tiff blogs?

a failure of massive proportions

2011-10-01T01:56:00.000-04:00

Both mine, and my hard-drive's.

365 and blog are officially on hiatus for the foreseeable future.

...Not that that'll make much difference in the frequency of my updates.

.

postcard to dublin

2011-09-18T23:33:00.001-04:00

a title thingy and a nature walk

2011-09-13T00:11:00.001-04:00

(^^Click for bigger. This one looks better bigger. I promise.)

Saturday's nature walk was productive in many, many ways.

skype solutions and a birthday

2011-08-05T16:37:00.004-04:00

Hello 4th year of bloggery! Happy birthday, neglected blogchild.

The Boy: *links to above image*
Me: Back in the drawer, duh. If they're dirty enough that they'll dirty the clean stuff, you shouldn't be wearing them again.
Me: ....
Me: I solved the internet!
The Boy: lol, grats honey
Me: thanks babe
Me: I'll be sure to take you with me when they move me into the palace

hair: i haz it

2011-06-22T23:09:00.000-04:00

that is all.

sooops, sooooooooops

2011-06-12T00:00:00.000-04:00

Part 1:
1 carton (low sodium, preferably) chicken broth
2 small or 1 huge tomato, roughly chopped into approx. 1" pieces
1 small or half of a huge red onion, roughly chopped into approx. 1" pieces
4 cloves garlic, minced (trust me. do it.)
1 hefty squirt of sriracha a.k.a. rooster sauce (do this according to your own heat tolerance, but I can handle a fair bit and I'm a wuss with spicy foods)
4 very generous dashes of dried basil
1 can cannellini beans or whatever canned beans you have on hand. (Don't rinse them, and add everything from the can into the pot.)
1 splash (1.5 tablespoons..ish) of veggie oil/olive oil/peanut oil/glistening baby sweat

