we'll go down this road 'til it turns from color to black and white

near the eve of the anniversary of the "passing" of a loved one:

- i see your face everywhere. orlando bloom, random character actors, strangers in a restaurant, no one else sees the resemblance but i do: the quirk of your mouth on one person, the sardonic twinkle in your eye on someone else. it's weird but comforting.

- i talk to you sometimes, then find myself wondering if i actually talked to you that way. five years is a long time at this age, and the fundamentals of who i am may be the same, but a lot of the rest is different. you haven't changed, tho i can picture how you would have. can we still be friends?

- you won't be at my wedding, you'll never meet my kids. one of them will be named in your honor. you'd like that, but find it strange too i bet.

cross your teas and dot your eyes

two thoughts:

• just because you write, doesn't make you a 'writer'. waxing nostalgic over pretty pictures someone else took does not give you license to empathize with hemingway when he said 'writing was easy, all you do is sit down and bleed' or however that quote goes. especially if your grammar is awful.
• you can't be a writer if you don't write. duh.

they may seem, at first glance, to contradict each other, but look again and voila! it makes so much sense. people ask me, usually after i've asked them (because real people don't actually ask questions like this i guess?), what is your dream job/what would you do if you could do what you loved or some variation thereof. and if i know them well enough to know they won't laugh at me, i might tell them that i want to be a Writer. capital w. i want to write books, many books, all kinds of books, and i want to do it well enough that a)i don't criticize myself to death, and b) that i can stop being an underpaid gofer boy and make my living that way.

now, here's the thing: i don't write. like, ever. i write really funny text messages sometimes, and occasionally blisteringly witty (and eternally humble, obvz) facebook status updates, but, as many a deluded tumblr-er has found before, these things will never elevate me to hemingway status. i'm not the biggest hemingway fan in the world, as an aside, he's just a well-known and respected name. i mean, he was a cool dude, i just haven't read many of his books is all.

what was i saying? oh yeah... i should write more. because even if i never get paid to do it and no one hangs a poster of my somber headshot above their bed, i can at least say, in truth, that i am a writer. because i write. just like all those pretentious tumblrers that i hate so much. goddamn it.

lesson of the day: there is just no winning in this life.

cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels

these are a few of my favorite things:

• beefsteak tomatoes with salt
• an empty kitchen sink
• being barefoot
• nutella on a spoon
• morning cuddles
• fat infants (of any species)
• crt
• fresh-baked banana bread
• being inexplicably happy even whilst worried/stressed.

i'm a barbie girl, in a barbie world

so, i moved. the great white whale, my personal moby dick, my cold mountain... it's here! i've slayed it, or reached the top, or whatever phrase goes with the preceding sentence. i have lived in the bay area (san jose, ca, to be exact) for about a week and a half now, and i must say that i am surprised. pleasantly surprised, i suppose. actually, the most surprising thing is how unsurprised i am, which is, in its own way, quite pleasant. no nasty surprises yet, at any rate, aside from how much chris actually farts (probably not a lot by most people's standards, but waaay more than he did when we were merely dating and not living together, for the record).

so what am i doing with my life up here, hundreds of miles from my childhood home?? partying like it's 1999, swashbuckling, drinking and shagging with abandon, living up my youth before the inevitable onset of decay and a dependence on tums develops? truthfully, i am already dependent on tums for my daily happiness (not that tums make me happy, but they take away red wine induced heartburn, which while i have to endure it physically prevents me from feeling most positive emotions), and the rest of it... not so much either. mostly what i've been doing is unpacking, cleaning, laundry, cooking, washing dishes, watching movies, and, now that i have internet again, farting around online like a reclusive shut in with glass bones and a penchant for fashion blogs. that being said! being a temporary housewife isn't so bad. it's allowed my boo and i to settle into a comfortable routine, and it has allowed me to exercise my would-be chef bone. that's like a funny bone, but with more butter. for instance, i made some cornbread yesterday which- not to toot my own horn- was quite delicious. we ate it with chili last night, then i had some again with breakfast, only heated up and buttered and be-syruped. yum. i thought living with chris would give me a chance to slim down, far away from my mother's cooking, and it still has the opportunity to do that once i start working and can't spend all day tinkering in the kitchen, but i think it will also provide an opportunity to fatten him up. which is great, not because i'm a chubby chaser, but because maybe with a pinch of fat on him, a flu won't come around and slaughter him mercilessly. what was i saying?

oh, right. being a housewife hasn't been so bad, but i am itching to be working again. mostly because of those aforementioned fashion blogs and all the materialistic lust they inspire and less because of practical concerns like having money to pay bills and buy food. ah feminine vanity. society really can't complain about women being stuff-obsessed whores because it's society that breeds us to be this way, you know. but anyway, another really good reason to stop being a housewife and start being a real person again is that i have the hands of an 112 old great grandmother!!! from washing so many dishes!!! wtf man. that alone might be enough reason to cut down on the cooking and eating.

what have we learned from this blog post? let's make a list.

