Lovin' Life

2012-01-11T21:21:00.002-05:00

I'm jinxing myself as I write this, BUT - Cloud has gone to sleep for the last 3 nights without needing me to stand over his crib. No more standing there, with my arm in the crib, afraid to move a muscle for fear of waking him as he starts to doze off.

Also! We may be applying to Montessori sometime very soon. I may be insane for trying this, given that Cloud is NOT an example of peace, focus, concentration, and quiet. But god damn it, I'm willing to give it a shot and I just hope the teachers are willing to work with him. He's highly distractable and I'm hoping the peaceful atmosphere will help him concentrate.

Though now that I think about it, complete and utter quiet actually makes it really hard for me personally to concentrate, and in many ways he's a lot like me. Except that I was not nearly as hyperactive as he seems to be at times. Aaaaahhh. I hope it works out.

Cloud flies home from Miami

2011-12-22T17:42:00.002-05:00

I figure now is as good time as any to start writing down Cloud's various tantrums, destructions, and other fun behaviors (oh yea and some of his good moments too). So what if it's already been two years since he was born? Better late than never.

We were in Miami over the last two weeks, which left lots of time for me to ..ahem.. "observe" Cloud in his natural state. Sad, I know - it takes a vacation for me to really get to know my son.

Moving on.

Yesterday, we had the pleasure of flying back from Miami - which we cleverly planned for Cloud's nap time (original departure time was 11:45, we actually left at 12:30, which is typically what time Cloud falls asleep for his nap). But Cloud had other plans. He woke up bright and early that morning - 5:45am. He then proceeded to fall asleep in the car at 9:00am as we were getting ready to leave for the airport, and slept just long enough to completely screw up his normal nap time and yet still remain quite cranky.

During the 3 hour flight, he slept for exactly 0 seconds and spent exactly 3 hours screaming and kicking the chair in front of him. As the plane landed and began making its way to the gate, I turned to Cloud's dad (P) and joked - wouldn't it be funny if Cloud fell asleep by the time the airplane doors opened, now that we were on the ground? And *poof*, that's exactly what happened. In the 3 minutes we were driving along on the ground to the gate, he finally conked out. P proceeded to punch Cloud in the jaw out of spite, and I can't say I blamed him.

Talking to Myself

2011-03-07T19:40:00.002-05:00

Note to future-self:

Once you ACTUALLY start thinking and working on that paper you've been putting off - it's interesting! The actual process of writing the paper and finding the info and putting it all together is NOT boring, it's NOT annoying, it's NOT hard and lame. Why are you putting off starting? There's nothing difficult about this process and nothing worth being anxious about. God, stop procrastinating.

A note from your past-self that's currently in the middle of writing a paper that's turning out to be so awesomely fun. The only sucky part is that your past-past self procrastinated way too long and now I have to RUSH through this process because the paper is due tomorrow!! Future-self, unless you really want to screw over your future-future-self, you should start doing that thing that you've been procrastinating on. Start NOW. Do it Now! Start coding up that project! Work on your project report. RIGHT NOW. Stop reading Charlie Sheen quotes and DO IT NOW!

2009-11-16T21:05:00.003-05:00

So last week I had to work on Saturday (was in by 7:45am, on a Saturday!), and then had a realllly long baby shower that same day after driving for an hour and a half from CT to Brooklyn. By the time I got to sleep it was waaaay past my bedtime!

And then P got the flu and couldn't move on Sunday morning. So I stayed late by P's house on Sunday night to take care of him and then I wound up driving back up to work at 5AM on Monday morning. Not a huge deal, I used to do this all the time. Of course being 7 months pregnant takes it's toll, and I was already sleep deprived from not getting to catch up on my sleep over the weekend, but I managed.

I get to work on Monday and find out that I need to attend a half day long meeting in Manhattan the next day. Fine, no big deal... At least I get to check in on P and see how he's feeling.
So I drive back down that same night, even though I'm exhausted from not having slept well the night before. I get up bright and early at 6:30am the next morning, trudge over to Manhattan for the stupid meeting, then trudge back to Brooklyn to get my car, and drive right back up to CT to get back to work after the meeting. Awesome.

Since P is still sick, he misses his classes (and an exam) on Tuesday, so he drives up to CT so that we can study together for his re-examination on Wed or Thu. Of course after not having slept well for quite a few nights now, I'm tired as hell, but we do what we can before I fall asleep.
Wednesday is uneventful, except for me being exhausted. I come home while P is still here. Was hoping I'd get in really early, but an issue at work makes me have to stay longer right about the time I was ready to head out the door. Not so good. I need sleep!
We eat, do some more studying, and P heads back down to Brooklyn so he can take his exam on Thu.

Thursday rolls around. P takes his exam and drives back UP to CT so that we can meet with our doula that night. Doula is late, and I'm almost ecstatic thinking she might not make it and maybe I can get some sleep! No such luck, she makes it.