combine all ingredients in pot,
put heat on high,
achieve boil
cover pot
maintain gentle boil for 30 minutes, 20 if you cut your onion/tomato into a teeny tiny dice

~~~

Part 2:
2 boneless chicken thighs

rinse thighs, chop into 2cm chunks (about 3/4ths of an inch),
(nothing about this recipe requires precision, so don't sweat it, just try to keep them roughly the same size)
add to soup, cook uncovered for additional 20 minutes.

taste broth
add salt if needed
taste broth
if not slightly spicy with delicious flavors, add more sriracha and simmer another 10 minutes
taste broth
amazing?
then job well done.

a light sprinkle of parmesan or goat cheese (or nutritional yeast, as I did in the photo above) on top would not be a bad thing.

gone in 60 seconds

2011-05-14T22:47:00.000-04:00

So. Papers are papered, finals are finalized, klasses are kaput, and I'm *officially* headed back to Brown in the fall but possible also in the summer.

Time to take a breath? Ha.

Before and After 2

2011-04-10T14:33:00.000-04:00

the world economy, in summary

2011-04-02T21:54:00.000-04:00

*also representative of the more personally relevant tiffconomy, as well.

_

Phart

2011-03-28T00:32:00.003-04:00

And by that I mean the Philadelphia Museum of Art. of course.
(remember all photos are clickable for increased size, ~~girth, and performance~~)

Upon arriving, I spotting some premium reflection on the top of a glass case full of ... things that were clearly less interesting than the reflection.

This lil statue was cool. If only it were unattended and my bag weren't full.

I liked this shiny too, but it was definitely too big to fit into my bag. Unguarded, though. Damn the luck.

Yeahh.. you know you'd want jade rings and gold leaf all over your cloisonne-enameled

doggy-boudoir too, if you could. Nice job spoiling Fido, ancient China.

But the Nepal-Tibet room. Oooooh, that's the room that stole my heart. Small shiny things, beautifully displayed.

This statue was supremely cool. Very creepy once you actually started to study what the elephant dude was doing to the upside down dude. What has been seen cannae be unseen, and all that.

My museum companion took photos of things too. And I took photos of her taking photos of things. Then we fell into a loop in space/time and haven't been seen since.

~Intermission~

Halfway through the museum I took a brief intermission to photograph the pretty things outside the museum as well.

This last shot was seriously a pain in the rump to get, as there was a clear walkway behind me, but the few people nearby (including my companion) decided to not just walk in front of me, but to actually STAND directly in front of me as well. Yeah, I'm just holding this heavy camera to my face because it matches my earrings.

~Intermission over~

So back we are to the other side of the museum, where even the art was trying to run away from the art.

The statue seems to be saying "No, nooooo, don't let the terrible drab flowers of blobby awfulness get meeeeee! Nooooooooooo."

Or maybe that was me. Whatever.

I really liked this ballerina statue in the next room, even though I kind of hated ballet itself. Or was it tap? I think it was tap-dance classes actually. The shoes were slippery and the floor was hard to land on. :(

Anyway, this ballerina had managed to run away from the godawful painting in the previous room, and was actually pretty cool. Very odd skirt thing, it looked like bronzed fabric, I'm not sure what it really was, and there were too many museum people around for me to attempt to fondle knowledge out of it.

To the left of the ballerina was this. It was epically large, and awesome, and looked like Peter Jackson was just off screen, directing the painter.

Henri-Joseph Harpignies, directly descended from the Harfoots of Brandybuck.

The Modern Art room was.... modern. And also had a bonus creepy Frenchman that delighted in following veerrrry close behind me in an otherwise spacious and fairly empty room. He was invading my personal space so much that I finally fled into the next room though I wasn't done exploring the current one. But he immediately followed me into the next room, actually breaking into a jog to keep up with my sudden change of direction. Fortunately for me, his friends were sitting on a bench near the next exhibit and called him off the chase. He looked disappointed to lose the opportunity to lure me into a back room, chloroform me, and then feed me my own enucleated eyeballs.

This was the last exhibit in the modern art section, and was even creepier than the French dude. From the front, an eye. From behind, reflections of highly eerie faces.

I really liked this little adorable statue couple thing. It definitely would have come home with me and gone in my dream garden as the world's best garden gnome replacement EVAR!!1!... except that my companion refused to strap it under her shirt and pretend to be hunchbacked long enough for us to sneak out. Hmmph.

At the end of our wanderings we stopped by the fountain above, just past the random fireplace hallway. While sitting, I looked up and saw the guard. She was almost a piece of art herself; perfectly composed in her space.

Annnd this is the outside of the museum, taken when we got out at approximately itsfrickincold'o'clock.

Okay. The end. Get out.

But before you go....

I leave you with this piece.

Enigmatically titled:

Chimera

*snerk*

Before and After 1

2011-03-08T00:22:00.000-05:00

lizzzards of fate

2011-01-31T03:19:00.001-05:00

tiff: omg! Universe, did you just give me tendinitis?
Universe: HAVE FUN WALKING TO THE TRAIN STATION IN THE SNOW, HEFFER!
tiff: i haets you so bad.

balance

2011-01-14T01:29:00.001-05:00

We had a spat the day before his grandfather died. He didn't do anything wrong, he just did something I didn't like and I had a right proper sulk about it at the time. Towards the end of the next day, during a moment of quiet, I apologized. He shushed me, tried to say it was all his fault, and when I called him on it, told me to shush because he was trying to make me feel better. Even then, when everything's gone pear-shaped, he's still trying to make me feel better.

Fast forward a few days to last night, when a family member of mine (whose fucked up opinions still have the power to affect me negatively despite my knowledge of their fucked-upness) decided to go through most of my 365 photos thus far and systematically tell me:

A. why none of them were as good as they could have been,

B. how for several of the days, I'd taken a better shot (more accurately: a less bad shot) than the one I'd chosen to upload and that I should've chosen better, and

C. how I was a cold and unfeeling person for uploading a shot that my father happens to be standing in. Not a shot of my father, but a shot where he walked into the frame when I only had time for one take. I knew he wouldn't mind, and in light of this family member's ~~sanctimonious bitching~~ concern, I showed him the photo today and he shrugged and said "You can't see my face anyway, so who cares?" (Later, I mentioned this to said family member and she proceeded to say lots of charming things like "but you can see his shape *here she makes a hand gesture indicating fatness* and his saggy old man clothes!" Yeah. And she thinks I'm being mean to him by uploading a photo where he's standing 40 feet away from the camera? I dun think so.

But anyway, the conclusions were that I'm a bad person. And I have no eye for composition, and know nothing about art and have no artistic vision or imagination. And the few details she did like in my photos? She compliments the greatness of my camera. Pointing out that she couldn't get those results with my camera only got me a huffy reply that it's clearly the camera + knowing how to operate the controls that's the key to getting photos equal to or better than mine.

It was rough. Really rough. And frustrating because, even though I know she has pretty crap knowledge/taste in photographs, I still feel raked over the coals when I want so desperately just to not care. After she left I stared at my 365 like it was a tainted thing. It felt defiled. I felt defiled. The joy of the project was, at least at that moment, completely gone.

About 5 minutes after that, Oisin gets home (7:45am his time) after 4 hours of travel, and immediately logs onto skype. Without me saying a word other than a somewhat glum "hi," he's already checking flickr to see what photo I'd uploaded for the previous day. It'd been the last photo to be dissected for its flaws (and they were legion) less than 10 minutes earlier.

With him, if he doesn't like something, he'll let me know clearly and pretty quickly. But he immediately starts telling me how interesting it is, and how much he likes it, and I can hear the truth of it in his voice.

After a couple minutes' conversation, I tell him about what had just happened, and -even though he'd been up since 3am, even though he'd traveled several hours, even though he'd just come home from a funeral- he decided that right that moment was a fine time to go through every single photo I'd uploaded and give me proper, in depth feedback on each one. And in the process he he reclaimed my project for me, purged it of all the negativity and harsh criticism, unfair attacks, and resentment that'd been heaped upon it.

No, he doesn't love every photo I take, but neither do I. And when I love a photo he doesn't, he marks it down to different taste, not to my inferiority as an individual or as an "artist". And I didn't choose her, but I get to chose him. And I choose him again every day.

And I am very, very lucky.

and now for our home viewers

2011-01-10T04:47:00.000-05:00

Clicking the photos to see them in a larger size will make you a better person. And a Nigerian prince will send you a miracle check guaranteed to increase your size and firmness. True story, the internets told me so.

And tomorrow, if you're really, really lucky, I will not give you details of today's conversation that re-confirmed that I'm dating the most ridiculously amazing male creature. But let's face it, you're probably not anywhere close to being that lucky.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

2011-01-06T02:51:00.003-05:00

http://www.dearzachary.com
sidenote: don't spoiler yourself. Seeing the punch coming makes it hurt all the more.

Not only is it a really well-made documentary, it's the saddest thing I have ever watched. Previous contenders were The House of Sand and Fog. which was then replaced by Hotel Rwanda and Sometimes in April, which are both about the Rwandan genocide. Scripted tragedy like Sand and Fog doesn't really stand up to the power of real heartbreak.

And then Dear Zachary came along, and it is beyond real. It is... well, "heartbreaking" is so overused a word now, so trite that I don't quite think you'd get that watching it felt like something inside me was breaking too. That twisting, wrenching sensation in the chest/stomach that you get when you know things are going wrong in a terrible way, when life all of a sudden stops making sense, in the most tragic ways possible.

I was not a crier before this film, and I certainly won't be after, because my tear ducts have now officially quit.

Just right there, I was going to make a joke, was going to say they were filing a restraining order against me, but just thinking about that in context of the documentary made my stomach go a little cold. Maybe today is not the day for jokes. Maybe today is the day you hug those you love tightly. Today is the day you maybe cry a little at the senselessness of the world and the outdated, slow, and impotent legal system that every first-world country possesses. And today is the day you think that sometimes citizens might have the right to meet out justice when their government fails them, fails the ones they love, and fails everyone else in the process. Today is the day that the most staunch liberals consider, even just briefly, the idea that owning a gun might just come in handy. The day that athiests desperately wish there was an alm that could give protection, a tithe to be made, a candle to be lit that could ensure such tragedy would never touch their own lives.

But owning a gun won't help. Saying a prayer won't help. Because if there were things that could be done to prevent such senseless tragedy, it wouldn't be senseless, and it wouldn't be tragedy.

I don't know, I don't think I can speak eloquently about this movie right now, my entire body feels like a thousand pulsing raw nerves. I am not a crier. And maybe you aren't a documentary watcher. Maybe you don't like things that don't have that classical American-style happy ending. Maybe it's just not your thing. But maybe today just isn't like every other day, maybe today shouldn't be like every other day. Maybe today you'll watch it. And maybe you won't.

But today, if nothing else, say "I love you" just a little more often. Hug just a little tighter, have just thirty seconds more patience with the frustrations of loved ones, and laugh just a little more, a little louder, and with a little more joy.

a new year's 12.3 megapixel resolution

2011-01-01T21:54:00.002-05:00

I'm going to do a 365 project. Which isn't any nonsense involving cycles of the sun/earth/astrophysics things, as your foolish teachers have taught you to believe. It is, in fact, an online project to take a (decent) photo-a-day for an entire year, and to post them to flickr every day, the day that you take them. It's a photographic challenge, a challenge to artistic persistence and perseverance, a challenge to fight apathy and procrastination. Or possibly just boredom.

I don't do well with long-term projects, I'm more of a sprinter- a short burst of energy then I'm onto the next thing. So this will be challenging in many ways, but I've wanted to do this project for so long, and this is my first new year's (the traditional starting day) with a decent enough camera. So here we go. To my future 365-self, I say goodluck, and get off your lazy ass.

I probably won't post much about the project here, but each day's photo will have its own page on my flickr. They will also appear in my lil flicker widget thingy on the side of this blog as well. That way --->>>

But because I like you, you get today's photo on the house. ^_~

take your dirty hands off my umthondo wisizwe

2010-12-18T15:04:00.000-05:00

One day, when I'm bored, unemployed, and looking for a frustrating time, I'll actually agree to jury duty. But until then, Dear County, I'm dodging the draft like it's Vietnam, part 2. Nyah, you'll never catch me alive, see?

Moving on, this was the AMAZING dessert wine I found for Turkey-killin Day. Wine-poached pears? Major hit. And I dislike most wine, and red far more than white, but this even smelled delightful and fruity straight from the bottle. If I actually liked wine, I'd drink it straight, but for now I'll have to settle for cooking with it and having a house that smells like yum. Amazing. Do recommend. (less than $20/bottle)

In more lately happenings, I broke my contacts Thursday, so now my daily commute looks like this.

But the South African rap i've been listening to makes it allll better. ..in a "wierd, slightly white-trashy but with amazing lyrics/delivery that really grow on you" kind of way. Probably more appealing if you can translate Afrikaans, though. Bonus points if you recognize what (entertaining and also highly recommended) movie they're referencing in the video.

Seven of STD

2010-11-23T02:37:00.000-05:00

i joined twitter.

it's like VOLUNTARILY becoming one of the borg.

No, no. That's wrong.

What it's like, is this. It's like sleeping with someone you're only within twenty feet of because of some pretty serious beer-goggles, but you realize it at the time, and do it anyway. You KNOW it's sleazy and wrong, but you just can't help yourself.

The next three weeks

2010-11-21T20:25:00.004-05:00

I am balls-deep in papers. 3 weeks left of classes. 4 exams left. 3 papers left. 2 presentations. 1 peer-workshop. And a partridge on a merry fecking pear tree.

Just finished one paper about fairytales being Teh Evil in regards to female gender roles and acculturation.
Now I'm writing one about the business psychology of an ingenious online shoe retailer. Boring? Ha. The dude is 36 now and has sold two businesses (the first when he was 24 to Microsoft, the second at 34 to Amazon) for a total of 1.5 billion. With a B. ...Yeah. Fuck him. >.>
After that, there'll be one involving LOTR and..something. I'm still working that one out.
But after that paper! Yes! No! Still another paper! Something about films depicting Bobby Sands and the 1981 IRA hungerstrike. Probably. Possibly. Maybe. Hopefully. I'm having trouble getting my hands on a certain film I need to watch and analyze if I want to do the topic I have in mind, and for once, the internet gods are not providing.

Now, on to non-sequiter-y things.

I started this blog when I was half-bedridden and had nothing creative to do. Now I'm back in Uni and mentally exhausted once more. It's nice to stretch the old brain again. I'd forgotten how smart I used to be, once.
Anyway, I don't need an outlet anymore, and I just don't have time to write creatively even if I felt the need. I feel like the best three or four things I wrote on the site were all within the first six months. I've worked a few things out, had my own little therapy sessions via blog, , but ultimately, I'm just way too lazy to update this thing with the kind of *actual* writing I intended. I have a folder of several half-started short fiction pieces that will never be finished. If I don't write something start-to-finish in one go, the muse flips me the bird and drives off.