• san jose is lovely and full of big giant trees and houses with front porches (implied)
• i live in leafy green san jose now!
• being a housewife can be fulfulling, to an extent
• i need a job, like, yesterday, because there are limits to the pleasures of housewifery
• crocodile hands are gross
• i love tums
• my bf farts around me now
• cornbread is the bomb

... and i think that about covers everything. it's lovely to be master of my own domain, and be able to kiss my boyfriend on a daily basis, i have a lot of optimism for the near future, AND i am going to update my blog more often. not on the daily, but i'll do my best, because if there's one thing i've learned from spending too much time on the internet is that just about anyone can get paid to write nonsense for myriad sites across the web, and a blog is oftentimes the best way to start. hurray!

super sad true love story

generally, i am a far happier person than i used to be. it's like i thought it was romantic to be so damn gloomy all the time.

but today, and for the past few days, moreso than ever before, the world makes me sad. and a little scared.

in part, it may be because i just finished 'sstls', gary shteyngart's latest novel about the depredations of modern life on the individual and on love. but mostly it's because i have eyes and can read, and ears and can hear, and a somewhat 0veractive mind that likes to ponder things that most people would rather ignore. i think that's called masochism. but anyway. i worry. i worry a lot about things that are happening and things that might happen and decisions i might make and how they will be affected by things that are happening or might happen. i worry about plastic in the ocean, and plastic in the microwave at home. i worry about chemicals in drinking water and the continued non-cancerous nature of the cells in my fairly-young-but-not-immune uterus. i worry about the slightly toxic air we breathe in l.a. and non-smokers who are dying of lung-cancer. i worry about cruelty-free eggs and the delicious nature of a rare steak versus the horribleness and suffering currently required for that steak to end up on my dinner plate. i worry about poor people living in places soon to be affected by the projected global warming droughts that are going to overtake the world. i worry about these goddamned republicans and their insistence on taking away women's rights as the world goes to shit around them. i worry about women who are republicans and insist on taking away the rights of other women to make decisions for themselves. i worry about people like these short-sighted women reproducing, bringing other short-sighted people into the world. i worry about the fact that my boyfriend doesn't get enough sleep at night or food during the day, and that he stresses himself out a lot, and that stress is a job requirement for him. i worry about my ability to find full time employment, then worry that that doesn't matter because pretty soon money won't mean anything because currently it means too much to some people. i worry that people don't read books, then i worry that reading books doesn't do any good. i worry about my own worrying because what if it's simply being brought on by the pills i take to control my reproduction, which is the scariest thing of all because if i'm not in control of my own personality, then what am i in control of? nothing. and so i worry.

and i think, i will never bring a child into this world, this beautiful world we are shitting all over. and my mother will never stop nagging me for grandchildren, taunting me about my age and continued childlessness despite the fact that i'm only 25. and i will never stop tearing up whenever i see a particularly cute baby, because how can anyone in the world have enough confidence in the future or in themselves to bring a baby into this beautiful fucked up world? and now i am getting overwrought. so i'll stop. and though i worry this is rather silly of me, i will say that it feels good to have written that all down and gotten it off my chest. i'm slightly less worried already!

only in dreams

I know that dreams are the products of random electrical firing in your brain. I do, I'm aware of this. Your dreams are your brain's way of cleaning itself out, rehashing everything that passed through it that day, occasionally bringing realizations up from your subconscious up to the light, etc.

That doesn't change the fact that dreaming about Jake always throws me for a loop. Dreams featuring him always seem like so much more than just brain-vomit. Sometimes, when I'm feeling ridiculous, I think that maybe he, or what is left of him, his energy or whatever, contacts me through my dreams, hangs out in my head, as if to say, 'remember me? I miss you too, invisible cloud of particles though I may be.'

I had the loveliest dream about him last night, accurate down to the particular inflections of his voice and idiosyncracies of speech. I dreamt I went to visit him, and they'd gotten a dog, and she'd just had puppies. I hung out with him and his mom and puppies- three things I love entirely too much, Jake, his mom, and baby dogs- and then I came home, went to work, where I laid the smack down on Ricardo, and came back to my little apartment to find him waiting for me. I dreamt of the way he kissed me, and the way he held me, and the way he talked to me, and about other things too, things we never did but probably should have. I know it's stupid to be so strongly affected by a dream, but it was so REAL. I could feel the stubble on his face and smell his breath and even see, up close and personal, every little expression that crossed his face. It was weird too because in this dream, his cancer had happened but he'd recovered fully, and all the things that went unspoken between us before were out, and it was all very comfortable and exciting and so, so real. It was a dream of how things should have been, or would have been, maybe? God I miss that kid.