Ok... no problem, I have Friday off for my prenatal appointment, surely I can get some rest. Plus I've been real lucky - Corey's been real sick all week and I haven't even got the sniffles even though I've been with him every single day!

The Friday appointment is early, so I get up by 6:45am so that we can leave by 7:30 to make the 45 minute drive over to the birth center. Shit, I wake up and my throat is all tingly. Not a good sign. P, of course, gets up at 7:20. Gets out of the shower at 7:40. We don't leave until 8:05am - CRAP. So I call them up telling them I'm running late. Of course, the midwife has another appointment scheduled after mine so there's no way I can just show up 20 mins late. They reschedule me for 11:30am instead and we drive back home.

Ok, a shitty start to my day off from work, but at least I can get some laundry done while we wait for my new appointment time right?

I gather all my stuff, thinking it's a weekday and early in the morning, so it should be completely empty down there. WRONG. All the washers are taken. Awesome.
I bring the laundry back upstairs, leaving it in the basket and leaving my laundry card in my pants pocket, thinking I'll just go down there again a little later.

Wow this is getting long so let me do the quick version of the rest of my weekend - I lose my laundry card, I get the H1N1 vaccine, I get really sick. I sleep all day Friday and get no cleaning or laundry done because I'm so sick. Then Friday night we drive to Brooklyn AGAIN for some tapings P had to do (don't ask). We go to bed at 2:30am, and up at 5:30 AM because I have to drive back to the birth center on saturday morning for breastfeeding class and since I have people coming over I also needed to clean the place up.

The only good part of this whole thing was actually hanging out with my friends Saturday, even though I was sick and my apartment was dirty and I was dressed like a bum.

So then up early again Sunday (8am), helping P with school work. Get no laundry done (it's full on a sunday night again! And I don't have my card! And the damn machine only takes $10 bills to buy a new card!). Shitty.

I'm still sick Monday (today), but I'm determined to get my laundry done so I go to CVS and buy some saline drops just so I can have a $10 bill. And they don't have any $10 bills, so they give me $5s instead. As you would expect, the machine doesn't take 2 fives. No, it must be a $10 bill. ARGH.

So I walk over to the corner gas station and buy some delicious lactose free vanilla creme milk and some chocolate cookies and cream ice cream. YUM! And the guy actually has a $10 bill! Hooray.

I'm so excited. I get home, and pop open the milk. You guessed it - SPOILED. Not expired - no. It's just been sitting out in the warmth apparently and has CLUMPS in it. So, on a hunch, I open the ice cream too. And yup, it's definitely re-frozen. The surface is icy and you can tell it used to be liquid. God knows how long they had it sitting out in the warmth. ARGH!

So let's recap -
7 months pregnant. No sleep for over a week straight, driving up and down from Brooklyn to CT. Sick. Dealing with little kids while tired and sick. Laundry room full TWICE. Lost laundry card. Can't get a damn $10 bill... and then.. of all things... SPOILED FRIGGIN CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM!!! Do you know what a pregnant woman can do to you in this condition???

The first trimester

2009-06-27T19:23:00.002-05:00

It's over. The first trimester I mean.
Tomorrow I'll be 14 weeks pregnant.
I don't know why I haven't written more in the last 10 weeks, I must be a bad person for not keeping a journal of this experience.

Whenever I thought about writing something about what's been happening to me so far, I always had something to say - in my head, away from the computer. Now that I'm actually trying to write, I can't seem to collect my thoughts and come up with anything meaningful.

So I guess let's start from the beginning.
I found out I was pregnant on a Monday night, April 27th. P was there with me when I found out. He drove up to see me that day out of the blue. I had been having really bad cramps over the weekend that I thought were just really bad PMS. In fact, along with a pregnancy test, I bought some ibuprofen that night that I still haven't opened.

So I bought the test, and I wasn't the slightest bit nervous. I was excited. P was at the apartment when I walked in, and I was just happy to see him, and showed him that I had bought the pregnancy test. He kind of brushed it off, still thinking that he was sterile for some crazy reason.
It was a digital test. I wish I had taken a picture of it that night, but I was too scatter brained.

After I took the test, I was all smiles. For one, it proved once and for all that both P and I were fertile, and that we could have kids together if we wanted to. I know it's strange to think of it that way, but I was really excited.

P was sitting at the dining room table on the computer when I asked him "what do you want it to be?" (the results). He seemed kind of anxious now, seeing my smile, probably wondering if I was messing with him. "I don't know" - he seemed torn. I showed him the results. No decoding necessary there - it was loud and clear. It was overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time. He pulled me in and held me, we talked. Were we ready? Could we handle it? Was it the right time? He made it very clear that whatever we decided to do, he was 100% behind me.

I bought prenatal vitamins the next morning before work. I don't think I ever seriously considered giving up the baby. I'd never be able to get over it, especially since we both wanted a baby. We just didn't know quite when.

I told my parents the following weekend. There was lots of crying, by me and my mom.
We told P's mom on mother's day - by giving her a grandma card. That was exciting - she was thrilled, and has been ever since.