Sometimes I've wanted to review things here, mainly books, movies, and audiobooks, as they're the only products I consume on a regular basis. But I know who all three of my readers are, and none of you actually share my tastes in these matters, for the most part. So what's the point?

I've considered discussing current events, but the only news that incites me to write is the depressing, frustrating, ragebeast kind of news. And I would rather not fill this space with nothing but negativity. Not to mention it gets me all worked up (in a bad way, perv) to write about the stupidity of the world around me. And there's no shortage of people writing about it anyway.

I recently re-read the list of rules I'd typed up three years ago for a friend's online forum.. Yeah, they were rules, but they were brilliant. I was funny. Really funny, actually. Now? I don't know. I don't feel funny, I feel older. Less joie de vivre. "I could try to be funny.. but fuck it" kinda attitude. And I didn't have to try before...much.

This isn't a cry for help, I'm not complaining. I'm just re-evaluating the reasons why I started this in the first place. And I'm not sure there's enough justification to continue taking up this room in the cloud. But besides that... I'm a busy heffer these days, and this place just isn't a priority. So.. long story short.. I give you permission to stop checking here. I'm not sure I have anything to say.

They keep asking, "But why Ireland?"

2010-11-03T02:38:00.000-04:00

Because I'm still a twelve-year old girl reading fantasy books long after I should be asleep, and I miss having this across the street from my* apartment. (The apartment's his, and he's mine, so that makes it my apartment, right? Right?)

And because duhhh, if I just wait long enough the unicorn will totally appear sooner or later. And dragons, because anywhere that looks like that definitely has dragons, too. And I was there. And it was magical. And I want back in, dammit. So stop asking why. It's because IRELAND IS WHERE THEY KEEP THE DRAGONS. Obviously.

interpretive dance

2010-10-27T23:16:00.001-04:00

Words.

I'll type them here.

You'll pretend they're intelligent and witty.

Deal?

Awesome.

But umm, not today, okay?

So instead, we shall communicate through interpretive dance!

The furball.

Kitchen boredom.

And watching leaves die.

Not interpretive dance, you say? Well I say you're not trying hard enough. Pfft.

.

brung low by a woman

2010-10-10T21:09:00.000-04:00

Earlier today I learned that beyond a shadow of a doubt I am a "supertaster", aka. a person with a lot more tastebuds than the average human. Most supertasters are more sensitive to sweet, salty, bitter, and sour flavours than everyone else, but for me it seems to be just the last two that often overwhelm me while my dining companions make googly eyes at my scrunched face and desperate dive towards the nearest glass of water.

A few hours ago, my decent meal at a mediocre yet overpriced Italian place was ruined by the inclusion of rapini, aka. broccoli rabe, or you know, "bitter broccoli", even though it's not actually broccoli at all. Now, I don't even like broccoli as it is, but shove the word bitter in front of it and I should have known to stay away, right? Right. Only I didn't learn that particularly charming nickname for the green until after my traumatizing meal.

Anyway, as there's no way for me to accurately describe the horrors of having my entire mouth die, I'll cut this long, boring story short : OH MY GOD WAS THAT THE BITTEREST THING EVER OR WAS THAT THE BITTEREST THING EVER.

O.o

Defeated by a vegetable. that's me.

today...

2010-10-01T00:09:00.003-04:00

Today my boyfriend touched Bill Clinton's butt.

I have never been more proud in my life.

That is all.

Carry on.

duffman...can't breathe...oh no

2010-09-30T01:22:00.004-04:00

sorry, can't talk, too busy making love to the kindle with my eyes.
For someone who has been a hardcore audiobook-ophile for the past five years or so, I have now fallen firmly back in love with reading with my eyes instead of my ears. However, nothing makes doing massive piles of dishes bearable like listening to a great book or podcast while you're up to your elbow in suds. Works for other cleaning, too. Try it, you filthy filthy beast. You know you want to. Oh yeahhh. Giggity.

Downside? I was up to 5am reading last night because the author I'd just found was simply TOO GOOD to put down. (Patricia Briggs. more fantasy than sci-fi, but motherfluffin awesome reads. Read her. READ HER. The Terminator tells you to dooo it, do it nao. ) Somehow, I have a lot more self-control with audiobooks. Yesterday? There was no self-control. Nope, none. Yesterday was reading. Today was napping. Tomorrow will be desperate scrambling to catch up on all the coursework I needed to have gone over today instead of napping. Ahh, reading made me its bitch last night, and I know I shouldn't, but I think I liked it. Kinda. Except for all the lack of sleep.

Anyway, Patricia Briggs. DO IT.

in which we live up to our origins

2010-09-04T20:24:00.000-04:00

I ordered a Kindle.
Didn't really need one, didn't really want one as it's nice but too much of a niche device for my liking, but e-books are loads cheaper and a lot easier to haul around than all the various novels I'll be covering in the lit class I'm taking this semester. And it'll pay for itself from all the moolah i'll be saving by not buying printed versions. The numbers, I crunched them.

So.

I ordered one.
And so did everyone else, because apparently the Kindle 3 is so much better than the previous versions.
Which I did not know when I clicked "order."

So they're backordered.
Out of stock.
You know, the "for the next several weeks" kind of out-of-stock.
And now, somehow, I am unfeasibly impatient for something I wasn't crazy about in the first place.
But now that I'm getting one, I want it.

Like, yesterday.

I WANT WHAT I WANT AND I WANT IT NOW. I AM AN AMERICAN, DAMMIT. INSTANT GRATIFICATION IS THE ONLY GRATIFICATION THERE IS.

ANYTHING ELSE IS FOR POOR PEOPLE IN THAT THIRD COUNTRY, WHEREVER IT IS... I WOULDN'T ACTUALLY KNOW BECAUSE WE HAVE NO MAPS AND NO ONE'S TWEETED ABOUT IT IN THE PAST 30 SECONDS SO IT DOESN'T EXIST TO ME ANYWAY.

Hmmph.

Yeah.
So.
I'm a tetch impatient today.
Can you tell?
I bet you couldn't!

.

magnetized for maximum attraction!

2010-08-19T23:33:00.001-04:00

There is something about me that draws the attentions and affections of emo men. And I swear, none of them started out that way when I develop these relationships, and I'm pretty sure I'm not at least the *main* reason why they go all emotionally whiney. I'm not even a minor reason -for the most part. But they all go whiney-emo on me well after we've broken up. If this is what comes from remaining friends/friendly/on good terms with your ex-s, then I might have to reconsider some decisions I've made in my life about being a mature adult. Because seriously? This emo ex-boyfriend stuff is really wearing me down. And since my life is actually in a pretty good place right now, it's also really.... what's a non-70s stoner expression for "harshing my buzz"? Bumming me out? No, that's not much better. Killjoy? Dampening my spirit? No, what they're doing is worse. They're doing the emotional equivalent of popping a squat over my parade.

And I'm not having it.

First there was G, who was always a bit of a brooding-intellectual type when I met him, granted, but now whenever we speak, it's always negative, and often not really intellectual at all. No, where there is ridiculous levels of emo-ness, intellect cannot survive.

The opening of every conversation we've had over the past year and a half has been him harshly chastizing me for not answering his calls. He then proceeds to spend the next hour on the phone making me feel guilty, being intensely negative and/or depressing, and wanting to pick apart the minute details of various dreary and negatively nostalgic topics such as why we never worked out as a couple, why I don't open up to him more, and why he was such a terrible person to me and to a lesser extent, everyone else. Oh, and there was a series of really angry, bitter texts somewhere along the way as well.

Yeah, dude, maybe if you made our conversations less of a to-be-avoided-at-all-costs emo-whinefest, I'd answer the phone every once in a while, mmkay? But actually, he's not my main concern anymore, because I moved on with my life and now he's not speaking to me at all. Score? I'm not sure. But at least I don't have the aggravation of someone trying to make me feel guilty for finally refusing to help shoulder the weight of his own emotional burdens.

But now there's T, who's currently the first of my long-time friends to be getting divorced, an especially high honor considering 99% of them aren't married yet. He got married despite her family, his family, and most of their friends knowing (and many even vocally stating) that the marriage was a bad idea. But hey, what do we know? It probably made them feel all the more like star-crossed lovers, destined to be together despite all impediments. Except that didn't really work out for Romeo and Juliet or for T and his high-maintenance bride. Or for any star-crossed lovers, really, now that I think about it. Damn those stars, they have too much time on their hands.

Anyway, apparently, I was one of the only people to put deep personal reservations aside and simply wish him well instead of trying to convince him to wait or talk him out of it. And for that bit of Being a Good Friend 101, now he feels I'm the only person he can talk to about the collapse of said relationship. And now he calls frequently when he's in the area, voice heavy with emo tears, deep, drawn-out sighs, and melancholy "oh nothing"s when I ask what's wrong.

Last time he was in town, he even saw fit to blame me for his divorce, because "if we were still I wouldn't be getting a divorce." Hahaha. Haha. Ha. Ha. No, if we were still together it would mean a freak-accident had at some point rendered me braindead. Because really? He really is a great guy, but we were -and now are even more- completely, totally wrong for each other. Only, he doesn't see it that way. But at least he knows I'm happily involved and is in too much pain (and hopefully has too much sense) to try to go back almost ten years in time to try to rekindle a fire loooong burned out.

But still. What's with all the guilt being thrown my way? For the first time, in certain respects, I'm happier than I ever thought I'd be, and all of a sudden everyone decides a happy person is the perfect target for their emo-unburdening? Maybe they think someone with extra happy can handle some of their excess sad? I don't get it. And now that T is back in the area, the latest round of calls has already begun. Today's call count? Four. Three of which went unanswered because I may be stupid for putting up with all this, but I'm not THAT stupid.

lag of the avation kind

2010-08-12T19:04:00.003-04:00

yes. I'm back in the states, whether I want to be or not, so for the sake of america's feelings, let's assume I want to be. And ye gods, I'd happily forgotten that such a thing as "humidity" existed, and we're not willingly reunited.Speaking of being reunited... I miss him already. :(

And also, the significantly superior weather in dublin.

But especially him.

proposition h8

2010-08-04T19:09:00.000-04:00

I was ashamed to live in a country where a state (a community, a people, a federation) that cries "equality!" as much as California does could pass it in the first place.

Now, I'm just ashamed to live in a country that took over two years to figure out it was unconstitutional in the first place.

Just because *I* think it's more moral to figure out a moral code for yourself (rationally, as a person who can understand concepts of justice, inequality, harm, protection, differing opinions, hypocrisy, etc) instead of parroting whatever outdated and manipulated religious cannon you were taught when you were three doesn't mean I have the right to force my ideas into law, to be inflicted upon everyone else, whether they agree or not.

But if this country ever bans run-on sentences, I'm really gonna have to put my foot down.

shortly blatherings

2010-07-03T19:26:00.002-04:00

Still recuperating from an intense week in Froonce. Pics to come soon, hopefully tomorrow, if we don't go to the Dublin Zoo. Possibly after, if I feel up to it and the Boy isn't giving me puppydog eyes (subconsciously) to get into the kitchen (where a good woman belongs anyway) and feed him.

Oh, and today I finally won the insanely silly debate we've been having for months as to whether or not spaghetti is a type of noodle or a type of pasta.

Answer, obviously, is that it's both. Duhh.
Silly boy. Good thing he has me to edumacate him about these things.
On the other hand, he can speak french.

So I guess we're even, him with his growing-up-learning french and vacationing in Basque country, and me with my knowledge of flour and water.
Yeah, totally even.

Or not.

But at least I got to go there. ^^

Which doesn't make us even, but it means I'm catching up. ^_^

you dont tan...

2010-06-25T04:26:00.002-04:00

like you tan in the south of France.

Although tanning just across the border on a Spanish beach was almost as nice.

Also, mmmm cheese. And baguettes. Mmmmmmmm.

Did I mention I'm in the south of France?
No?

Why can't you tell? I'm wearing all black and smoking a cigarette while looking effortlessly chic.

Mmkay, all that was a lie.

Except for the part about being in France.

That's just the part you wish was a lie.

Kbaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

^_^

amidst the silver lining

2010-06-18T06:55:00.000-04:00

In the battle for his love, I am the uncontested winner.

In the battle for his attention, no amount of glances -coy or pleading-, cajoling, wheedling, bargaining, promising, or begging can pry him from the arms of his other lover.

I've told him we should get a pool boy.
Or a tennis pro.
Or a milkman.

Or at least a dog, because I've heard they're good attention-givers.

We'll see.

absconded!

2010-05-29T11:30:00.003-04:00

things that have been distracting me lately:

hellooooo lover. my phototechnolust has been satisfied, and how.

And then, there was this thing that happened in Newark:

and then, seven miserable hours later, this happened:

and whoops, I've somehow found myself in Dublin for the next three months.

With my sexy new toy.

And my sexy not-so-new toy.

And for now, I'll be posting about my travels on a different, parent-safe blog:

tiffwhy.wordpress.com

and uploading my photos to flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiffyundt/

I hope you'll come visit. <3

WalMart. Yeahhhhh.

2010-04-22T02:24:00.000-04:00

Oh. Ye. Gods.

My local WalMart just reached Jerry Springer levels of trash. So, my mother, two other women, and I were all standing in the card aisle, discussing racism, religion, making art from unintentionally artful items, and just generally being the classiest haphazard discussion-group ever to grace the aisles of any Wal-Mart, ever, when we hear the sound of a lot of things falling off shelves all at once in the aisle directly behind us. At first, we thought a shelf or two had crashed to the floor- it was that loud a commotion. But alas, such a simple, innocent cause to the disruption was not to be.

Women- girls, really- were wrecking the store in one loud, angry, massive brawl mere feet from us. Employees rushed to the scene from all areas of the store, which only confused things more as the catty wenches having the fight were ...employeees. Wait, what? Yeahhh.

To be fair, only one was on-shift and in uniform at the time. The other was wearing street clothes, having come into the store on her time off, which somehow makes the whole thing that much sadder. And then it all reached a whole new level of pitifulness once I caught a glimpse of the guy who was apparently the object of mutual wench-affection. Seriously? You'd like to get fired over him? To each their own, I guess, but I've never seen the point of fighting over a significant other. If they're genuinely devoted to being with you, they will tell other people to back off. And if they're not saying that, then you really need to question why not. And I do mean seriously evaluate why this person you're with isn't making it clear to other suitors that they're unavailable. In most cases, it's because they don't really consider themselves unavailable. But enough preachiness, we already know I have very clear ideas about cheating and whatnot.

Yeah. Anyway.

The phrase "stereotypical black people" doesn't even BEGIN to describe this festering armpit of a town. It's sort of hard to get mad at people who stereotype black people when I live in an area where each and every one of those stereotypes is alive and well. Thriving, in fact.

But you know, at least there weren't bits of ripped-out dollarstore weave strewn around the place by the end of the melee, unlike on my first day of high school. Yeahhhh.

Bad Website Design 101, class 1

2010-04-16T19:14:00.000-04:00

Things to do if you want your website to piss off as many people as possible:

1. Autoplay sound.
And then, to add insult to ear-injury, embed the player controls at the bottom of your webpage, so that after my eardrums have been decimated by your unexpected aural fuckery, I have to scroll for half of forever to turn off the noise you're inflicting upon me without my consent.

2. @#$%^&*ing autoplay sound.
Seriously, I cannot express how badly this infuriates me. Ugh. Sidenote: Auto-playing video isn't nearly so bad because A. it tends to be at the top of the page and thus easily findable and turn-off-able, and B. the volume for video tends not to be about a hundred decibles too loud compared to whatever else you're listening to. And C. when you've opened 10 tabs at once, and all of a sudden your speakers are blaring, it's a thousand times easier to find the source. ) So, in conclusion. any sound on your webpage that I, the websurfer, don't specifically choose to listen to- is BAD.

