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Brendan James' voice blows my mind, not to mention his lyrics....

"All I Can See"

I want to walk through this doorway

I want to open my mind

I want to pledge my allegiance to all I can find

I want a car that will crash through the barrier

to a road no one knows

I want to feel less control more abandon

I want to land far from home

The revolution of the earth around the sun

is a perfect lesson of how it should be

So if I can I'll learn to journey and return

to never rest til I've seen all I can see

I want to learn a completely new language

One I don't understand

I want to help someone lost someone helpless

With the strength of my hands

I want to come to the base of a statue built before they counted the years

and there I'll fall with my face in my hands and cry 

and feel their hopes in my tears

The revolution of the earth around the sun

is a perfect lesson of how it should be

So if I can I'll learn to journey and return

to never rest til I've seen all I can see

Train rides and pastures colliding, colors and customs I've never seen

I know I, yes I know I, I know I will stumble but time is precious my friend

For those who journey can easily understand the more they see the more they'll learn

the more that they can be

so this I swear to you, and this I swear to me

I'll never rest 'til I've seen all I can see

No I'll never rest 'til I've seen all I can see

I want to know where the strength of a person lies

In their past or their future

Is it in the way they they hurt or they love themselves, or is it all an illusion

I want to crawl from this skin that I'm painted in body please let it give

I want to find the creator of all good things and ask what it means to live. 

"Hero's Song"

Here I am in the desert again

A compass and a weapon 

a lost American

I started out with a simple plan and a locket in my hand

But the sun's so unforgiving and the wind so hard to stand

Fall out fall out with the rest of your brothers

With the rest of your sisters

Heroes on the line

And carry out what your leader says

for what his leader says is that his leader says this is right for the people

No one will ever understand why thousands of beautiful healthy young statues must fall

Smoke and explosion surround me

a flood of hate it drowns me

I cannot live this way, no I can not live with

Doubt and confusion they find me they run up right behind me

I cannot die this way, no I can not die this way

In the water in the sand is the blood of a culture

is the blood of an ancient people in whose holy war I stand

I hear the world like a cannon roar say I can't win this war

But I promise them this is not what I signed up for

No one will ever understand why thousands of beautiful healthy young statues must fall

Smoke and explosion surround me

a flood of hate it drowns me

I cannot live this way, no I can not live with

Doubt and confusion they find me they run up right behind me

I cannot die this way, no I can not die this way

No one will ever understand why thousands of beautiful healthy young soldiers must fall

Smoke and explosion surround me

a flood of hate it drowns me

I cannot live this way, no I can not live with

Doubt and confusion they find me they run up right behind me

I cannot die this way, no I can not die this way

***Seriously. Do yourself a favor and listen to this guy.***

The Plunge

Yep. I'm taking it. THE PLUNGE. Let me  back up a couple of days to orient you to where my readiness to take The Plunge begins. This will, in turn, allow me a process through which I can actually explain what The Plunge is, and the ways that I am going to take the leap into it. 

I went to Seattle on Saturday. The purpose of the trip was to visit my great friend Michelle, who has been, for all intents and purposes, my rock since we met and began our friendship somewhere around the Fall of 2007. She is the most level-headed, calm and confident woman I know, and has the uncanny ability to transfer those qualities to whomever she's talking to or working with. Needless to say, since the beginning of March or so, I have been in great need of her guidance, reflective assistance, and insight. 

I have been extraordinarily subdued and even more introspective than usual these last few months. Something about graduating from college with no plans as to a subsequent step combined with going through a really rough patch in a couple of different relationships (romantic and platonic) has really thrown me for a loop. I have felt lost, underwhelmed, uninspired, and just plain gray and foggy. There has been haze. Lots of haze. 

Most notable of all in this struggle has been an unwillingness or disinterest in finding out and following through with the things that make me happy. I have spent too much time aimlessly searching the web, tracking people down on s/n sites and stalking their pages (come on, you do it, too), sleeping and eating crappy food. I have definitely not spent nearly enough time doing the things that make me happy: reading, writing, exercising, keeping in real contact with loved ones through letters or phone calls (i.e. Facebook messages do not count), or leading an even pseudo-active lifestyle. 