And the rest is history. Well, 10 weeks of it anyway. Nausea, vomiting, back pain... yep I've had the whole bunch. There were a couple of weeks where I vomited daily. Then a week or so where crackers seemed to help a lot. Then vomiting almost stopped. Then it came back with a vengeance for a couple more days.

So it's been on and off. Getting much better now - I'm no longer exhausted 24/7 (though I still do sleep a lot). I've been less nauseous too. I've gained about 5 pounds (last time I checked anyway, might be more by now). I've had 2 ultrasounds - both times got to hear the baby's heartbeat and got a picture to take home.

Recently I've told my manager, and the rest of the team at work. They've been very supportive and happy for me. So.. things are moving along fine. Though I don't think it has quite sunk in yet.

The Decision

2009-04-29T19:56:00.001-05:00

Just found the below draft of a post in my archives. It was written 4-29-2009. Spoiler: we kept the baby. He was born 12/3/2009. He is now 2. :)

-------------------
I think we made the decision to keep the baby tonight.
I'm excited. I'm scared.

The conception date is either April 10th or April 11th, and the online calculators so far are guessing a date of 01/01/10 --- not a bad date at all (and you always get a day off!)

Wow.

2009-04-29T03:21:00.000-05:00

2 home tests later.

Preggo.

I'm pregnant.

Holy cow.

Personal Development

2008-08-17T13:39:00.004-05:00

Every time I read Steve Pavlina's blog (Personal Development for Smart People) I get inspired to become better, to grow. I stumbled onto the blog by accident when I was googling around to help me become an early riser. Actually my goal was even simpler - how do I make myself get up when my alarm rings? From the everyday, to the metaphysical - I found so much content on the site that really struck a cord.

I've been trying to better myself, consciously, over the past year or so. I can't say I have made much progress, but I also can't say that I have applied myself fully. It's the first time in my life that I'm making a conscious effort to grow myself. Of course throughout high school and college I was bettering myself too - I learned a lot, I got some exercise, I did pretty damn well overall. I did some meditating back in high school, did some yoga. Now that I think about it, I guess I haven't been all that unconscious about my growth. So let me rephrase that - during the past year I have been seeking outside sources to help in my growth and have re-awakened my desire to grow.

Previously I did things on my own. I wanted to develop myself, I wanted to help others so I volunteered, I challenged myself. I was shy and quiet but I held a volunteer position where I had to speak to visitors daily telling them about animals in the Aquarium when I was 14. When I was in college I spent a summer standing on the streets of Manhattan asking people for money... for what I thought was a good cause. I volunteered doing trail work when I was 16 and planned a trip to Thailand to study Buddhism as a junior in college. Unfortunately the trip to Thailand didn't happen, but I did travel to South Africa the next year to work with baboons for 6 weeks. These were all conscious growth efforts on my part. Of course I wanted to help, but I also wanted to become better and to know myself through these experiences.

I guess I can say that now is just the continuation of my personal growth. It's become more dire and important to me to do this now, and not let it go. Possibly because now I'm out of school, and personal growth takes more effort. It's easy to slip into a daily routine, just going to work everyday. I don't want that to happen. I don't want my curiosity for life and self-awareness that I've developed over the last 8 years to just disappear and be forgotten.

So, where am I going? What have I been doing?
I've been trying to learn about time management and procrastination. I read "The Now Habit" (Fiore) while I was in South Africa, and I'm now reading "Getting Things Done" (Allen). I'm doing yoga once I week. I still do taekwondo. I trekked through Peru last month for a couple of weeks. These are just things I'm doing, tasks. But what's my goal? Why am I doing THESE things and not other things?

My goal is personal development. I want to re-connect to myself the way I used to be connected back in high school. I used to feel a connectedness with the world back then. Something happened, I got to caught up. I think I can become re-connected, and in a more meaningful way. I'm more mature now, I'm more aware of the things happening around the world. The things I've seen in my travels shouldn't make it harder to connect to the energy I've felt before. It shouldn't make me skeptical and dark. It should help me reach a higher understanding.

I feel that I am ready. I'm ready to expand my mind.

Thanks Google

2007-05-09T01:10:00.000-05:00

"There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream - whatever that dream might be." --Pearl S. Buck

Showed up on my iGoogle page just now. Appropriate in light of the current state of things in my life.

And So It Goes

2007-05-08T11:47:00.000-05:00

Just yesterday I recalled my old dream of becoming an astronaut. It was by accident really, we were talking about the Challenger Shuttle catastrophe and about Richard Feynman and then suddenly it all came flooding back to me. Everything that used to inspire me and drive me to work my hardest since freshman year in college. It used to be a distant, but concrete goal that I could focus on and could use to further expand my interests.

The revival of my dream came not a day too soon, I've been in a slump this whole year for no apparent reason. I've been feeling tired, unmotivated, and stressed. I couldn't understand what was happening to me - I didn't recognize my old self in this new apathetic, tired, lazy me. I've been sleeping too much, procrastinating, searching for some new meaning, something important.