3. Have just about everything on your website that an average visitor would want to use/explore require a popup window to run.
Because you think that clearly I don't use Java and Flash enough or have enough windows open already, and my screen isn't nearly cluttered enough for my own good. Why thank you for your concern, now go away. I'm looking at you, recent futile attempts at countertop shopping on DuPoint's convoluted website.

4. Too busy webpages, bad text, overcrowded and unfocused layots.
Seriously? Is this honestly still happening in 2010? There are so many great free design options for every type of website these days that your ugly monstrosity has no excuse. Also, this might seem revolutionary, but figure out where you want people to look, and have everything else not fight for attention. Oh, and please, for the love of [insert deity here], get a text color and a background that are actually pleasing to the eyes. CONTRAST IS GOOD, MMKAY?

Tangent:-My mother's co-worker runs a neighborhood watch website for our area that's so hideous it honestly makes me feel a little queasy to look at it. Blue Screen of Death-coloured background with black text that's too low in contrast for eyes to focus on properly, bright, unreadably-yellow links scattered everywhere like projectile vomit, and every place you look, the text is a different font and size. Truly, I have seen the dregs of the interwebs, and it looked like that site. Which I'm emphatically NOT going to link, because as much as I'd like you to see it and agree/laugh/gag with me, I'd rather not be responsible for anyone else's fried retinas. You're welcome.

5. Abuse of Flash.
It's pretty and shiny, but it's also a resource-hog and pretty damn unstable. So only use it when it's really necessary to get the look you want, and even then, it'd be nice if you offered an HTML-only alternative. Although, I suspect that with the bajillions of iTards flocking to browse the internet through their iPhones and iSanitaryPads, (which at least know better than to support flash with their simplified OS), more and more sites are going to have to choose between flashy flash and reaching a bigger audience. And since you only exist on the internet according to your number of pageviews... we'll see how long Adobe can keep Flash relevant without giving it a major, top to bottom overhaul.

6. Something that I forgot.
So more later, in Class 2, once I've accumulated more annoying things to rant about. Next time I might actually include links! So you, too, can join me in my perpetually annoyed state of being. Wooo. I can tell from the state of your pants that you're just as excited as I am.

i had to go back and give this a title because it was messing up the boyfriend's RSS feed. So: Title!

2010-04-14T02:14:00.004-04:00

What I've been (cooking) and eating lately:

Annnnd what everyone else in my house has been eating:

Their loss. ^_~

Also, I've been
A. in a wierd, antisocial funk lately
B. having trouble with blogger, which seems to be fixed now.
C. utterly failing to work out. even a little.
D. busy failing to find a job, and building a photo-blog, of sorts.
E. just not in a mood to write, read, or be read. meh, it happens. I tend to wander away from everything I've started, periodically. I need to. Otherwise I just end up never going back at all. So, it's not you, it's me. I just need some space to re-evaulate my feelings blah blah yadda yadda I'm just too lazy and can't be arsed.

And now that that's over, let's all have a nap.

false accusations

2010-03-28T20:39:00.000-04:00

first there is the blind-sided shock at the surrealness of it all.

and when that wears off, then comes the anger.

Whooooosh! Crackle crackle.

2010-03-28T15:36:00.000-04:00

That is the sound of nine years of friendship crumbling around me.

You know, I fuck up relationships with people all the time. I'm good at it. Maintaining friendships? Not so good. But at least when I kill a friendship, it's because I did something stupid. Or chronically bad. Or something. But at least *I* did it. And not because my friend's mother discovers she's missing a piece of jewelry. and because I was last in her house months ago, I must have taken it. And then she shows up at my door. And starts yelling.

Obviously, I don't expect my friend to defend me against his mother. Friends are nice, but parents are ..you know, parents. I did expect him to know or at least presume I was innocent, of course. So when he told me he "didn't know what to think" about the situation, it was like a second blow. My heart broke a little, then.

I don't blame him. I can't blame him. Family is family, after all. And his mother's ring is still missing, as far as I know. I hope she finds it tomorrow. But even if she does, I don't think things will be the same.

Whoosh.
Crackle.
Crackle.

"Just being boys" or simply assholes? Someone asplain me the difference.

2010-03-22T21:31:00.000-04:00

When there's a rift between a guy's girlfriend and his best friends, Bad Things happen. And besides that, it's just so pathetically cliche. So it's a situation I try desperately to avoid- for my sanity, for his, for the sake of the relationships all around, and because coming between other people is something I never want to do, regardless of who's involved. (Unless it's an orgy. But that's a whole different type of coming between people.)

Anyway, in Serious Relationship #1, I never met his friends because we lived in different areas, and we almost always interacted in my town, not his. So that worked out. Sort of. In SR #2, we generally had the same friends, and it worked out even better. In SR #3, he's many miles away across the pond, and his friends (who are also his roommates) are people I never see, but who affect me nonetheless.

I've been fighting really hard to not dislike my boyfriend's roommates, but I just lost another battle, and the war effort isn't looking good. As if his nickname being "Nigger Lover" for a while wasn't enough*, after three days of minimal communication time because of his schedule (which is a long time for us, believe me), we finally settle in to a VoIP call. And then his roommates, who know he is talking to me, decide to pull the internet to force him to go play games with them instead.Which he THEN DOES, because he apparently likes to reward assholish behavior. Maybe if I were an asshole*, this would be a desirable quality in a significant other. Maybe I should become an asshole just to take advantage of all the features available in my Significant Other package deal. Maybe it's like getting a computer capable of running the most sophisticated and intensive gaming software and then never playing more than solitaire on it.

Or maybe it's just boys being boys, being laid-back individuals, being low-stress and go-with-the-flow. The fact that my boyfriend is low-stress, laid-back, and a boy are all features I enjoy. They're some of the reasons why I picked that particular model, you know. So I don't know if I'm completely off-base here or not. Sometimes he tells me things are just culturally very different between our two countries, that things aren't nearly as serious there as they are here. To a certain extent, I know that's true. Americans are generally pretty uptight compared to most other first-world country inhabitants. Or at least, I certainly am. I also know I'm a rather serious and crotchety person some* of the time. But come ON. There has to be a line here somewhere, I just can't tell where from my biased perspective.

I told him he was rewarding assholish behaviour, and he told me he didn't have a choice since they were holding him (presumably, the internet connection) hostage. And I'm not even going to get into the fact that now his roommates know they can pull the internet whenever they want and he'll come running. Wonderful.

This bodes well for when the roommates and I eventually meet. And then they'll wonder why I'm so standoffish. And I'll tell them. And they still won't get it. Because apparently I'm the unreasonable one here.

In the mean time, I'm practicing my fake smile.
Blah.

________________________________________________________

*I'm tired of the "But we're European, we don't have the same stigmas here because we don't have your racist history blah blah blah" bullshit. And yes, I did flip my shit over that nickname. And no, he still didn't see what the big deal was. *facepalm*

*Shaddup.

*Okay, a lot of the time. ...Okay, all of the time. Shaddup again.

coherent posts are overrated

2010-03-06T23:57:00.004-05:00

It is a good thing for the person you love to love you back, but it is a terrible thing to know the exact mechanics of that love. Because once you see the limits, no matter how close or far to them you are, it's impossible to focus on anything but that point - the point beyond which loving you costs them more than they feel they gain. Once you know that limit, once you realize their love is not boundless and eternal- everything will change.
And it has.

So, my cat bit me in the face shortly after I sliced my thumb. Karma, take two? That'll teach me to joke about 4th trimester abortions. But then I baked chocolate bread today, and everything was once again good. Or at least alright.

I've been living in an enchanted little cloud for a while now, but it's finally popped. Not in a bad, way, just in a "re-awakening to reality" kinda way. I'm a bit more grounded now, It's probably a good thing. Probably. Possibly. Maybe.

I liked it up there. =/

Also, jobhunting sux0rs a big one. Hire me dammit, I'm more competent than half your workforce. (True story.) But also let me have the summer off so I can get some international ass. Kthx.

tiffblogger, OUT!

if you'd forgotten how terrible of a person I am...

2010-03-03T23:02:00.000-05:00

Let me remind you.

So, yesterday the Boy and I were discussing the Safe Sex (Because nothing says protection like thirty-two hundred miles between your side of the bed and his.) which led me to the Planned Parenthood and the Wikipedia- which as we all know is like Facebook for knowledge, it sucks you in and you spend hours of your life bouncing from page to page absorbing random facts you will never be called upon to recite at a party to make yourself seem all cool and esoteric EVEN THOUGH THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE SECRETLY HOPING FOR.

Cruise control for cool, they tell me.

Anyway, so there I was reading up on the Birth control shot, and I come across a section that mentioned that if a woman gives birth from a pregnancy that occurred while on the shot (and in spite of it), then the resulting kid is 80% more likely to die in the first year of life.

I repeated this aloud to the Boy, who went, "Uhh, that's um..."
"Like an abortion after the fact!" I shouted, completing his sentence for him.

And I laughed. Just a little. Before immediately wanting to punch myself in the face. HARD.
Because holy shit. I am a Bad Person.

If there IS a hell - for the record, I'm calling bullshit on the whole idea, but, IF there is one, I just confirmed my one-way ticket.

FYI, you are all morally-suspect individuals for being friends with me.
You're welcome.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also.

In a totally, completely, obviously unrelated sidenote:
Sharp knives are sharp. Especially ones you just sharpened on both a whetstone AND a sharpening steel two minutes prior to using. You can slice through half the tip of your thumb INCLUDING YOUR FINGERNAIL! with them before you realize what's happening.

Also also, karma is a bitch.

lately happenings

2010-02-28T03:56:00.007-05:00

Unrelated picture is unrelated.

1. I've developed an intense loathing for non-injured, non-arthritic people who rave on food blogs about how the only bread they will EVAR!!!1! make is no-knead bread. Because regular bread is just TOO MUCH EFFORT. And too time-consuming. And not worth the effort. Um, okay, crazy people on crack. This is me, backing away slowly.

The crust on no-knead bread is about half an inch thick and pretty terrible to my tastes. And what, kneading dough for 10 fucking minutes or less is too hard for you? Gah. Begone. I have no use for you here. Or anywhere, as a matter of fact. Stop breeding, kthx. Besides, in most recipes, kneading is easy, fast, AND it's pretty theraputic. Try it. TRY ITTTTT. Awesome first bread recipe: Rosemary bread. Sidenote: Using fresh rosemary is a must. DOOOO IT. Just remember to shout my name later when the it's out of the oven and you're having your first fresh, hot, oven-baked breadgasm.

You're welcome.

This is actually oatmeal-honey bread, but still. I made it. Kneaded it. Fucked up the recipe. And it was STILL DELISHUS.

2. My anniversary with the Boy is coming up. I am très excited. Also, I've found googling accented words is sooo much faster than looking up the appropriate symbol in the character map. Am I the queen of lazy-brand efficiency? Yes. But I still knead my own bread, dammit.

Nothing says "I love you" like a post-it.

3. My hair is growing back after chopping it off to nothingness two years ago. It also started getting orange-y from the dye + sunlight + other factors too boring to mention to my almost completely male readership. All of which is probably why it's a happy accident that yesterday I inadvertantly dyed it darker brown than intended. Yeah, cause I know this information is vital to your existance. Mmhmm. Totally. Also, the fat. The extra 70lbs or so I've been keeping in my back pocket for emergencies. And sidepockets. And front pockets. And everwhere else. That fat. It must go. I am le tired of it. I got some blue things like these plus this painful thingy. Also possibly this one and maybe even one more. Because overkill never hurt anyone ever. Also because I'm unlikely to do any of them, nevertheless three. Also because anything digital is free if you hang with people with eye-patches and avians. Anyway. Stay tuned.

Orange. Dark roots. Blah.

But I'm kinda cute though, no? ^_^

A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.

2010-02-18T04:31:00.000-05:00

Yep, I'm keeping him.

The letter was even better. But you don't get to see that part. ^_^

Singles Awareness Day

2010-02-14T02:54:00.000-05:00

each breath i take

is a poem

written for you.

This day a year ago was the first time in my life where I've been both single on Valentine's day AND happy about it. A relationship was the furthest thing from my mind. I was content with my singleness. I enjoyed it. I wasn't responsible for anyone else's emotional well-being, and I wanted it that way. But also, I still felt ... broken, for lack of a better word. I didn't feel whole, I didn't feel willing or even capable of opening up to someone else. But most importantly, I didn't want to... Love? Trust? No. Do not want. Emphatically. No. Nope, you can't make me.

But then this guy came along and started talking to me, and kept talking to me despite my best efforts to shut him out, and blah blah blah ..... blahblah...... here we are one Valentine's day later and all I can think is that our anniversary is coming up soon and that i'm still the luckiest girl in the world. And also, holy shit. Life is really, really good. I'm 24 and still not done Uni. I am jobless and beyond broke. I have a few not serious but chronically painful health issues that it appears I'll be stuck with for the rest of my life. The person that means the most to me is thousands of miles away and I don't know when next I'll be able to see him. My cat died. Haagen-Daz stopped making my favorite flavour, and new episodes of House started to feel stale and forced. And all I can think at this moment is holy shit. I am a lucky girl.

...is that you'll be kind.

2010-02-04T04:21:00.000-05:00

sometimes the walls crack
and i can't help but see you staring back
into the of the dusty little corners of my mind

the flower vines keep getting in
you notice my stone walls are getting thin
and now solace in separation is hard to find

so go ahead and take your look
my heart's been split open like a book
now all that i can hope is that you'll be kind.

this is the sound of your mobile bill rising

2010-01-30T23:03:00.000-05:00

Phone rings.
Hmm, that's an unfamiliar country code. Odd.

Me: "Hello?"
Navy friend: "Hey!"

Ah, that explains it.

Me: So, what country are you in today?
Friend: South Africa, and I want you to know, it is beautiful!
Me: And do you know how high my cell phone bill is going to be?
Him: Nooo, I'm calling you, I pay for the call.
Me: It's a cell phone, I get charged either way.
Him: Want me to call your house phone?
Me: I'm not actually home.
Him: Oh.

I then remember how many times we've had this conversation over the past seven years, given his penchant for calling me internationally and talking for hours at a time.

Me: *facepalms in the middle of the store*

The movie tome whose time has come.*

2010-01-27T23:35:00.000-05:00

Enough of this, Hollywood. Enough of the cute girl with the asshole boyfriend who is fully aware she's dating a jerk.
She's constantly apologizing for his mistakes, arrogance, meanspiritedness, or violence. She recognizes the generally desirable, non-jerkish qualities of the protagonist, and even wavers in her loyalty to the asshole, but never intervenes more than shouting "stop!" while her boyfriend kicks the protagonist's ass, keys his car, gets him fired, or otherwise messes with him in generally socially unacceptable ways.

Please, enough of this. A good woman- a good girlfriend, friend, or random observer, for that matter, is good enough to do SOMETHING about violent injustice happening in front of their eyes. Even if it's nothing more than calling (or at the very least threatening to call) the cops.