My questions before I went to Seattle were: Who's fault is this? Is this B's fault? Can I blame him for my unhappiness? Do we have to break up? What is keeping me from doing the things that are good for me? What is it in my brain that wants me to be unhappy? Why am I making myself destined to fail? 

Enter Michelle. Together, we spent three days going through all my shit. My heavy emotions, my uncertainties, pinpointing target issues, identifying what I want and what I don't, my habits–good and bad—my hopes and dreams and desires and fears and short- and long-term goals. 

Yes. She is a badass. And we did lots of other fun and amazing things to, but this is not my "What I did in Seattle" blog. That will come later. 

With her help, I realized that I was projecting all my negative energy at B, blaming a lot of my shit on him, and was close to unfairly and prematurely shutting down an awesome relationship because I was too blind/stubborn/tunnel visioned/chicken shit to realize that I have a ton of stuff to work on. 

The good news is that I have a great idea of what I want to do, the kind of person I want to be, and the things that are necessary to do and be to get me there. And I think I can do it all in the context of our relationship. The other great thing is I think he can get some time in to work on his own happiness/healthiness, too. 

Now, enter T.P. 

Because now, all I have to do is do it. Take The Plunge. Stop making excuses. Commit to being the best version of myself. Find out what makes me happy and healthy. And do it. 

So here's my list. My Plunge. My commitments and goals that will help me do this. 

1. Sleep 8 hours a night (not 10 or 12).

2. Work on the computer only for work and for the occasional blogging or emailing. Basically, spend as little time on it as possible.

3. Read books instead of watching shows on abc.com.

4. Journal.

5. Cook.

6. Work out regularly. Thanks to Luke and Joey at CCVBC, I am now committed to two days a week of intense physical activity. On top of this, I'd like to do something active everyday, whether it's take a walk, go on a jog, a hike, go to the park, whatever. 

7. Eat what's good for me, not what will taste good for 30 seconds and then make me feel like a bloated corpulent swine.

8. Keep my apartment clean. Keep up with laundry and vacuuming, and don't let shit pile up on my counter. 

9. Go through my belongings and shitcan what I don't need. The fact that I have effortlessly filled a 2-bedroom apartment with stuff disgusts me. I need to get rid of it. 

10. Be gentle with myself. Be as respectful of myself as I would be to those whom I love most dearly. 

11. Spend time alone. Because 7 days a week with B is great. But I would be doing myself a huge favor to split the time up and take care of myself, too. 

That's it. I'm doing it. Right now. 

On my way to Sea-Town

Woohoo!!!  How excited am I? It's my friend Michelle's birthday today, so I took the opportunity to use our close-together birthdays as an excuse to get out of town for a couple of days. Actually, five days. Which I shouldn't be counting so closely, but when you can get out of Reno, you gotta appreciate every second that you get. 

Plans are to spend many, many hours catching up with Mich and getting to know her friends and the life she's created up there. I'm so stoked to refresh our friendship after six months or so of not seeing one another. You all know I'm notoriously hideous at keeping up with phone calls, so I'm amazed she'll even still welcome me into her house!

My aunt, uncle and baby girl cousin are also coming in from the eastern part of the state to hang out for dinner and maybe a picnic. Can't wait to see them. Aunt Lisa is also so grounding, so affirming, so reassuring. I am so looking forward to that kind of energy right now. 

Hope also to get in a cup of coffee with Mr. Zammit, Brian's best friend and all-around wonderful guy. I wonder if he's playing at all this weekend, because that would be great to see him. It's been a long time since the Uncut/Malfoy days. 

Speaking of Malfoy, did everyone see the new HP trailer? I'm going to be in Oz when it comes out, so P, that's one thing we can tack up on our to-do list!

Sorry, most random rapid fire blog ever. Gotta do some quick shopping and pack before my afternoon flight. Have a great Memorial Day!