The thought alone rejuvenated me. I walked around all day smiling. I thought - it doesn't matter if I don't become an astronaut, but now I know where to aim and what it is that I've been missing so much lately. It gave me something to work towards. So what if I'm taking a job in technology/software next year? So what if it's not scientific enough? I can come home everyday and have a dream to work towards. I can take concrete steps to help me decide what to specialize in once I pay off my loans and am ready to jump onto the PhD wagon. It gave new meaning to my desire for PhD. My desire before was based on the vague feeling that I just haven't gotten academia out of my system yet and that I wanted more. Now, the PhD could have a greater purpose, a concrete goal.

All that came crashing down today with these words:
P: this NASA idea sounds great. but i'll have to pass on that.
P: Thanks anyways though
P: i know you were thinking about my best interest when you made up your mind about that
P: but do your thing. Good Luck

Yes, that is my boyfriend's response to all that I just explained above about NASA, astronauts, PhDs, and goals.

It's sarcasm, by the way. And not the friendly kind. It's the kind that goes hand in hand with the long diatribe I wrote long ago about having to choose between following my dreams and holding on to my relationship. Not much has changed.

I'm graduating!

2007-05-06T21:10:00.001-05:00

Today, I satisfied the very last of the requirements necessary for graduation. Nope it had nothing to do with world culture, or labs, or art, or philosophy. Today I finally took the swim test. Now even if I fail every single class this term, I will still graduate (with a single major instead of a double, but hey it feels good to say that anyway).

De-icing

2007-01-23T22:05:00.000-05:00

De-icing techniques

jabbing violently with the ice scraper
pros: it's fun, and nice big chunks of ice come right off
cons: too easy to get carried away, scratch the paint and/or windshield

using scraper as lever to lift the ice off
pros: no scraping sounds, can get even bigger chunks of ice off if you're good
cons: shitty scraper bound to break in half under the weight, it can be tricky to get under the ice

scrape, scrape, scrape away
pros: no damage to windshield, gets the job done... eventually
cons: flying shards of ice, boring, scraping sounds hurt your head, arms get tired

Being Light-Minded is Hard Work

2007-01-21T05:06:00.000-05:00

Africa.
A place that hasn't entered my mind since Heart of Darkness, freshman fall in college - at least not that part of my mind that's personal, adventurous and creative. The genocide in Darfur and famine in Niger go into an entirely different part of my mind. But enough about the negative.

In just 5 short months I'll be spending 6 weeks frolicking, getting bitten by, and changing nappies of baby baboons in South Africa. With my boyfriend.

On (what some might call) a whim, we applied to a volunteer program in a baboon sanctuary. My boyfriend actually heard of the program back in September, but at the time we neither had the time or the money to be able to think about it seriously. With the prospect of me graduating this June and getting a sizable signing bonus from my employer-to-be, we were faced with the dilemma of how best to waste this money without doing something silly like putting it down on a house, investing it, or saving it.

I wanted to go study Buddhism in Thailand. I had made plans to go do just that about a year ago, when I had a term off from college. Instead, I got an internship... by accident. The internship was with my current employer-to-be (who gave me an offer for a full time job at the end of the internship). Thus I figured it was only fair that, having sold my soul to the devil (err.. corporate America) last winter by choosing an internship over Buddhism, that I should redeem myself by at least going to Thailand before I started my full time job at this same employer in the fall.

However, there were a couple of problems with that. Mostly, the fact that I would be leaving my boyfriend back home. I invited him to come along, of course, but Buddhism and Thailand just don't strike his fancy quite in the same way they do mine. To him, it was a huge waste of money (even more so than putting it down on a house).

**drum-roll**
enter Animal Planet, baboons, and South Africa

We both love animals. A lot.
So I did some quick research and realized that we could afford to do the baboon thing for 6 weeks together. Now I'm not sure if we'll have enough money to put down deposit/security on an apartment we need to rent when we come back so that I can start my new job, but... those are just technicalities and mere details.

Africa, here we come.

New Year Resolutions

2007-01-03T12:30:00.000-05:00

A couple of days late, but I was thinking about this recently and thought I should record it somewhere to remind myself.
So my goal for 2007?
Be on time/timely for everything.

This encompasses a lot of things for me, not just getting to a place on time. This means answering emails/returning phone calls in a timely manner. This means starting my projects/assignments/research on time. This means taking care of things when they should be taken care of. But of course, it also means if I say I'll meet you at 9pm, I should BE there at 9pm. This hasn't been a problem for me when I'm on campus, but back home when not everything is a 5-15 minute walk, I have a hard time starting to get ready early enough to leave the house and get somewhere ON TIME.

If I had to pick one thing about myself that I detest the most, it's this.

A close second would be my inability to keep my space relatively clean.
So goal #2 is:
Keep my room 90% clean, 90% of the time.

