I realize that there is a slight haze around the computer and my mind goes through a couple of interesting steps.
"Why is it so hazy? Am I imagining things? Is Willow Smith magical enough to blur my vision? Oh shit. There are STEAKS ON THE STOVE!"
I then run to the stove and pull the skillet off of the burner. Now I have never owned a gas stove until this one and when you quickly add a gust of air to an open flame, it flares up.
NOT AWARE OF THIS UNTIL NOW.
After spewing a stream of curses that I wasn't aware of existing, I shoved the skillet back on the burner (rather than turning it off... which would have been the intelligent thing to do). At about this time, our fire detector decides to add it's two cents to the conversation, beeping its annoying little beep as loudly and obnoxiously as it can muster. Fiance grabs a towel and starts fanning the air beneath it to try to get it to stop its incessant noise-making so that the fire department won't make an unscheduled visit to our quiet apartment complex.
Meanwhile I am peeling the slightly charred fillets out of the skillet. Then I get an even more BRILLIANT idea. I'm going to make a red wine pan sauce that will taste delicious and help us to forget this whole fiasco! So I pour some red wine into the coal brisket covered bottom of the skillet with a spoonful of butter.
This is what is known as a bad idea.
Fiance had just gotten the detector to shut up when I did this. Which caused a wall of steam and smoke to erupt from the skillet and smack me in the face for my idiocy. At this point I run away from the stove like it's going to attack me with nun-chucks or something and tell fiance that I'll fan the detector if he fixes my mess. I then grab the towel from his hands while simultaneously shoving the spoon used to dip out the butter into his confused and open palm. I make it to the detector seconds after it decides to begin chirping once more. Fiance fixes the pan sauce and pours it down the sink for tasting/looking like poo water then opens all the windows to try to remove the haze of smoke that somehow managed to fill up our entire apartment.
And that is how Willow Smith almost burned down my apartment.

IT'S HALLOWEEN!

Just thought you all should know that today is one of my favorite days of the year where you get to dress up as whatever the heck you want and pretend to be crazy without being thought of as crazy by the public. It is a day of awesomeness. And pumpkins. What's not to love about awesomeness and pumpkins? I was going to attempt to write something amusing about this Halloween or some past Halloween misadventures but I am WAY too excited to even type a sentence correctly without having to re-type it so it makes sense. So I'm not even going to try. Mayhaps I shall write about it soon instead. Either way,
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! :)

Pumpkin Cheesecake

So I had the ever-so-brilliant idea to attempt to make pumpkin cheesecake this morning. It sounded like a fantastic idea since fiance has invited over all his grad school buddies for Halloween. Wanting to show off my baking prowess as well as make our cheap decorations take backseat to the awesomeness of the food we're providing, I felt like there wasn't much of a choice in this matter. After battling the graham cracker crust from hell that just didn't want to pat down and be smooth, I started mixing up the filling. I thought this was going to be the hard part but that crust totally kicked my ass. As all bakers know, you must eat at least a tenth (or in my case a quarter) of the mix before baking the final product. And, to my surprise, the pumpkin-flavored cheesecake filling wasn't half bad. But even though the taste is nummy-nummy-delicious, it just kinda looks horrible. Like the opposite of the mudpies I used to make when I was 6. I was always so proud of them that I would run to show my mom and say "Have a taste, mom! It looks so pretty that it HAS to taste good!" This tastes great but looks like a pile of orange poo centered in a graham cracker crust. Now it's all baked and sitting tauntingly in our over-stuffed fridge (another story for another day). I feel like I should bake something else that at least looks kind of decent. Or I can just bank of the politeness of all the people coming over. They'll look at the pile of orange goop in the center of an off-center graham cracker crust and say "Yeah! That looks great! I'll have a piece!... A small piece though- I'm kinda full from... eating... before we got here." Yep.
Banking on it.

The Jehovah's Witnesses Are Coming!

They came to the door once about two weeks ago and in my half-asleep state I answered it. Yep. I'm an idiot. And as I'm standing there uncomfortably in my doorway for about ten minutes listening to them talk about how awesome Jesus is, all I can think about is how I can get them to go away without being super rude. At one point, I almost responded with "Yeah, Zeus and God are like brothers or something, right?" but I kept my mouth shut and just smiled without answering. After they winded down and handed me a Watchtower pamphlet, they kindly removed themselves from my stoop and went on their merry way, professing to come by again soon to see what I thought about my readings.
Now let me tell you something about this Watchtower pamphlet: it was an English major's nightmare. Grammatical errors are not to be forgiven, even by the big guy himself. This pamphlet looked like a 2 year old wrote it after a brief stint at vacation bible school. I let myself go on a few existential rants about the existence of God and what it means to have faith. I even thought about typing up a response to them to give them if they came back entitled "Treat Others As You Wish to be Treated: Don't Preach to me Unless You Want to be Preached to As Well." After a couple of days passed, I threw away the pamphlet and decided against the essay, hoping that these women wouldn't follow through on their threat to return.
Now I'm sitting here in my kitchen with the blinds half-open as they caught me by surprise. Did I mention that I'm curled up under the table hoping that the chair next to the window will block whatever body parts may be visible?
Yep. This is my day. Hiding from the Jehovah's Witnesses standing on my doorstep.