You do not want her, protagonist, and even if you win her over by the end of the movie, which you probably will, she's not worth your time. Unless you don't mind her amicable but useless nature. In which case, I hope the two of you are happy together, but do the world a favour and don't spawn. Adopt.

But only if you must.

*This rant brought to you by Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem, and every other movie and tv show and miniseries and novel that does this exact same $%!ing thing. ARGH. Do not want.

We will help in any way we can!

2010-01-15T04:51:00.000-05:00

America says:
If your people are without proper food and water and medical care in the wake of a natural disaster, we will rush to your aid. (As long as the cameras are rolling and the world's eyes are on us.)

And by virtue of silence and inaction, we also say:
If your people are without proper food and water and medical care every day of their lives and there aren't a hundred reporters pointed in every direction, don't hold your breath.When the rest of the world doesn't care enough to put your plight on the front pages day after day and shame us into acting, why should we?

Those who are dying every day from lack of supplies, clean water, and the most basic medical care told me to tell you, America, "What about us?"

So many of the people I see right now getting do-gooder hardons from donating a dollar or two to Haiti are the same people who stare right through the homeless, or step over them like you would a pile of garbage on the street. Why is it so easy to care for faceless people thousands of miles away when you treat those around you in desperate need like they're a piece of bothersome gum on your shoe? Why spend days rallying money for disaster relief in some trendy tropical place when spending an hour at a local soup kitchen is so far below your radar the idea's never even occurred to you?

I swear, I don't understand people.

magic cold pills

2009-12-28T01:43:00.002-05:00

The flu is currently bending me over in the prison showers. Hard.
Pseudoephedrine is the only thing keeping me sane and alive right now. I love you, magic lil cold pills.

better left unsaid

2009-12-02T12:53:00.004-05:00

The breakup had been a long time coming. He was in another city, I was in another world. I'd known for months the relationship needed to be officially ended, as we were barely even calling each other at that point. I just simply didn't have the will or desire to do it myself. So, months later, with the help of his soon-to-be new girlfriend, he found his own reasons to call it quits.

We talked, he and I. He in his city, I on a bench outside my dorm, the campus as yet unpopulated for the summer, affording me the privacy needed for the dissolution of an almost two-year relationship.

During our talk, it turned out the random person who'd attempted to friend me on Facebook was a friend of his, who'd met his girlfriend-to-be, and assumed that the person listed in his profile as his current girlfriend would clearly be the same girl. Whoops. That's what you get for assuming.

"Oh, that's okay then," I said with a light tone and heavy sarcasm. "Really?" he asked hopefully, no doubt thinking this was headed to be the easiest break-up in the history of breakups. I laughed bitterly, "Of course it isn't."

He asked for us to remain friends, for him to be able to visit me and catch up companionably when he returned to campus in a few months. This, the same man who, a year earlier, had already been asking for my forgiveness in the same breath that he confessing cheating, was up to his usual tactics. I remained non-committal, amused by his nerve but utterly unconvinced seeing each other in the fall would be beneficial in any way. As the conversation drew to its awkward end, I asked the question that I'd been trying to ignore in the back of my mind during the entire call. Yay for masochism.

"Did you ever love me?" I asked softly.

"Well...... that's a complicated question", he hedged, gearing up to be diplomatic rather than honest. I laughed again, more bitterly than before, and cut him off; I'd heard more than enough. As the call ended, I thought of every time he'd told me he loved me and I wondered if anything in life was real. And there, at two in the morning, in the dark, on a bench in the middle of a deserted green, I cried.

Not for him, but for me.

10 things you probably don't know about me.

2009-11-20T22:42:00.003-05:00

10. I've never broken a bone in my body. I have a large crack in one, but none actually broken.
09. When I was 12, I tried very hard to get the chicken pox, and failed.
08. For such a huge seafood lover, I must confess to having never yet tried oysters.
07. At one point in my life, all my exes wanted me back. And I'll admit that was a pretty nice ego boost to my self-of-steam.
06. I occasionally make my own jewelry, even though I'm not very good at it.
05. My biggest fear in life is being helpless while a loved-one suffers in front of me.
04. I have occasionally maintained an odd, vaguely eastern-European accent in front of strangers for long periods at a time, all while my friend Mike laughs hysterically nearby.
03. I no longer have my appendix, but have still managed to hang onto my tonsils.
02. I once killed Zombie Obama in a dream, a few months before the elections, while staying in a cabin on the side of a mountain, three hours from the nearest thing you could tentatively call "civilization."
01. I loudly sing "Somewhere over the Rainbow" to myself when I'm completely alone.

Sidenote, if you haven't yet heard and fallen in love with Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's version of the song, your life is seriously missing something magical. Just close your eyes and listen, you won't regret it. Money back guarantee.

the summer I was twelve.

2009-09-21T01:42:00.003-04:00

His name was Mr. R------, and he was the head counselor during my last year at the day-camp I had been attending on and off for several years worth of hot New Jersey summers. Mr. R's wife knew my mother quite well, and as such, he was introduced to me as a friend of the family at the same time I met him in the role of counselor.

At first, the comments started off relatively innocently. He would compliment my face, and compare my beauty to my mothers. "I can see where you get it from," he'd say, staring at me with hungry eyes. But soon I realized he made comments to that effect too often. And the looks he gave me were less and less of that between a 40-something camp counselor and his preteen charge, and more and more predatory. Lingering. Unabashed.

Towards the second half of the summer, I began being harassed by a younger student at camp, a boy of no more than 7 who nonetheless made explicit and extensive comments about my body. At one point, by the pool, he went so far as to send me scurrying to Mr. R, the utmost authority and the strictest counselor by far. I wasn't normally one to go to the counselors, I've always preferred handling my problems myself, appealing to a higher authority only as a last resort.

My friend D, a junior counselor, was standing right behind Mr. R as I approached. I told him about the harassment in full, and he had me reluctantly repeat the specifics of what the other camper had been saying. Once I'd finished, I saw D's mouth drop open at just how explicit this tiny child been.

And then Mr. R took a long, appraising, lingering glance up and down the length of my body, and said slowly, "Well, I can understand why he'd say those things." And with that, he turned away to handle some other business, my audience with him clearly ended. I heard D's teeth click as his jaw snapped back up in pure shock of what had just happened. Any of it would have been bad enough, but all of it together was just too much to handle: Mr. R's response, the lack of action taken against the younger boy in our normally very strict camp, and the preposterousness of what the highest authority at our camp had just said and done to a preteen girl.

The other counselors were downright meek in the face of Mr. R's intimidating ways. He was pleasant enough normally, but he made sure that counselors and campers alike knew that all camp business ran through him. None of the other counselors would do anything to cross him, and we were well aware of that. We felt powerless. D and I had already had a close relationship, but after that he became even more protective, and he and I both did our best to keep me as far away from Mr. R as humanly possible. We managed fairly well for the rest of the short summer session, and I'm sure that the memories of that summer have faded into a pleasant haze for everyone involved.

Everyone except for me, of course. I had been betrayed by Adults -those tall, god-like people whose job it was to protect me. I'd mentioned Mr. R's behavior and comments to my mother a little earlier in the summer, but at that time, I didn't realize just how much they were affecting me. And as a general complainer, I would have needed to be a lot more clear in my own mind to get the point across to my mother. She was used to my general dissatisfaction with things around me and usually just let my complaints wash over her, paying no heed to anything short of the house being on fire. And even then, she probably would have continued to play her computer game for another thirty seconds before even that urgent message would've sunk in completely.

That summer was the year I learned to feel powerless in the face of corruption so high above me that I couldn't see any alternative. The summer that I felt utterly violated with just words and looks, without a single hand laid on me. I was made acutely aware of both my femaleness and my helplessness, repeatedly, and couldn't help but to connect the two in my head. To this day, I have issues with the idea of being feminine. Not in general, but just as it applies to me. I can't forget those moments of being hyper-aware of my gender, intimately intertwined with the terror of being one of the weak and defenseless.

Years went by, and it was only with the perspective of time that I really started to get angry, to realize just how horrible he'd made me feel, just how unsafe I'd felt in my own skin, and just how inappropriate his actions towards me really were. I want to go back in time to protect that shaken twelve-year at a time when she couldn't protect herself. The thought occurred to me today that while it's far too late to make any formal complaint against him, he might still be working with kids. The thought gave me chills, so I'm looking into it.

I don't really regret the negative encounters in my life, as I quite like the resilience, fortitude, and depth of experience I've cultivated from them. (Each brush stroke contributing to the overall painting and all that drivel.) But still, when I think about those times and my skin starts to crawl, leaving me feeling feeling dirty, extremely uncomfortable and in need of a shower, a part of me desperately wishes that I'd ended that summer the way I'd started it: as just a twelve-year old girl, enjoying her last year at camp.

Youth In Asia

2009-09-06T22:24:00.004-04:00

You had more personality than most people I've met. We were
lucky to have you, and you made damned sure we knew it.
Thank you for the past 16 years.

Kitty Co.
1992 - 2009

If there is an afterlife, you're already in the most comfortable spot.

two days ago

2009-09-05T02:05:00.004-04:00

Two days ago, I wanted a Nikon d90. I wanted a really nice sushi dinner at my favorite Japanese restaurant, located an unfeasible five-hour-drive drive away. Two days ago, I wanted $700 dollar plane tickets to Ireland, a Global chef's knife, a new pot for my now-ginormous spider plant and her 8 offshoots trailing across my desk. Two days ago, I wanted a lot of things.

Today, all I want is for my cat to still be breathing when I wake up tomorrow.

without bloodshed

2009-09-01T02:40:00.003-04:00

It was a revolution without bloodshed. He simply stopped fighting. Fighting her, fighting for her, fighting the inevitable slow demise of a trainwreck relationship in progress. He became detatched. He didn't so much participate in their relationship anymore as he observed it, as if from a great distance. (He did, however, have his little moments of resistance.) He washed all of the dishes because a dirty kitchen made him antsy. But he stopped doing her laundry, feeling just the slightest sense of personal victory on the few occasions when she deigned to come home. She'd breeze in the door, make a few disgusted sounds at the piles of her unwashed clothing, fish out a halter top or some such club attire from the middle of a mound, and breeze back out. He started cooking meals for one, so she'd no longer find his leftovers to drunkenly inhale after stumbling in through the door after four in the morning. Once, after one such night he'd come out of the bedroom to check on her, only to find her passed out on the couch with an equally inebriated and unconcious male companion. The stranger's pants were draped across his favorite armchair, and he was fairly certain he recognized the edge of his wife's favorite panties peeking out from underneath the pants. He quietly padded back to the bedroom, locked the door, turned himself off as best he could, and went to sleep.

That was when it clicked, he thinks back later. That was when she won the battle she'd been too absent to even realize she'd been fighting. She couldn't even recall the last time they'd spoken to each other aloud if he asked her. It's been seven weeks, he knows, and even then it was barely a passing word between them.

But in those weeks he's been documenting. And photographing. And on one memorable occasion, videotaping. And soon, he'll have all he needs. He knows she'll only realize he's gone when the money dries up and the lights get turned out because paying bills is a 'small detail' she's too busy to notice. And thanks to his thick and ever-growing file, when he leaves, the money leaves with him. And the jewelry. And her car. And the antique clock that was his grandmother's gift to her on their wedding day. The clock she claims to love but sets her wine glass on top of whenever she thinks no one will notice. There are permanent stains in perfect circles all over the top of it now. She doesn't know they're there because she's too short to see over the top of it, but he sees. And he recognizes the similarities: he is also something she claimed to cherish but worked hard to destroy over time. And just like those perfect circles of destruction, she's left her mark on him too.

Oh the emotional cruelty went firmly to her side, as the finances went to his side of the tally-board. It was a revolution without bloodshed. Without screams. Without tears.

But no one was on the winning side.

Friend or Consultant?

2009-08-31T22:52:00.000-04:00

There are people in my life -mostly those who were once good friends- who call me solely when they want advice, or when things are going wrong and they need someone to turn to, to vent to, or to bounce solutions around with.

And I'm conflicted.

On one hand, I'm happy that people consider me worthy of their troubles, that they consider confiding in me a worthwile experience enough to seek out repeatedly, even if we haven't spoken otherwise in ages. I like being someone people can turn to, for whatever reason. And I'd like to think those I have loved can, years after we've last spoken, call me out of the blue at any hour of the day or night with the certainty that I'll be there for them.

But on the other hand, I never hear from these particular "friends" at any other time than when they want something. And increasingly, I haven't felt any great compulsion to respond to their texts and calls. The ego boost from earlier years has faded into mild, jaded annoyance, and I can't help but start to wonder where the line between the duties of friendship fades into the territory of being used.

Quite often, my male friends will ask me to help pick out gifts for the various ladies in their lives. It's a service which I am happy to render, and do not consider a chore at all so much as a vicarious shopping experience and a chance to hang out with said friend. However, I recently got a call from someone I haven't hung out with in quite a while who wanted my help in selecting a rather nice piece of jewelry for his wife. Now, I haven't even met his wife, I know nothing of her and her likes or dislikes, and nor am I a part of this guy's life anymore. And I found it an incredibly tedius and unenjoyable experience. Probably because at that point, it didn't feel like being a friend so much as an unpaid personal shopper.

The reason why I write this is because that same 'friend' (and the term at this point is at best a loose one) just sent me a text asking if I'm busy. And you know, I wasn't a few seconds before my phone beeped, but I made damn sure I was immediately afterwards. Because every single communication I've recieved from him in the past year has been because he wants a sympathetic ear, or advice, or help of one sort or another. Occasionally, he asks about my life, but only in the last two to three minutes of the call, clearly doing so mainly out of courtesy.

He's the worst offender, but by no means the only one. Where do you draw the line between helping out someone who used to (or still does) mean something to you and just simply allowing yourself to be used? And once that line is drawn, (as it has been made abundantly clear by reading my own words that I'm in serious need of a line...or two) is there ever a nice way to tell people they are cashing in on the benefits of a friendship long disintegrated? I, for one, am doubtful.

Love's Youngest Grandchild