Why only 90% of the time?
Just trying to be realistic. This room will NOT be clean during midterms/finals.
I'm not trying to give myself a loophole though. Achieving this goal would be a HUGE step up for me.

Crossroads... What the hell do I do?

2006-06-13T00:27:00.000-05:00

I'm an ambivalent 20 year old with pipe dreams. I know this, my boyfriend of over 5 years knows this, and it's about time a decision is made. Sometimes it's obvious to me what the decision must be, but other times I'm scared to death that I will regret that decision for the rest of my life. I'm in love with P and he's in love with me, but we're not in fantasy land anymore. This isn't the first month or the first year. This is the real thing. Either I give up my pipe-dreams and commit my whole life to P, or... I don't.

It's easy to say from the outside that if we really love each other then our relationship can make it through anything. What that really means is that if I love P enough I would give up my risky undertakings and certain aspects of my life in order to make it work. What that means is that I shouldn't be trying to start a startup with a guy I barely know. That means thoughts of Buddhism in Thailand and volunteering for the Peace Corps shouldn't be entering my mind. That means I shouldn't think about making any plans to travel anywhere without P. In fact, I should be in NY right now with P, not "wasting" a summer on research and startups and taekwondo.

This is me admitting that through my actions, I have already broken something sacred in our relationship and made a decision that hasn't been spoken out loud. This is me admitting that my love of life ... my selfishness? ... is stronger than my love for P. It hurts me to say that, but without admitting it to myself first, I could never reason about it or try to understand why I have made the decisions that I have made. Subconsciously it must be that either I really don't understand what I would be losing if I lost P or... worse... it's that I don't believe it's the most important thing to me right now.

As much as I hate to admit that age and experience plays a role in this decision, I can't keep lying to myself. I've never loved another man. I've never been loved by another man. I've never been with anyone but P in any way. P is more than just my boyfriend, he is my best friend, my companion. And because of all this, I don't know if I'll ever find another man who will ever love me the same way or if I will be able to love another man the same way I love P... but on the other hand, I don't know that I won't. All I know is that I can't imagine it, and that scares me.

When I was a boy...

2005-08-14T12:52:00.000-05:00

Reading this article made me realize why it was that I stuck it out in math and science - because I was a boy in middle school.

Not literally, but socially and physically I did not begin to gain feminine qualities until the 8th grade or so, maybe even later. I wore baggy clothes, I hadn't hit puberty, I played sports, and I hung around with my brother and his friends. Until the 8th grade I refuuuuused to shop in the girls section. I despised all things feminine and prided myself on the fact that my brother's friends all used to tell me how much like a boy I was.

Now you might ask, what the hell does that have to do with math and science? Well, just think about it - my female middle school counterparts entered the phase of lip gloss, skin tight jeans, boyband obsessions, and crushes. Suddenly, they cared about their image - they wanted boys to like them. Did I want boys to like me? Sure, but I wanted them to respect me in a different sense - as an equal. I hated girly girls - I thought they were boring and stupid. I prided myself on being able to do more push-ups than my brother, on my basketball skills, my bruises from climbing trees, and all other unfeminine things.

In fact, until I met a boy at sleepaway camp the summer before 8th grade, my parents were afraid that I didn't like boys at all - that I'd grow up to be a lesbian. (Now, I don't know how they would get that idea - I despised girls!)

By the time I hit puberty I was at a math and science high school surrounded by a very non-judgemental atmosphere. Everyone there was a nerd in one sense or another, everyone was smart - I didn't have to try to fit in.

I remember this one girl in middle school who was every bit as smart as I was (her final average was only 4 tenths of a point below mine, something she would never let me live down). She had an obsession with Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys and spent lunchtime chit chatting with her girlfriends about boybands and lip gloss. She was real smart, but she never spoke up in class. The teachers only knew her from her great exam scores and stellar papers. And that is what made the difference.

I really believe that my late-blooming saved me. If I had thought of myself as a female in middle school, I would have taken cues from everyone around me as to what was feminine and what wasn't. Speaking up in class was not feminine, answering and asking questions was not feminine. Doing well in math and science sure as hell wasn't feminine. The expectations were there, I just ignored them because I didn't associate myself with girls. So maybe I was a little bit of a "show-off" in middle school. Not too much, but enough for me to gain the confidence I needed to believe in myself. People told me I was smart and I started to believe them. (And don't tell me that people don't have to be told they're smart to know that they are - it's just not true. People form an image of themselves first and foremost through the reflection of themselves in the eyes of others).

And that's the story.

The next step in blogging... Yikes

2005-08-09T21:30:00.000-05:00

I received this e-mail today regarding my personal blog (not this one).
That blog was not linked in any way to my school related activities (meaning they had to do some online snooping to find it). This makes me feel a little strange.

[Names changed for privacy are in italics.]
-------------------------------------
Hi LeMiL,
I work in MOOMOO School's Communications Office. We're considering linking to a couple of student blogs that could help prospective students get more of an idea of what it's like to be an engineering major at MOOMOO.