So I Tried To Start A Fight Club...

But it failed rather miserably. I was watching 30 Rock the other night and I've been craving more Chuck Palahniuk books so of course starting a Fight Club just seemed like the right way to make my otherwise boring life a bit more interesting. Since fiance is the only person I really know down here, I decided that I would have to start it with him. I began planning while making dinner. Crucial decisions had to be made before I could start. When to start? Where to hit? Should I hit with my hands or just start with a pillow or something soft to judge his reactions? Should I wait until after his homework is done? What if he does like the idea and then never gets back to his homework because he has a black eye from our impromptu Fight Club and now can't read the papers or write with his right hand? I decided to wait until after the homework was completed and to begin with a pillow fight of sorts. So there he sat on the couch, watching TV, completely unaware of what was about to ensue. I sat down obnoxiously close to him, gripping my pillow close, and just stared at him.
"What?"
I stare at him without speaking.
"Seriously. What are you doing?"
Stare more fiercely.
"Ok."
He goes back to watching TV while I stare at him in silence. He watches me suspiciously out of the corner of his eye. Slowly relaxes back into watching TV. That is when I decided to strike.
*Wap*
"What was that for?"
Stare at him in silence.
"If you want me to do something, you have to speak."
*Wap*
"Seriously. What are you doing?"
*Wap* *Wap* *Wap*
This is when he grabs hold of the pillow.
"Are you trying to start a Fight Club?"
"No."
"Uh huh."
Then he turned back to watching TV. Like nothing happened. What the hell. That's when I had to admit defeat. My plan had failed. My Fight Club was short-lived and somewhat pathetic. More of a Pillow Fight Club. Whatever.
At least I gave it a shot.

Top Ten Things I Should Be Doing:

1. Applying to more jobs.
2. Applying to more schools.
3. Looking for auditions.
4. Making Wedding Save the Dates
5. Making Wedding Invites.
6. Working on Grandad's obit.
7. Making a music list for the ceremony.
8. Calling preachers, cake makers, and djs.
9. Calling my apartment complex about the squirrels that love to live in our ventilation system.
10. Baking more things for me to eat and then feel guilty about.

Top Ten Things I Am Doing Instead:
1. Wishing I was on Glee.
2. Blogging random things that no one in their right mind should read.
3. Listening to the squirrels in our vent.
4. Making tea in my fancy new flowering tea pot.
5. Having a mini-dance party in my head to random Ke$ha songs.
6. Wishing fiance was home so I could annoy him.
7. Watching people walking their dogs outside my window.
8. Contemplating some WoW time.
9. Wishing I was on Glee (that gets to be said twice since it's on the top of my list)
10. Trying to decide whether to post poetry on this thing or not.
Bonus 11: Thinking that I could be funny and write funny things that would make people read what I write from time to time so that I could be famous for being an internet blogger one day and then get paid to sit at home by my window and write about things.

Oh Rainy Tuesday...

How you make me weary. I have a phone interview today at 10 for a job I don't really think I would be good at. And another interview tomorrow for something I'm not 100% sure of. The woman on the phone seemed nice and I know it has something to do with photography, but I'm not sure what exactly since I'm meeting her at a hotel where she is staying. I'm not sure what I'm getting myself into. But here I am, applying to everything I can find that I'm even half-way qualified for. I just want to break into the world. I want to be found. I don't want to live the life of a rock star or anything, I just want my 15 minutes of fame so that I can save every penny I earn in those short minutes and be set for life. It seems like the easy way out and I've never really gotten that before, but I'm ready to give it a shot. My days consist of applying to jobs, stress-eating from the job search, cleaning something or playing WoW, writing here and there, eating out of sheer boredom, hating myself for being such a fatty-mcfatterson, then going to pick up fiance from class. I really do need a life again. A busy life. A full life. I just feel empty right now. All I have here is fiance, and not that that's a bad thing, but he's got stuff he needs to do all the time so I'm just rather annoying some nights. While he's trying to research theatre styles or draw up his designs I will sit obnoxiously close to him, staring at him, making little whimpering sounds until he pays attention to me. I'm an attention whore. I'm aware of it. Yet I'm living the life of a southern recluse. I need to audition somewhere. Or get back into school. Or at least get a job. The job would be optimal for monetary purposes. But getting back into the theatre or the classroom would be emotionally satisfying. I think I'm going through withdraw. Silly rainy Tuesday... I have no one to people watch because they are all inside- which leaves me to think about things I have no business thinking about. Perhaps I'll go throw myself into wedding invitations... or maybe just out the window.