It's funny how quickly life changes, and how little you notice the changes while they happen. Jake and I were supposed to live in San Francisco and be neighbors and best friends and hang out all the time. He'd work at a non-profit and I'd be a teacher, and Friday nights we would get high and watch 'Planet Earth,' and it would be just like it used to be. Now, he's been dead a year and a half, I'm moving to the Bay in June, I'm in love with someone else... Weird, weird, weird all around. I don't know how things would have gone, had he not died, but I'm fairly certain that life right now would not be anything like it is. Not that that's good, or bad... mostly just weird. Hmph.

what are little girls made of?

So like a total weirdo, I am currently obsessed with weddings. Partly I blame Etsy, because they sent me an email containing the single most beautiful (and custom... and afforable!) wedding dress I have ever seen. Partly I blame my recent intense unhappiness, because what is better when you are unhappy than fantasizing about a day when you won't be unhappy, when ostensibly you'll be as far from unhappy as few people ever are? Or whatever. I'm bored therefore I want to get married.

Actually, it makes perfect sense. I am not one to run off to Vegas with the first meathead who would have me, so the idea of a wedding or marriage encapsulates a lot of what I want and where I want to be. If I am getting married it'll be because one, I am in a functional and strong relationship and madly in love, and two, because financially and materially, I am at a point in my life where having a nice wedding and a marriage and being a real person are achievable, tangible realities. Does that even make sense? Like, if I can afford a wedding, if I have found someone who wants to marry me despite my readily apparent insanity, if I am secure enough in my own accomplishments and financial situation to join my life- like, mentally and economically- with another person in an equal partnership... well, that would be an awesome place to be, I think.

My friends look down on me for loving weddings and the idea of marriage. They think it is hopelessly naive and old fashioned and a real character flaw that I look forward to getting and being married. My friends are generally cynical assholes though, so who cares what they think anyway. I think it's sad to expect all marriages to end in divorce- not that I am unaware of the current state of the institution, but just because the grimness is real doesn't make it any less pitiable. I don't think I have unrealistic, Disney-fied expectations of love and marriage. I have seen what marriage looks like on a day-to-day, stressed-over-money, no-sex-having, failure-to-communicate-on-a-regular-basis-basis. Yes, I too have parents, and their marriage is dysfunctional as hell. What's funny is that apparently, miserable as they are most of the time, their marriage is the one outlasting all of their peers, so maybe it isn't as miserable as all that? Parents, who knows man.

Marriage seems like a great adventure to me. Like, there's this person, and he thinks you are so great that he wants to be a part of the day to day shenanigans of your life, and for a long time. And you are partners, and you're there for each other, and even when it's a slog, it's still kind of fun because this person is your best friend and you get to see him and talk to him every day. And you can grow together and change together, and see the world together, and what's so terrible about that? About having someone to depend on, someone who cares about how you feel and wants you to be happy and you want him to be happy? Ok so getting a little cornball there, but at the same time it's all true. And I am totally in the Laura Kipnis school of thought that says marriage and love should not be work, that these beautiful and transcendent connections we forge with other people should not be hijacked by the lingo of the industrial revolution. It should be play, not that I don't imagine it's at time challenging and painful play.

I would like to believe that love can last a lifetime. I don't see why not. I am going to love my sisters for the rest of my life. Even when I hate them I love them, I don't have a choice. They are as much a part of me as my lungs, or my spleen, and only in part because we share blood. Marce and I share no blood, but she is my sister as much as the other two. Because we grew up together, and we are growing up together, and even when I thought we had gone our separate ways, the ties weren't quite severed all the way and today I doubt they ever will be. Sure it sounds kinda like a curse, this incurable love. And maybe that's what it is, and that's how it should be. I am cursed to love them and so I do and will. Why can't the same kind of thinking apply to romantic love? I will love you, husband, for ever, because I do and I must and I have no choice. Two people with their eyes wide open, knowing the perils of it all and still choosing to live their lives together and try against all odds to be happy- that is damned romantic.

I mean, to an extent anyway. If you think about it too hard you start to realize that marriage is like children in that any idiot can have one, and many idiots often do. On somewhat of a sidenote, a friend of a friend of mine recently got married and stuck her pictures all over facebook, and you gotta realize too that really ugly people get married all the time. Which sounds shallow and horrible, but goddamn man. You shouldn't wear blue eyeshadow up to your eyebrows just in general, but especially not on your wedding day. And it's like, why bother making the effort to look nice if any ugly old schlub out there can get married and you can't? Or just haven't, I guess. Not that I want to right now necessarily. It's just that seeing so many people I know- people my same age and all- get engaged and get married, it always throws me.

Hmm. So what was the point again? Oh yes. I am bored with my stupid life, can't wait to fix it, and I love that dress. Also, I think it's funny that Chris talks about us getting married even though we've been together for all of ten minutes. Knowing that he also planned to marry a certain ex of his, whom I know from close experience to be insane and also ugly, I can't take him seriously, as much fun as it is to talk hypotheticals. And, I wouldn't marry him anyway because there's no point in marrying a lawyer; they never have time for you anyway.