Are you, in fact, majoring in engineering, and do you plan to keep blogging about your MOOMOO experience?

If we did link to your blog, you would maintain total control over what you write, but we would reserve the right to remove the link depending on the appropriateness and/or relevance of the content that you feature.

Any thoughts about this idea?

-some lady

---

some lady
Director of Public Information
& Web Managing Editor
MOOMOO School of Engineering
MOOMOO College
------------------------------------------------------

The strangest thing is that I responded saying that I didn't really object to being linked to, but that I wouldn't necessarily conform to any relevant content in my blog. If my blog actually winds up getting linked, I think I'd feel rather self-conscious about it...

To Write

2005-08-04T16:52:00.000-05:00

I'd like to write, I mean REALLY write, not just blog. I don't mean write novels or even short stories, but just write from my heart and then be able to read over my thoughts and laugh, or cry or just think. I want to write poetry that captures who I am, but at the same time leaves mysteries. I want to experience the flow of having something to say and exactly the words to say it. It doesn't have to be timeless, just enough for the present. Enough for me to enjoy it. To keep a notebook or some folder on my laptop full of little pieces of writing that remind me of myself and how I'm changing, growing, and thinking.

I am thinking, aren't I?

How Harry Met Sally Pt.2: Recap and Wrap Up

2005-07-31T20:24:00.000-05:00

Aaah! I tried to reread my last post and realized how painfully long, unwitty, and *BLAH* it was. *BLAH* in fact describes it quite nicely.
So, to save you from having to read it, here's a quick recap: DQ meets P. DQ introduces me to P. P hits on DQ. Time passes, P loses interest and starts hitting on me instead while DQ's interest piques. I hide it from DQ.

Now, the rest of the story: Time passes. I go away for 2 weeks, P hits on DQ again. I come back, hell breaks loose. Confrontations abound. Healing, time passes. I finally start a relationship with P. 5 months pass. we break up and stop speaking for 2 months, then get back together. 1 year passes. We break up, stop speaking for 5 months, then get back together. almost 3 more years pass, we're still together.

So that's the story. I'll share some anecdotes of our relationship eventually, like when I have nothing else on my mind to banter about, but for now that's it.

How Harry Met Sally - The story of my relationship

2005-07-28T22:37:00.000-05:00

Missed me?
No I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth or carelessly broken my vow to update regularly. The truth is that P has been up here visiting me since last Friday and only left this morning at 5AM. I only get to see him every so often so blogging time had to be replaced with P time, and I'm not sorry for it.

Now... where was I? You've met DQ and got a glimpse of my messed up head. Since it was P time this past week I guess it's only fair to devote this blog to my dear P.

I have a lot of great things to say about P, after all we've been together for over 4 years now and I've known him for over 5. We've had our ups and downs, and our relationship today is nothing at all like our first year together - in a positive way. We've had our breaks too - out of the five and change years that I've known him we were on non-speaking terms for a sum total of seven months. Well, here's the short version of the story of me and P...

I met him playing basketball in the park. Actually, my best friend DQ met him playing basketball and was telling me about what an asshole he was for teasing her. At the same time, she was intrigued and wouldn't stop talking about him for a long time and wanted me to go to the park with her to meet him (she went on a regular basis because she used to play ball for a team). So I went - I used to play ball too. This was around the end of May, so summer was just about to begin and that summer was going to be one hell of a drama for the three of us... If you've seen enough teenage dramas, you already know where this is all going.

I was the shy, quiet type and I was also pretty damn small and skinny for my age. No curves, no femininity.... and braces (a late bloomer by all measures). My friend DQ on the other hand, looked about 5 years older than she really was, had gotten her braces off years ago and had a nice set of curves on her, quite an ass, and was pretty as hell. Stereotypically though, DQ can be a little bit 'spacey', slow even. She's got wit and she's a great person, but there's something about her that's a bit off when it comes to interacting with others and catching on to common sense.

The summer started off with P hitting on DQ in a major way - they exchaned numbers and screennames and started chatting up online and on the phone. I played the sidekick role and served as a means for P to find out more about DQ while DQ gushed over him to me, delibirating whether dating him was a good idea or not. I didn't mind one bit - I was pretty indifferent about the guy. He would IM me often for the duration of this flirtation and ask about DQs personality and history, joke around about guys at the park, and pretend to try to "hook me up" with various characters he knew, including his own brothers. The more he talked to me though, the more personal were his questions...

By the time DQ made up her mind and decided she really liked P, he no longer seemed interested. He told me online that he didn't think they would work out anyway, that they were too different, even that she was too immature. DQ, however, continued to have a serious crush on him and it only intensified with the apparent lack of interest on his part (who doesn't love a challenge?) I continued to speak to him online and somewhere along the line he started complimenting me more and more and during one of our conversations he asked me to call him so that we could talk about his cousin who he wanted me to meet.