Workin' it out

Several times over the last six months, I have had an overwhelming feeling of sadness when thinking about how my last living situation worked out. This has intensified over the last few days; every time I have a birthday I reflect on who I spend it with—who I want to spend time with versus who I really don't want to spend time with. I've been running the last months that we all lived together through my head over and over again, trying to figure out when the communication broke down completely and how I became the total odd-man-out. Did I do something horrible that I don't remember? Am I completely unbearable to live with? Had our friendships run their courses? I can't for the life of me arrive at any kind of solid conclusion. I'm thinkin' either A) they both were incredibly patient on the outside but on the inside really hated Hank and it got to be too much (this is entirely possible since he is a huge pain in the ass), B) they got sick of my mood swings and quietness (12 credits, an honors thesis and two jobs is likely to take a bit of the wind out your sails), or C) they hated Brian, or my consistent reflecting and advice-requesting on our relationship. Likely it's secret option letter D) a combination of all these things.
As I'm putting this all down in front of me, I realize that there was decent reason for them to be sick of me and happy to be rid of me and move on to a happy life together. I can't blame them for pulling away, or letting me pull away, or not being the first to take a step to improve the communication. On the other hand though, I am a bit indignant. I am still angry/stung/hurt at the fact that there were no graduation well-wishes, no acknowledgement that the intensity of my semester and previous five years had paid off. And after writing everything above, if any of the letter options do account for the fact that we are no longer friends, I wish they would have told me that I was bothering them so much that there was a possibility, even a liklihood, that we would no longer be friends.
I don't absolve myself of the responsibilty either. I was too proud/indignant/hurt/in denial to make the first move to resolve any communication problems. And I did make the decision to move out on my own and separate from the arrangement as it had been for the previous 18 months (although I'm sure that made everyone happy).
So what to do now? It's been six months with no talk, no texts, no fb or myspace messages, no tweets. And I'm having a hard time letting it go. I have dreams, memories etc about the girls, even the dogs. I've been considering writing an email and just letting them know that I miss them and that if they're interested in a friendship then I'd be thrilled. But for some reason I'm scared. Of getting shut out I guess. Maybe our relationship really did run its course for them, maybe they got everything out of me that i could give them. Most of me still really doesn't want to be the vulnerable one, since I am still really hurt and angry at the way things ended.
Anyway, I guess the point of this is just to work it out...to straighten things up in my head and come to some acceptance or some place of understanding. If you have any advice, I'd love to hear it. I have the sneaking suspicion though that this is one of those things I'm going to have to let go of and get over. Which I'm horrible at. Eek.

"What if this is as good as it gets?"

This line from the great Nicholson/Hunt/Kinnear film has been stuck in my head. (I promise not to begin every blog with a quote from a television show or a movie—but sometimes they just pop in there...what are you going to do?) Jack delivers it perfectly, and whoever staged that scene was brilliant; the question is asked in the waiting room of a psychiatrist's office...and it is pretty clear that the idea that this is, in fact, as good as it gets, terrifies the occupants inside.

But what if it is? Despite all its ups and downs and twists and turns and my best efforts to make it otherwise, life is damn good. I am a lucky, lucky girl to have been afforded the experiences I have and to be able to do all the things I do (whatever they may be). While I recognize this, I am still stuck on this question. Is this it? Is there more? If it is this good now, what would it feel like to be more excitedstimulatedpassionateintenseconfidentandfree? I have an inkling that it is not possible that I've experience all the placespeopleculturessubjects in the world. I turn 24 on Wednesday, and I realize that there has to be more than this.

The only constant in life is change...

Did you see that Friends episode, the one where they all make New Years resolutions? Monica teases Rachel about not following through on the one she made the year before, and runs to get a journal from Rachel's room. Monica reads the first entry—"Dear Diary, I am so excited to write in you everyday! I promise that I'm going to fill you up! I'll see you tomorrow!" Then she flips through all the empty pages in the book and says, "See? Nothin'!"

Returning to this blog reminded me of that episode, since I haven't written since that first day and thought that if I didn't do it today I wouldn't do it at all. I've heard it takes 14 days to create a habit, and twice as long to break a bad one. I'll play it safe, and hope that after 24 more entries this will get easier.

I suppose the hard part is not actually writing, but is rather accepting that once you start it will just sort of happen. I don't necessarily need to look for a topic, or a lead or a nutgraph for that matter. I just need to sit down and let my fingers move over the keys and feel the words as they come out through the cursor and onto the screen. This is what P would suggest anyway, and she knows best!