2009-08-15T02:38:00.001-04:00

He is Love's youngest grandchild, her favorite of the twelve or so she had at last count. He has curly hair, and the angelic face and mischievous ways classic to the cherubim. When he was six, he would sit on her lap and listen to her tales of great love. Some were tragic, some happy, but most were somewhere in the grey areas. Unlike his siblings raised by television standards of romance, he learned from Love herself of the complexities and compromise that were at her very core. By the time he was sixteen, he watched his friends seek out his grandmother for condoms when they couldn't procure them elsewhere. Love merely smiled sadly, knowing young couples thus inflamed would not be deterred by a lack of protection, and handed out contraception in hopes that today's fancy would not turn into tomorrow's regret. She did wish, though, she confided to her grandson, that they wouldn't keep confusing her for Lust, who lived several blocks down and did not keep her yard nearly as nice.

Now he's older and has moved out on his own, but he still visits her with flowers and looks after her rabbits whenever he can. He tells her the latest of his lovelife, and she knows that in his curret girlfriend he has found his match, even if he has yet to conclude this himself. It doesn't take him long. Later, she will be the first person he calls with the excited news that "She said yes!". He never realizes he's inherited his grandmother's power to heal broken hearts -and coincidentally- will go though life loving and being loved without ever having experienced one for himself. Some would say this makes him lucky, but his grandmother would argue it's the bitter in life that makes the sweet stand out.

More time passes, and of all her descendants, he is still by far the most vibrantly alive with love. Where others of her line love fiercely at first like a short-lived blazing fire, burning themselves out with the sustained effort, he loves simply, strongly and steadily. He is never aware of the profound effect he has on those around him, and for that, Love cherishes him most of all.

When she dies, she leaves to him in her will her collection of old love letters, a journal from when she was but a young girl, and a locket with a faded photo inside, the identity lost to time. He makes sure that on her tomb, there is a simple heart engraved where her name should be. He knows she is not really there.

even The Sims knows my boyfriend is a perv

2009-08-11T01:30:00.009-04:00

A few hints that even my computer game can accurately recognize the pervy tendencies of The Boy, as demonstrated by his pixel-based stand-in.

Janelle: hey honey, look! Those clouds look like a pe....
The Boy: bewb. mmmmbooooooob. *drool*

Random Hussy: Heeeeey, room for one more?
The Boy: *stretches out* Of course! There's always room for more lovely boobies... er, ladies. *eyebrow wiggle*Janelle: *superglare*
The Boy: feck. >.< The Boy: Hehe, I can see up your towel. Ah, you shaved today. Niiiiice.
Janelle: *superglare version 2.0*

And now, a small segment called, "Things Iwould call the cops for if it were anyone but The Boy", aka TIWCTCFIIWABTB.

moment 1:
Janelle: dude, that's totally creepy. I can feel your eyes on me.
The Boy: boooooobs.

annnd moment 2:
Janelle: ooh, I see Wells Fargo stock is up. My portfolio is coming along nicel.....what the bloody hell is poking my paper?! That had better be your finger. Oh please tell me that's your finger.
The Boy: *innocent face*
Janelle: THAT IS NOT YOUR FINGER POKING MAH PAPER! Okay. Okay I am cancelling our subscription. Because I'd rather give up the paper than have this experience ever, ever happen again.

And those are our TIWCTCFIIWABTB for this week.

In other news, my sim-self seems to have none of the issues with PDA that my real life self does:

Janelle: C'mere you tasty lil Irishman!
The Boy: *is both surprised and aroused by this turn of events*

And apparently this lack of shame extends to making out mere inches away from a visiting coworker. I blame my pixel self's lack of decency on Boy Pixel's clearly corrupting influence.

But, somehow at the end of the day...

whatever those two crazy kids are up to, it works for them. And really, that's all that matters.

For now. Myah ha haaaaa.

things recently in my mouth

2009-08-06T00:25:00.003-04:00

My cookings, I know you want them.

Braised turnips in mustard sauce. First time I can ever recall eating turnips, and they were quite nice- very mildly flavored and slightly sweet. I used a mild, better quality whole-grain mustard for the sauce, and tweaked according to the family taste preferences. It turned out to be quite a subtle sauce that didn't overpower the turnips but did add a lil extra something nice. I can't wait to try the turnips mashed with butter next time. Move over mashed potatoes, I never really liked you in the first place. True story.

Amaretti cookies. Never thought myself much of an almond fan, but I've discovered I like the flavour when divorced of the unappealing texture of the actual nut. These are definitely best the day you make them, they loose a bit of their chewy charm on day two, but still pack an intense punch of flavour. Like eating marzipan in cookie form. But better. Cause they're cookies.

Delishus rice pudding. So, the first time I made this, I skipped the almond extract, because- see above. But overall, it was a little bland, although I discovered the arborio rice does make substantially better rice pudding than other kinds. Despite the mediocre results, I made it again because I get intense rice pudding cravings that demand satisfaction, and this method is faster than the baked varieties. I added a teensy bit more sugar to kick up the flavour, and added in the almond extract at the end. However, the recipe was perfect as initially written, (aside from scaling back the milk) and the almond added that missing pizazz, but the extract plus extra sugar made for one intensely sweet final dish. Really good, substantially better than last time, but too sweet for my tastes. However, my mother loved it. Devoured it, in fact. And she's usually apathetic at best about my cooking, so... yay?

Buttery, moist scones. As someone used to scones as dry triangles of crumbly baked good that one dunks into tea to both soften and flavor, this was a revelation. They take only a few minutes to make, they're flaky, oh-so buttery, and very moist due to the holy hell so much butter. Actually, these upstaged the peach tea I'd brewed up to accompany these. They have too much presence to play second fiddle to some lowly leaf's bathwater.

I've also made peach ice cream, parsnip fries, green lentil soup, stewed parsnip, tomato, and red pepper compote, and Failcookies of Ultimate Failure. But I refuse to talk about those. It's still too soon.

As for other things I've had in my mouth.... honey, what's the timeframe on "recent"? ;)

worthless

2009-08-04T00:22:00.003-04:00

I've had a bit more thinking time, a smidgen more introspection since writing this, and I've realized that the main issue I have with his lack of previous relationships actually has nothing to do with him.

I've realized -slowly, painfully- that my fear is that he has only chosen me because he doesn't know what else is out there. That he has decided to buy the first car on the lot without having looked around at other cars enough to know it's a clunker.

And that's the crux of it. In my heart, I think I'm a clunker. And that once he's more aware of the type of girl he could be dating, I'll be kicked out of this happy little existence faster than you can say "scrap heap."

At what point did I start to think of myself as worthless?

And how do I make it stop?

bloggy birthday

2009-07-30T19:34:00.005-04:00

I realized this blog is a year old as of two days ago. With an average of one post every 19 days or so, I can firmly say that I have not accomplished my original goal of getting myself into the habit of writing more. But when I think of where my life was one year ago compared to where it is today, I'm tentatively optimistic that things are indeed improving. Things are different in so many ways- people who were in my life then aren't anymore. I've gained a love, made tiny movements towards regaining one of the most prescious friendships I've lost, and have started to take control of my life in a more adult fashion. Or I've been shoved into it. But it still counts. So there.

So while my original goal still needs some work, at least now there are more people in my life pushing me to write besides myself. And I can't help but feel this blog played a role in accomplishing that. So thank you, blog, and happy birthday. I got you some new layout-related shinies, I hope you like them.

"you did everything good, so..."

2009-07-28T22:34:00.004-04:00

...he trailed off with a little shrug and signed my paperwork.

And with that, I, tiffany-janelle lastnameredacted, at the age of 23,
have passed my driving exam. ZOMG.

that is all.

Cheating, or How to Be an Asshole in 1 Easy Step

2009-07-20T16:45:00.005-04:00

Dear people dating my friends:

Cheating. DON'T DO IT.

I'd think I'd not have to go into detail why, but apparently there are way too many people out there that have the moral fiber of warm butter. So let Janelle asplain you something: in real relationships, you open yourself up to the other person, and vice versa. Sometimes quickly, sometimes it's a slow process. Different people open up emotionally to different depths, etc. I'm sure you know all this. Unintentional hurts are bound to happen, it's natural, unavoidable, and overcomable, if both of you are willing. But cheating on your significant other is an intentional hurt. Even if you "get swept up in the moment," it's pain you are intentionally inflicting on someone else, damage you are purposefully doing to your relationship. And if you are too "swept up" to see that, then respectfully, you are probably too selfish and inconsiderate to be in a relationship with anyone. Nevertheless any of the select group of people I call friends, over whom I am ridiculously protective. (I re-wrote that sentence three times so I wouldn't end on a preposition. Mr. Zuroski, my 11th-grade English teacher would be so proud.)

*Ahem.* Anyway. Life is about choices. If you choose to kiss, cuddle, sleep with or otherwise engage in romantic intimacy with someone other than the person you're monogamous with, you are choosing to break their trust, choosing to make the connection you two have that much less special, sacred, worthwhile. And I'll think you're a class A asshole for it, personally.

When you find yourself in circumstances that look like they're going to get compromising or complicated, grow a pair, call up your significant other and tell him or her that you are no longer going to be considering your relationship a monogamous one- before, not after the fact. If you care about someone enough to date them, you at least owe them that much, no? But that's the mature, responsible, non-assholish thing to do, so I can see some people might not even consider that an option.

But if you can't handle that, do all the decent, single men and women in the world a favour --and stop dating. At least until you get your shit together, and can know what you want and how to get it without trampling over others in the process.

And as my phone continues to blink at me with the news of yet another friend's fresh pain brought on by the extreme selfishness of his other half, I can't help but think how pointless all this is. This isn't the first time a friend has come to me with this news. And unfortunately, it won't be the last. There was one that cried into my lap. One who stained my pillow with his blood after punching a wall because his anger and pain had to go somewhere, anywhere, before it destroyed him. And one who has only just told me -who won't cry- but will withdraw the rest of what little trust he places in people as it is. And my heart breaks every time. Not just because I've been there myself, and know well how deep that betrayal goes, but because such pain is just so avoidable. So easily preventable if we'd just stop holding ourselves to such low standards when dealing with the feelings of others. Gah.

other fish in the sea

2009-07-07T00:24:00.002-04:00

I've had previous long-term relationships before. He has not. And this worries me, because something about this, about him, feels very different. Potential isn't exactly the right word, but for the first time I've met someone that I involuntarily picture myself with in five months, in five years, in five.... well, you see where I'm going with this. And if you know me at all, you must know that I am officially scared shitless. Part of me wishes he'd dated more,so that one day he won't wake up wishing he'd "tested the waters" a bit more before being rushed to the altar by yours truly. (I hope I don't have to remind you that last bit was indeed facetious.)But I do feel something truly serious developing between us, and to take his word at face value, he does too. But I know I wouldn't have been ready for this relationship at twenty, and I'm secretly skeptical that he is. Instead, I keep picturing him as a lovestruck youngin' who only thinks it's love because it's the first time he's been serious with someone. And I'm probably doing him a great disservice to have these persistant thoughts, but I can't help being scared that that is the case. Because I so desperately hope it's not.

And I haven't had a place for hope in my life for a long time.

And by way of apology- I'm sorry. Some fears are just easier to share with my text editor.

utterly

2009-07-03T13:40:00.000-04:00

beautiful.

God's Publicity Manager?

2009-05-16T04:42:00.006-04:00

"She's disgusting and I feel very sorry for her children. God doesn't honor gay unions and she's bringing poor innocent children into having to deal with her sinful lifestyle. Shame on her. For all you liberals and gay supporters, I will pray for all of you, your all so misguided . Read your bible and see what god says. He doesn't support you!!!"

Wanda Sykes is my utmost favorite comedienne. While browsing People.com to catch up on the latest in the entertainment world, I came across the story that she and her wife just had twins. I was briefly surprised that she had a wife, having not heard anything previously about her dating life and marital status. But I was happy for her. Until I started reading the article's comments.

Hate is nothing new. I know this. Religious fervor against gay marriage and parentage is nothing new. But I am still surprised at how deeply it cuts every time I encounter it. But it was the last sentence of that particular comment that caught my attention amidst a sea of equally rabid condemnations and fiery rebuttals: "He doesn't support you!!!" Pretty bold of the poster, to speak on behalf of his or her deity like a publicity manager who's lost his temper with a nosy reporter or pushy fan.

I'm not religious. In fact, thats a fairly hefty understatement to those that know me best. But- I was raised in a deeply religious household. I was raised to believe (it didn't work, but stay with me) in a god that supports us and loves us all, regardless of the right or wrong decisions we make. I was taught Matthew 25: 34-46. A snippet of verse 40: "Whatsoever you do to the least of My people, you do unto Me." Or, Romans 14:10, "You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat." And lastly, Matthew 11:28-30. "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

Now, my point is not to throw verses and counter verses to win a religious argument. My point is that I was raised amongst people who believe in a loving, forgiving deity who ultimately wants us to care for each other, and to be beholden to something larger than just ourselves. And my sincerest atheistic hope is not that the bitter person who wrote that comment stop believing in a higher power, but that he or she finds their way to the god that my family and their friends have found- one more full of acceptance, love, and forgiveness than condemnation and ugly disgust.

this suffering of sunshine

2009-05-11T02:08:00.003-04:00

i'm suffering from sunshine of the soul
and i'm redefining suffering for all you that don't know
it's the gap between what should be
and what is

and they can take their map back
cause no one's ever gone this route before
i've thrown out my prescription
for their generic destinations
and i don't intend to stop along the way

i have far to go and i'm far too tired
to waste more breath cursing at my fears
philosophy doesn't interest me
and geography has got it wrong
because my travels weren't supposed to lead me here

and still somehow it all works out
though happiness was never on my route
and i've ended up here anyway,
learning from ever misstep that I take.

and this suffering of sunshine
doesn't seem so much like suffering
when you look at me that way and start to smile
and my journey's getting longer
but i am getting stronger
and learning to take things mile by single mile

Good news: I'm still alive.

2009-04-11T04:48:00.004-04:00

Well, it's good news only if you're not one of the people who wants to kill me for basically disappearing off the face of the Earth.

My life is kind of in a limbo right now, as it's been for the past year and a half, and it's generally not a great place to be. So I've been withdrawing from people for a long time now, because human interaction with those who've known me when I still semi-had my shit together tends to remind me of everything that I'm NOT doing with my life right now. It's too painful. I hope you'll forgive me.

It took a lot for me to admit that, even to myself. And somehow saying it here is easier than over the phone, in email, or IM. Yes, I'm mostly okay. And no, I'm not ready to talk about it.