At this point let me stop and say, Yes I should have known better! But come on, I was a naive, giddy teenager with no relationship experience whatsoever. The closest I had to a boyfriend by this time was a two week summer thing at a sleepaway camp when I was 12 (though almost 13). We held hands awkwardly and hid away during free time to kiss stealthily. Yea, that was pretty much it. I've kissed other guys since then, but only in games of truth or dare and spin the bottle. I had a couple of dates that went awkwardly and didn't amount to anything. I was pretty much a newbie to dating and guys in general. So talking to this older guy was fun for me, and the fact that he paid me enough attention to want to talk about hooking me up with other guys was even more fun.

So I called him. We spoke for a long time, and as you may have guessed his cousin was not the topic of conversation. He was charming and witty, he complimented me and told me how mature and smart I was. He cracked jokes and made me smile. Then he asked me out. I did the only sensible thing I could do and politely told him no, that my best friend still had a crush on him, and that it wouldn't be appropriate. (Besides, I didn't really think of him that way... yet). He continued coaxing me and playing the role of this slain man who just couldn't move on not knowing whether things could have been different. He even wrote me this poem (and I still have it after all these years):

There are miles between us,
Yet you feel so near.
Insults and rejection
Are what I fear.

To hold you, to love you, this is what I want
This is true
How to approach you, to talk to you
I'm yet to figure out how to do.

You're so beautiful, so wonderful
So full of perfectness.
To have you glimpse at me, smile at me
Sends my world into an utter bliss.

The black and white issue
Should never hold us back.
Open-mindedness and acceptance
Is what society lacks.

Would you be willing to be with me
Although I'm black?
And subject to ridicule
And racial attacks?

Put the pieces of the puzzle together
And find out what I'm about.
But don't start something
You're not willing to carry out.

My heart is vulnerable
And yearns for you.
My anxiety and patience
Wonders what you're going to do

Are you going to accept me, feel me,
Give me the time of day?
Is this the right path, right route,
Is this the right of way?

If no, say nothing
And this is the last poem you'll receive.
My longing for you doesn't end with this poem,
This you can believe.

I don't expect you to say yes,
To get involved with an older man.
But if you do, look around~
I'll be there to love you
All that I can.

Yes I was charmed and giddy. It was very exciting and at the same time I didn't really know what to do. It would hurt my friend terribly if she knew that the guy she was infatuated with was trying to talk to her best friend. I thought it might be better if I waited until she didn't like him anymore to tell her that he had tried to hit on me (afterall, crushes came and went at this stage of our lives). So I pretended that I disliked him. It was so believable that she would sometimes go to great lengths to try to convince me that he was a good guy and that I should really give him a break.

Well, it worked. I don't think it was her coaxing that worked of course, but his. Eventually I gave in and started flirting back. A couple of times we met up secretely and hung out at the park by ourselves or went to the mall. Remember though, I was very inexperienced so this flirty relationship we had was pretty much all it was - flirting. We didn't really kiss, we didn't hold hands. He never even put me in a situation where we'd be able to kiss and he only asked for kisses when there was no way I could give them to him (like while we were in the park and everyone else was there). He didn't ever ask for kisses when we were alone....

This is getting long, I'll have to continue next time ;)

ciao

Religious Folk Would Have a Field Trip With This Dream or "I Want My Mommy"

2005-07-18T03:09:00.000-05:00

HOLY FUCKAROO! I can't believe I still have nightmares. I woke up from this dream about 20 minutes ago and when I woke up I scribbled down my reactions and my dream as best as I could. This is word for word what I wrote down as I woke up (excuse the simplistic, scared-shitless, bumbly, stuttery language - I was shaken out of my mind)

"Wow I just had a real nightmare. I woke up and called [P] right away. In it, I was trying to get out, I think I was trying to wake up, but I physically couldn't do it. The image was that I was in a dark room and I kept trying to get past whoever was at the door but they weren't letting me out. There was a lot more meaning to me being stuck in that room and I knew that in my dream, I knew that this was it, this is what life is all about, and I couldn't believe it. I woke up screaming 'No! No!... Nooooo!' And I'm not sure if I was only saying it in my head or if I said it out loud too. When I got enough willpower to escape the room it was literally sucking me back in. I went to try to find my parents, my brother, but all the other doors inthe hallway led nowhere. The hallway looped around so that I had to walk past the evil room no matter what, it just brought me back there. And I was terrified. I mean I was scared for REAL that this was it - this is 'the meaning of life' and that I can't do anything - I can't find 'the light' or my loved ones and that this room is so powerful....

It was so bad that I had to turn on the light when I woke up. I examined the window and window shade - it looked like the door opening that I was trying to get to but couldn't

There was someone else there, in the light. I was calling out to him to help me, but I couldn't find him once I escaped the room. I was calling out to my parents I think...
I just remember trying to muster up the strenght...making numerous attempts and failing each time to get out. And somehow I knew it was all mental, that it had to do with willpower.