My best friend, a man who is practically my brother, proposed to his girlfriend yesterday. She said yes, somewhere on a boat in Boston Harbor ( I think—I haven't quite gotten the details about it as they left this a.m. bright and early for Costa Rica to see her family). I'm absolutely thrilled for them as they are quite possibly two of the most intelligent, thoughtful, funny and beautiful people I know.

Naturally, being me I automatically apply this situation to my life and send myself into a long tail-spin reflection...long enough to last me the drive from Sac to Reno. When Nevada gets married, what does that mean for me? Are people my age, who I have grown up with, even old enough to be engaged at this point? I feel like a lot of us are still trying to remove the pacifiers from our mouths. Don't get me wrong, if anyone is meant to be married and share a life, it's those two. I guess it just really freaks me out that we're of that age where we can start making those kinds of commitments, and eventually make people and stuff!

In the midst of my hesitation to accept this fact that people my age are getting married (I hardly feel old enough to walk across the street alone), I was surprised to realize that I have been in a serious relationship for 6 years. What the heck have I been doing? Where do I think this is going? After six years, a break up, an apartment, a house, and a cat together, where do I think this is headed if not down Marriage Way? We talk about it, make playful plans for the future, and loosely consider the other to be the shadowy figure at our side in all our future fantasies. But I have to be honest that the thought of actually making that commitment really caught me in a state of hesitancy. Or maybe more like a state of run-as-fast-as- you-can-in-the-other-direction.

I'm not sure if this is because of the person I'm with, or because of the person I am, or a combination of the two. All I know is that, while I could not be happier for my friends, the idea of making a REAL commitment scares the hell out of me. It's more than a 'let me cook for you sometimes and you'll help me clean my apartment and we can go see movies together a lot' kind of relationship. It's a real, 'you're the only one and let's have kids' kind of relationship. EEK. I am definitely not there yet.

Franklin would say I'm insane

Well, thanks to my dear friend P Roo, who knows how to manipulate me into doing what's best for myself more than most people, I am back at the blogging. I've tried multiple times over the last nine years to do this with any sort of regularity (even irregularity can still in some ways be regular...but generally I can't even muster up that much consistency). Blogging to me is much like trying to lose weight, eat right, keep in touch with people from far away, etc. I'll be really good at it for, like, a week. And then a year later I realize that I dropped the ball...and I'll decide to try again. This is why good ol' Benji Franklin (among others) would say that I'm insane/crazy/loca/folle whathaveyou. I'm great at trying things again and again and expecting that they will somehow turn out better, or at least different.
Despite my reluctance, I'm feeling a twinge of excitement at starting up again. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether or not this is the time that it will actually stick. Do you like the way that I absolve myself of all responsibility, like I don't actually have a choice in the matter? I'm really good at that, as you'll see in subsequent posts. Most of the time I wish I didn't believe in free will so that destiny could just make all of my decisions for me and force me to fill my proper role in this world. Wouldn't that be nice?
Of course, this desire to take a backseat in the decision-making of my own life may stem from my current situation. Post-undergrad (semi-recent—Dec. 2008—though long enough ago to have to stop making the "I'm still adjusting" excuse), pre-grad school and career, early-to-mid 20s (in 15 days I will be 24!), and not a clue what the next step will be. Travel? Peace Corps? Working in the non-profit world? Coaching volleyball for the rest of my life? Writing a book? I am everywhere, and I am nowhere. All options are open.
Which brings be back to the excitement aspect of blogging again, and actually, of my life in general. You'll find that I switch off and on like electricity in west Africa; one moment I feel dried out, void of energy and inspiration (these are they days when I sleep 12 hours, wake up to eat, watch TV, and return to bed to nap). The next I feel motivated, driven, ready to grab the world by the horns...as it were (these are the days when I sleep 12 hours, wake up to eat, watch TV, and return to bed to nap, but feel really good about it).
I hope that through writing regularly again I can find some insight into myself and life in general. I hope that I can start to realize what makes me really happy, and that I can muster up the will power to follow through with those things. Regardless, this blog should serve as a (hopefully humorous) chronology of my efforts...and with any luck, will help me grow and learn and laugh. Which is, at the end of any day, what I hope I am always able to do.