~~~

Now, in recent news, I'm being forced to learn to drive against my will, as the idea of driving makes me very very anxious. On the other hand, I fully admit that I need to know how to drive, and would like to not be dependent on others to get me where I need to go.

Also in recent news, I've met the most wonderful guy. (Our monthiversary was the 9th. ^__^ ) His worst quality? He's turning me into a big pile of mushy mush. Oh, and since we met online and he lives three thousand miles away? We've never met in person. Although I'm trying not to hold his location against him as a major character flaw.

To end a post here on a good note for a change.... I'd just like to say that I can't remember the last time I was with someone who felt lucky to be with me, every day. And who told me as much, every day. It's humbling, and endearing, and flattering, (and inaccurate :P ) and so utterly eye-opening.

This is what a relationship should be.
I'm a lucky girl.

I'm sure you're dying to know that

2008-12-16T02:33:00.003-05:00

My mother is the single most hypocritical person I have EVER known. And hope to ever meet, cause frankly, if they make them worse than her, I don't want to know. Please. No.

In other news, I'm going to Chicago for Xmas and New Year's. I'm getting kind of excited.

*checks panties*

Yes, definitely excited.

Also nervous, apprehensive, nostalgic, and cautiously happy-hopeful-optimistic. To name but a few. I refuse to stress over it, though, as I'm fairly certain this is going to be a pretty sweet trip. (Dis?) enchanted janelle is perhaps chasing a little enchantment? No wonder I feel light headed.

Stupidity Preserved.

2008-11-21T02:35:00.002-05:00

I don't know why I've kept many old AIM conversations. Sensitive ones, let's say. And I don't know why, when I was looking for some comedy clips in old folders, I decided to open the few I came across.

And I ended up getting slammed in the chest with about a year's worth of awful, frustration, heartbreaking, soul-wrenching, cringeworthy memories. In the span of about 45 seconds.

I feel like I was hit in the chest by a Mac truck. And it's a bit hard to breathe, for the next few minutes. And I can't for the life of me figure out why I keep these fucking conversations, so innocently tucked into various archived folders, jumping out at me when I least suspect and need the emotional journey back through some of the very hardest times of my life.

But I also see just how far I've come, how much love I've lost, how many friends turned out to not be friends at all. They are bittersweet, these dark, liquid memories of mine. And yet, when I am presented with them, I cannot help but to drink deeply. I quaff of my own pain and misery, and when the tears flow, when old wounds thought to be long healed are shown to still bleed, I sadistically, masochistically- deem my thirst quenched.

I don't know if I'll ever know why I do this to myself. I don't know if there will ever come a day when I shall see those old files (for deleting them is just simply out of the question) and be able to resist opening them like sutures on a wound. Maybe one day.

Maybe one day when my life is stable and full of people who bring me as much joy as I try to bring them, maybe I'll be whole enough to open these files and see that these old wounds are nothing but faded scars. When I love someone completely, with all my heart, with the certainty they will treasure it more carefully than they do their own. One day, I shall be able to open these files, read them one last time while shaking my head at my past self, and delete them.

When donkeys fly.

edit: comments fixed. Damn you blogspot! JK ilu.

way to not fuck up, guys!

2008-11-06T19:23:00.006-05:00

I'm an African-American lit major with a lot of flexibility in exactly what I study, and that means I 've learned a whole lot about history, media, and stereotypes pertaining to the history of blacks in the US. And yet I cannot FATHOM that we will have a black president. It hasn't sunk in yet, and I'm not sure it will for a few more years. I hoped and and supported and hoped and supported as much as my overwhelming disdain and disinterest for all things political would allow. I voted. I hoped some more.

But I never ONCE allowed myself to think this far ahead, aside from repeating the occasional joke about making sure he has a Mexican VP so that there are NO assassination attempts from the angry Aryans. I never once thought I would see a Black president in my lifetime. Or a female one. Or even a female and a minority vying for the Democratic nomination.

I prepared myself for the worst, finding the one silver lining in a post-McCain victory world: It would make it that much easier to wash my hands of this country when I'm fulfilling my future ex-patriot ambitions. But now, I think I've regained just a little bit of my lost love for this country and its people. I still want to eventually leave for a country that's a bit more honest about it's problems, less arrogant about it's resources and luxuries, and altogether more informed about the rest of the world. But in the meantime, it's nice to know that the majority of this country wanted to move in a better direction too, a direction based on hope and an honest belief in an all-encompassing American dream. And not one based on stagnant ideals that stubbornly cling to the past in the face of better knowledge and modern thinking.

Thank you, voters of America. I haet you all a little less now for what you did to me in 2000 and again in 2004. You destroyed my faith in the American political system four years before I could vote. YOU OWED ME THIS ONE.

oh melancholia, thou doest improvest ...mah writinz

2008-10-24T12:10:00.008-04:00

"we are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars"

Is that not beautiful? I'm slightly tempted to wax romantically just on that phrase. But I won't, at least not right now. =P Never, if you're lucky.

But lately I've been wondering about the direction of this blog. I know I'm not a bad writer, but I'm also aware I'm nothing that special. (I don't have a huge ego, so this doesn't bother me. I prefer to be frank about my abilities and failings so I can be frank about those of others. Ha.) But I also know I'm a lot better when writing out of melancholy. Sadness has a way of guiding my hand and making my words more eloquent, more profound, more resonant with...with.... something resounding. Anger affects me similarly, but not to the same extent. But, do I really want a blog full of angst, pain, sadness? This is not LiveJournal, do I really want to take things in that direction? But if the writing is better.....eh. I don't know. I've thought several different times I'd come here and post on whatever was bothering me at the moment, but then had second thoughts about constantly posting negative or depressing things.

I wouldn't ever call myself a positive person, but writing about only those things that move me the most to write about (sad, mad) would leave an equally incomplete picture of who I am. But should I even be worried about that? Maybe I should just say "fuck it" and write what I want to, when I want to, about whatever pleases (or displeases) me the most. This is, afterall, the blog of a disenchanted janelle, right? Right?

Le sigh.

Edit: Okay, I have somethings that are neither sad nor angry, nor angsty. Nay, they are not emo of any kind. FOOD POSTS! Woot. I think I have pics enough t post about a couple different things I've been cooking up lately. So pretend to be interested, please. Moar posts coming soon. Ah Swear.

My mother is NOT a headache sufferer.

2008-09-28T10:46:00.004-04:00

Whereas I have major, chronic headaches recorded on my medical history going back sixteen years, since I was eight years old. I'm pretty sure I was having them for a good long time before I ever mentioned them to my doctor, too.

But more importantly, my mother does not understand what it's like to have headaches so painful that you can't sleep. The idea of trying to fall asleep with the sensory equivalent of someone repeatedly taking a hammer to my cranium is just ridiculous, but she seems to not understand I KNOW these are not conditions under which I can fall asleep. She does not understand the idea of a headache so painful it keeps you awake for 30-40 hours at a time until you're so tired you pass out despite the pain, and that is the only way you can rest....for days on end.

No, instead she yells at me for being up all night, for wasting electricity by having the living room light on, for not being awake in the daytime. She doesn't actually care if I'm not sleeping, she just wants me to not-sleep in private. Sigh.

Welcome to a crash course of my childhood, dear reader. One mildly therapeutic post at a time.

Oh, and I start on a new prescription painkiller tonight that sounds promising. Wish me luck. ^_^

after the phonecall

2008-09-27T03:39:00.006-04:00

I sat there with an idiotically goofy grin on my face until real life drew me back into it's disenchanting embrace.

oy.

And they lived bleakly ever after.

2008-09-06T00:56:00.003-04:00

They had been dating for a year. Danny was a wild spirit, spontaneous and constantly leaping first and then considering where to land as a minor afterthought. Olivia was stable, dependable, and a planner. They had the same politics, same carefully thought out morals, same distaste for religion, middle eastern food, and mindless television. Danny liked the bar scene, Liv preferred dancing in the clubs. One was better at math, the other at English, so the mathematically-inclined Olivia did all the accounting, and the more loquacious Danny wrote the emails and letters on both their behalf. Their mutual friends marveled at how so compatible they were, that they were similarly minded on all the major points, and where they differed, they provided the strength the other lacked. Dan and Olivia each brought some of themselves into the other’s life, creating balance out of the chaos of individuality.

That is, until Olivia started burning.

In her, you know, naughty bits.

Danny did some explaining, and Olivia did some packing, some crying, and then some throwing of vases at Danny’s head and genitals. For the most part, she missed.

For the most part. Heh. He limped for a few days, at least.

Six months later, Olivia’s still on antibiotics and cries into her pillow at night. Danny recovered faster, both physically and emotionally, and soon moved the object of his sexual indiscretion into his apartment and the same bed he so recently shared with Liv. They were together for the next five years.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fast forward a few years after that.

Olivia ended up alone, while Danny went through several more women before he finally decided he was bisexual and moved to Brazil. Liv dated on and off for a few years, but met no one special enough for more than casual dating. Danny now has herpes, and seven children by six women, none of whom he sees regularly. Aside from avoiding the occasional court summons, he is altogether pleased with his freewheeling lifestyle. Liv died in carjacking incident at 31.

So much for happy endings, eh?

the death of a friendship

2008-08-10T17:33:00.008-04:00

We always thought we'd look back on our tears and laugh, but we never thought we'd look back on our laughter and cry.
-- Unknown.

It's a heartbreaking thing, this loss; this wrenching, tearing thing. This death of a friendship.

Especially when it's a quick death. When there are no lingering cancers of resentment to fester and eventually alert you to the rotten state of your relationship's Denmark. Enough time has passed since the dissolution of something once so dear to me that I can prod these memories, this issue without the disablingly sharp pangs of hurt, regret, and confused betrayal. (Or so I thought when I wrote that sentence. It's taken me several more days to finish writing this, as at times my emotions would wax and wane and occasionally get the better of me. But hopefully it has not affected this little written nothing too much. Forgive me if it has.)

The death of a friendship always makes me rethink things. There have been people I've cut out of my life because I knew they were bringing what amounted to emotional poison into my life. While I'm saddened about the circumstances that led to such an end, I know without a doubt it was never caused by our relationship itself. They were the ones tracking mud into the house, so to speak. And despite feeling callous, I can make my peace with the departure of these people from my life fairly quickly and painlessly. I've learned to recognize the type early on, and have definitely learned the hard way that the faster you exorcise these emotional black holes from your life, the better.

But this time was different. He was not a casual friend. He was not a short-term friend. He was my best friend.

Ours was an instantaneous friendship. Upon meeting, we launched into conversation and only came up for breath over an hour later, when circumstances gave us no choice but to head our separate ways to opposite ends of our shared campus. We started hanging out regularly, and grew quite fond of one another. A year passed. My closest other friend developed new interests in her life that didn't involve me, and I found myself being edged out. I turned to him. He was there for me; he could cheer me up and make my day wonderful in the matter of a few sentences. Often it just took a hug. I knew his family. He knew mine. I was the person his sister would call when she couldn't track him down. I loved him. He was family to me, held dear in my heart like few people ever were or could hope to be.

And then everything crashed.

It was another summer; we were living off-campus while taking summer classes. It was hot. We sniped at each other occasionally, and then more frequently. I became increasingly upset with what I saw as his abuse of our friendship. He constantly criticized me, made and then canceled our plans, and took out his unrelated frustrations and stress on me. I eventually reached the limit of my understanding and patience, and developed a much quicker temper where he was concerned. I became very frazzled by his constant abrasiveness. I told him I needed space. He gave me the opposite of space, and began contacting me several times a day by phone and instant messenger. He said my request meant I was mad at him, and he was just "trying to fix it". Long story short, I decided that while I was out of town for a week, I’d also block him from my instant messenger program so as to completely give myself the emotional distance I’d so repeatedly requested.