"Home"

...is where the heart is. But isn't it possible for the heart to be more than one place at a time? I've always been told that home is where your family is. But what if your family consists of more than just the people who raised you? What if members of that family are elsewhere? What if you have been away and gained a circle of friends that carry the same supportive roles as a family? The word "home" is difficult for me to say. Home is where I am now, with fiance. Home is also where my parents and little sister are. As well as where my middle sister is while she is away at college. And home is where my friends are that have become like family while I was in college. That's at least four different homes. And some of those friends are elsewhere now too, making my "homes" even more diverse. So what is "home" exactly? It is a place that I have grown to love and feel sick for when away from it for too long. But is "home" really a place? Or is it just that we grow "peoplesick?" We miss those people that have become a "home" to us. Whenever I say that I'm "homesick," I never fully know which "home" I am sick for. I just have grown weary of the time away from the people that have always been and have also become my family. Even the "home" key on the keyboard makes me think about what exactly I am missing. That little key takes you back to the beginning of the line, like "home" is supposed to be where your beginning is. I barely remember that place that I began living. But I remember the people that taught me how to live. And every new member of my family circle has caused new beginnings for me. So I guess "home" is only a relative term that describes the feeling of warmth and comfort and support we get when surrounded by certain people that we consider family. And I believe that since my family is spread all over, my heart and my home are just as thoroughly scattered around the US (and bits of Ireland). Because I rarely get to see each member of my "family" and, therefore, my "home," I don't think the homesickness is going to be getting too much better any time soon.

Whirlpool

You know you’ve hit a new kind of low when you’re sitting in the bath tub watching the water slowly siphoning down the drain and you feel like a god every time you dip the tip of your pinky finger into the tiny twister that erupts from the drain to make it spontaneously disappear into the rest of the water around it. Naked and cross-legged, the whole world stops for those few seconds between the moment your pinky breaks the water and the millisecond it takes the tornado to end. Control is literally at your fingertips and it is wasted over and over again until the spiral of water gets larger and larger and then completely dissolves down the dark drain and into cold pipes, taking it far, far away from you and your superhuman pinky finger.

Stand by Me

this makes my life.

If you are having a rough day, just click the link. Trust me. It will make your day better. Courtesy of fiance.

10-20-10

Awareness. Perfect awareness. That sweet feeling that washes over you, enveloping you in a complete knowledge of place and time. Who you are. Where you are. Why you are.

While sometimes this awareness can be frightening, it is still necessary to life. Today, 10-20-10, is a day of remembrance. A day to mourn the loss of souls that have left this world far before their time. Today is a day where the world has decided to say that enough is enough. It is time to make the world aware of the pain that we are causing. Of the hatred that we are breeding. Of the lives that we are stealing. All because we are unaware and we like it that way.

Six young boys took their lives into their own hands. They took the one thing that they have complete control over and handed it off to god. They didn’t hear kind words. They were told that they were different. They were wrong. They were abominations. Just because they love differently than the majority.

These boys were gay and they were taught that that made them unworthy of love.

I am here to say that this needs to end. Love is one thing that we have no choice in. sometimes we fall in love when we don’t want to. We fall for people that we know will never fall for us. Love is decided by our hearts and our hearts only. And our hearts are the purest things that we are given. To know your heart is a blessing. And because these boys knew what their hearts’ deepest desires were, they were persecuted. They were remonstrated. They were hated because ignorance is bliss and the world isn’t ready to embrace their pure hearts.

I know that the holes left behind in the families of these boys are unfixable. They will forever be there to haunt them. But there is something I want to say to their families:

Do not blame yourselves.

You may have said or felt or done things that you wish you could take back. But these things happen. Take this lesson and speak out. Tell other parents of the lessons you have learned through the passing of your child. Although your son is no longer on earth, he will look down and smile if you tell your story and save the lives of other children who aren’t receiving support. Spread the message of love and forgiveness. Spread the word that your son did not die in vain- his untimely death has brought awareness to you and the world around you. Be strong. Forgive yourself. Be aware. And live your life for yourself and for the son you have lost.

To the rest of the youth out there dealing with a world that does not accept you for who you are:

You are not alone. And it will get better. This world that we live in is changing. Awareness and the message of equality are spreading like wildfire and no one can tame those flames of honesty and love. When you are persecuted, remember that you are not alone. When you are harassed, remember that someone else out there is feeling the same things you are. And one day, you will meet that person. And you will know their pain and they will know yours. When you watch two people hold hands in public and you wish that you could too, remember that you will find love. And that love will be stronger than most because of the struggles you have dealt with. You will be loved without limits.

We may never meet. We may walk past one another on the street. We may live in completely different lifetimes. But I want you to know that I love you for who you are. Be brave. Be strong. And always remember that you are not alone. You are accepted.  You are who you are for a reason. And you are loved.