I remember thinking how when I went back to the real world it wouldn't matter anymore because now I knew what it was really about. I knew what life REALLY was. As in, what's behind the curtain...

The image of that dark room still haunts me. It's like it can open up and suck you in and then you can't get out. There was an evil little creature, a girl I think, at the door to that room, laughing at me. While I was trying to get out I could only see sillhouete of something dark at the door. I don't think it was her. I think I was afraid of that thing that was keeping me in the room."

Yes, I am aware of all the imagery and metaphors, etc. that this dream evokes. I'm well aware.

With that, I'm going back to bed. I have to be up in less than 3 hours.

Digging for Dirt and Meet DQ

2005-07-16T17:17:00.000-05:00

Maybe I'm just not an angry enough person. I can never find something worthy enough to bitch and complain about in detail. Sure I can comment on the humid weather we've been having lately and the fact that my Algebra prof suddenly went homework happy on us, but that's not the kind of material that makes for exciting reading. People want sweat, blood, and tears to be poured out over the page... or at least a bit about sex. Well, having my boyfriend 300 miles away certainly eliminates that topic. No one really wants to hear about happy shmabby revelations or the wonderful time I had today picnicing with my roomates in the serene and peaceful park that's our little secret. And to be honest, I won't really want to reread sappy entries about singing birds and light breezes on the old fashioned wooden swing. Thus, I certainly won't tell you about the card game we played where spoons are a must and subsituting plastic forks or knifes could even be dangerous.

On to more dramatic topics:
Since my life is currently relatively undramatic (except the fact that my boyfriend recently cursed out my brother and his girlfiend, but that doesn't make for that interesting of a story to be honest), I'll have to sink down to the level of a sneaky little bitch and talk about my friends behind their back.

I don't actually do that in life, but I do tend to keep a lot of things inside that I wish I could say outloud.

For example, my best friend who I met in 5th grade and have known for a looong loooong time - let's call her DQ for DelinQuent Drama Queen, is currently dating a man 12 years older than her who wants to have babies with her and get married. Now, I don't have an issue with the age gap or even the fact that he wants to take the relationship seriously. What I don't understand is how in the hell she can take him seriously.

The man is unemployed and has been for quite some time and he's so broke at this point that he can't afford subway fare on a regular basis and often doesn't have enough money to even feed himself. He's living with his sister and trying to get a job, but all the while he's talking to DQ about how much he would want to marry her and spend the rest of his life with her. They've known each other for about 2 months if that much.

He even asked her how she feels about abortion, what would she do if she got pregnant at this point in her life, and so on. I'm thinking, "GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HIM". This man literally can't feed himself, yet he's talking to you about children. But my dear friend DQ says, "Oh I know he wouldn't do that, he's not that type of person." Really dear? Because you know him so goddamn well! This is a man who fucked up his life by doing so much pot that he coudn't stay in school. Though of course he regrets it all now that he's "older and wiser".

I'm not saying you can't give people a second chance in life, but at the same time you need to be realistic. Don't fall for a man who you know from the jump doesn't take shit seriously enough. Yes, it is harder for him to get a job because he has a misdemeanor on his record, but it's not impossible. There are jobs out there and if he didn't feel like he was "too good" for certain types of work he would be able to feed himself and have enough money for subway fare to be able to make it to interviews for other job opportunities. It's one thing if he can afford to take some time off and really look for a good job because he has savings in the bank. But you just can't do that when you know that you're barely living from day to day.

DQ, please, open your eyes. I know you like him and you like the fact that he likes you. I understand that you like the attention from men. Just be careful! I really don't think either of you can handle any babies right now.

Why another blog?

2005-07-15T22:55:00.000-05:00

This is my third and final attempt at keeping a blog that will not only get updated on a regular basis, BUT will also keep the important people interested enough to read it. The important people are: me, myself, and I. Yup, you got it. My previous blogging attemps left me so bored with myself that I would cry in pain just looking at my blog. Why do you ask? Clearly, because I kept the damn blog linked to all my profiles and online sites so that every goddamn person I knew could easily get to it and read all the jibber-jabber. So I had to keep it clean, PC, and most of all... BORING. You see, I wasn't writing for me, I was writing for them.
Well let me be the first to say, FUCK YOU "them". This is a blog of liberation. This blog will NOT be linked to anything related to me,myself, and I. Thus, if you know me in real life and you find this blog and read my bullshit it's your OWN damn fault. I didn't ask for your presence and don't let the door hit you on your way out.

Having said that, let me clarify what I mean by this being a blog of "liberation". The concept is that I WON'T need to censor myself or anything that goes in here. This includes details about my life that might hypothetically be connected together by a person I know in real life and lead them to guess who I am. I don't really care. The chances of someone I know browsing this blog randomly, without it being linked to my life in any way, are slim enough. The chances that the person would stay long enough or care enough to figure out who I am are even slimmer. And if they do - I don't REALLY CARE! (I think you get the pattern here).

So, without further ado, this is my blog.