Over that week, something in our friendship broke.

Perhaps he felt betrayed by my actions, despite pressing closer and closer every time I asked for distance. Perhaps something else happened over that week of silence, I don't know. He has refused to talk about it from that day on, over a year ago. He blocked me on that same messenger program and let me know in every certain way but with words that he had no intention of resuming our friendship ever again. Not long after, maybe a few weeks later, prideless and heartsick, I made my first attempt to reach out to him to reconcile. I was pathetically willing to overlook so many of his offenses in order to maintain a friendship that meant so much to me. But after several apologies, overtures of friendship, and verbal olive branches, I realized that he had made his choice. He had chosen a world without me in it. A world in which our friendship no longer existed. Or perhaps a world in which it never did, I don't know.

I consoled myself with the knowledge that I was (mostly) in the right, that I should not have simply let someone get away with treating me so badly. And as expected, it didn't help. (Okay, maybe a little. Assured self-righteousness can be soothing at times.)

Almost 8 months later, he texted my phone to wish me a happy Valentine’s Day. It seemed he wanted things to pick up where they left off, for everything to be alright, for me to be my usual self. But I refused to pretend the previous 8 months hadn't happened. I wasn't interested in smoothing over the rough spots by ignoring them yet again. If he wanted to acknowledge that things had gone terribly wrong, and that he had (at the very least) partial responsibility in that, maybe everything would have been different. Then again, maybe not. I'm slowing learning the (seemingly obvious) lesson that it takes two to fix a relationship, and I guess ours just wasn’t worth the effort for him.

He has not contacted me again.

I've spent a year fighting the tears that would threaten to spill whenever I’d be caught off guard by a postcard he’d sent me or the photos of us that used to adorn my walls and are now packed away in boxes. I've spent a year ignoring the pang of hurt that arises when someone else brings up a time or place that is so tightly intertwined with him in my memories. I've tried to ignore all these things for so long, but the truth is I've been deeply hurt. I AM deeply hurt. And I, Janelle, the emotional rock for every friend I've ever had, am now devastatingly insecure. If it was so easy for him to leave behind our friendship, could it have possibly been as deep as I always thought it was? What does it say about me that someone I loved could walk away from me seemingly without a second thought or backwards glance? Am I so forgettable? So reprehensible a friend as to make such a choice easy for the leaver?

These are the things I've been pondering since the day I realized our friendship really was dead. It took several months to sink in that this time there was no emergency medical technician on the scene; no one to apply shock paddles to the bruised egos and inflated prides that stopped the beating heart of our friendship.

I haven't come to any conclusions yet, and I'm not sure I ever will. Going over past events from our time together ~both the happy moments and the not-so-happy ones~ is, by now, pointless. Instead I'm attempting to take with me ideas and experiences on how to be a better friend to the next person I let into my life and heart. That doesn't mean it's stopped hurting, or that I don't occasionally still fantasize about a happy reunion full of hugs, forgiveness, and great Japanese food. His sudden departure was by far the hardest blow in a series of events that have shaken -to the core- my ability to place trust in others.

But I have to believe that I can grow from my mistakes, and in that growing, grow closer to the people around me instead of further apart. To believe that I can choose to be around people who are willing and able to invest as much time and care into our friendship as I am and don't use me purely a person to give support and never receive it in exchange. I'll have to work on that.

It took a year, but I've made my peace with this death. The next step for me now is to believe in life.
This is my eulogy. Goodbye, Friend... I wish you the happiest possible afterlife.

the girl with feathers..

2008-07-28T13:53:00.005-04:00

Her name is Hope. She wears flowing bohemian dresses but walks with a strut good enough to shame any top runway model into early retirement. She loves animals and won't buy fur, but snuggles into the fox-fur collar of her mother's red winter coat at every opportunity. It's so soft, she says. She rarely dates, preferring to smoke pot on the weekends with her friends while they test out new restaurants. (The pitfalls to this method of gastronomic research became evident recently when she discovered her favorite little Thai place was not so spectacular without the influence of taste-enhancing drugs.)

She was born and raised in New York City, but Hope believes she lived in India in a previous life and would immediately know her way around if she were dropped in the middle of Jaipur tomorrow. She argues that her deep love of saris supports this theory; her friends argue her intolerance for spicy food refutes it.

Hope doesn't own a computer. She says laptops are too heavy for her to carry, and she's never in one place long enough to use a desktop version. She prefers phonecalls and face to face meetings to electronic communication anyway, she often protests. When she needs to type something up, she pulls out her grandmother's antique typewriter and her fingers positively fly across the loudly clacking keys. Hope thinks the sound is charming, and the neighbors in bordering apartments are enchanted by her enough to not mind when she decides she absolutely MUST type a letter to a friend at 3am on a monday morning.

Hope is the color of honey. No, she says, she won't elaborate on whether that refers to her eyes, her skin, her hair, or any other part of her. I just like describing myself as honey-like. Maybe I'm a little sweet and sticky, she says with a shrug. And maybe too much of me will cost you.

An Open Letter to a Certain Type of Frankensteiners:

2008-07-22T16:40:00.013-04:00

(if you're not deep into The Sims 2, this post is irrelevant. Skip it and forgive me for being such a rabid gamergirl.)

Now, this is not actually about simpose versus frankensteining. It's more pointedly about the PEOPLE, those provincial simmers who insist on saying one method is superior, more acceptable, more *noble* a pursuit of simmy-happiness than the other. And while all the people I've personally encountered who push for the purity of one and the unacceptability of the other are frankensteiners, I'm by no means speaking about all frankensteiners or on behalf of all simposers. (remember kids: all generalizations are false, including this one. =P) And by "certain" frankensteiners, I also am referring to that TYPE of person, and not to any specific individuals. (Srsly.)

You see, I'm fairly talented in photoshop. I'm not what I'd call an advanced user (layer masks still confuse me) but I'm a highly competent intermediate. I can smooth limbs into each other seamlessly, make sure all lighting is even and coming from the right directions, edit expressions, slap on a different head and actually make the neck look nice in the process, etc.... I even have a good working knowledge of all the different animations and how they affect sim's bodies. In short, I have all the *technical* skills necessary to be on my merry way to franking heaven.

But I just can't do it. I cannot go into my game and take several different screenshots of various bits and bobs of my sim's anatomy and join them together into a wonderful or even mediocre pose.Now, usually when I say this to someone, they inevitably reply back with "Oh, but Janelle! It's hard for everyone at first, you just have to keep trying and learning. It'll get easier."

This response, after the 25th repetition, is starting to grate a little. I'm... getting... annoyed. I do not half-ass things, and I've not put only a little effort and time into the pursuit of franking, I've put a lot. But here are my problems more specifically: I don't have a definitely pose in mind before I enter my game. Sometimes I'll have a vague idea of what I want for that round, but more often, I let the pose I find ingame (ya know, without franking or simposing-- i.e. the most pure of all so if you wanna argue about what's acceptable or not, I have ALL of you beat.. now shaddup. =P) determine the specifics of my picture. And going ingame to take photos of a thousand different ankle positions so I can finally make up my mind as to what kind of pose I want in the end-- doesn't make sense. Most importantly, I can't mentally divide up the pose I'm picturing into the requisite bodyparts necessary to actualize it. I can see the final pose in someone else's work, and immediately recognize that they got the arm from this animation and the legs from that static pose, etc. But I can't do it the other way 'round. I cannot. No. Not gonna happen. My brain just..can't do it.

Simply put, my creative process does not operate in a way that would allow me to create frankensteined poses. So one day I learned simpose. (I have sipped of that dark dark wine and now there is no hope for my soul.) And I found that I spent more time and effort on one simple simposed pic than I did on my most complicated frankensteined pic before I gave that method up for lost. But I discovered that I enjoyed the hard but fruitful work of simpose; that I could express myself and my sims in new ways. I finally felt what it was like to create a pose that was totally and completely mine from the nose to the toes, one that took a LOT of time and effort to get right. I imagine it feels a lot like when a great frankensteiner has just finished a kickass franked pose that they know is gonna blow people away. But I wouldn't know. And yes, it might be easier to churn out a crappy simposed picture than a crappy frankensteined one, but a really great picture in either medium takes a lot of care, and to say that one is easier than the other is saying that you are the ultimate authority on what's easy and hard. Whatever you find it to be is what it is, period. Simpose is easier because you find it easier, and not because different people have different abilities. No, that couldn't possibly be it. Whut dew yew meen, das my ohpinyawn? MY OHPINYAWNZ R DA ULTIMATE TRUTH!!!1~1!.

And thus my ultimate points- When you, dear arrogant frankensteiner, say that your method is better, should be more respected, is harder, etc.. you are saying that everyone else must create in the same method as you. You are saying, whether you realize it or not, that there is only one acceptable method of expressing artistic desires through the sims, and other ways of reaching that end are unacceptable. If my creative process does not operate in a way that allows me to frankestein beautiful poses, then you essentially want me to take my ball and go home, because the way I do my art is somehow less valid, important, less *artistic* than you and yours.

If you feel it's sad to see how many people are using simpose these days, I say this: I remember when people were saying how sad it was to see people using photoshop to cut their sims up into tiny pieces to make them appear to be doing things/in positions not available in the game. I remember when many contests forbade frankensteining because while some simmers loved it, many many others thought it was a perversion of the game. You know, the game? The thing that brought us together in the first place?

And when you say that you should be more "respected" because of your method, I just have to laugh, sorry. You should do this because you love it, because you're bored, or because you want to improve certain skills and learn others. Because it's the closest you can get to the type of modeling/art/design you can get right now. There are a billion other great reasons. But doing ANYTHING in the sims world just -or even mainly- for the respect of the 'community' is bullshit. People shouldn't respect you for your work, they should respect your work. We have all different skill levels here in this vast sims world, and I'd rather interact with many pleasant, clueless newbies than even one primadonna of mild to moderate acclaim. They should respect you for what you bring to the community table- advice, humor, a kind word of encouragement to those below you in skills and experience, honest critique, tension diffusing comments at the right moment...etcetera. That's what should earn people respect here, not how many comments and boob notes they have on flickr. That's not how anyone should measure their contributions to the simming world.

When you're this narrow-minded and arrogant about something meant to be a GAME and a fun HOBBY, then I cannot imagine how you view people of a different gender, skincolor, religious background, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. Is that a stretch? Possibly. But people who look at two different things and immediately have to classify one as superior to the other, more acceptable,and the other as less acceptable instead of just DIFFERENT... that scares me, in whatever context it's found. Why must you impose a hierarchy? Other than the obvious reason of making sure whatever category you're in is at the top. So please, please, stop acting so butthurt that your frankentsteiny ways aren't the only ways, stop being divisive in a situation already too divided to be truly called a "community" and how about bringing some positivity into the lives of those of us who are striving to make art with our sims instead of judging how we achieve that goal?

And as always, feel free to disagree. But back your words up with examples, logic, experience. I may be totally off-base. And I'm open to new ways of viewing any situation. I'm ready to learn, experience, and whenever necessary, to apologize with sincerity and honesty and a total lack of foolhardy pride. As someone who is raging against the overinflated egos festering in the sims community, it would be hypocritical of me to be or do otherwise.

I hope this has clarified something for those who read it. You don't have to agree, not by a long shot, but if this post has even made you rethink your own feelings for just a moment or two, or gain even a little more understanding about another point of view, I've succeeded in my goal.

And thank you to the frankensteiners and simposers who do what they love because they love it, and don't try to force their preferences onto others as being either superior or as the only acceptable way. You have your preferences, you often share them with others but don't ever disparage people who choose differently than what you'd prefer. You guys rock.

virgin no longer

2008-07-21T16:43:00.003-04:00

catchy post title, eh?
no longer a *blog* virgin, you perve.

I've considered a blog for a long time now, over a year. I have a livejournal that I use very very infrequently. But it's more of a, you know, journal. And while I don't claim to be a particularly good writer, I do sometimes feel the need to wax poetic and then share the results. Which I don't want to do in a LJ that exists mostly to purge my twice-a-year emo inner feelings when they're too embarassing by half to share with anyone else.

So I hope that this blog will be actually mildly entertaining for myself and the .03 other people who will read it. Hopefully it'll be a little bit about me, a little bit about the sims, photoshop, (sex?), food, and maybe a bit about photography...if you're lucky. Hell, if I'm lucky.

Ambitious, aren't I? It'll never happen. But a girl can dream, can't she?