NYC & NYE

ETA: Please go vote for my list on To-Do List blog's "craziest list" contest.

VOTE HERE

The poll is in the left-hand column, fairly far down the page now. My list is "Words and Phrases I Want to Use". The contest ends on the 31st, and I'm currently in second place. I'd really like to win. Please vote!


And now, on to the entry



Sometimes I hate standing still.

To be honest, I'm never very good at it (thank you, ADHD). I feel a constant need to fidget, move, dance... Staying in one place doesn't appeal to me.

I've loved having this break from work for awhile. It's nice to remember who you are when you're not scheduled to be anywhere. Schedule-less, other plans start to form in my nebular life. (I wanted to write "nebulaic", but according to spellcheck and a search on Google, "nebular" is the correct form. Go figure.)

My family decided to take a trip into New York City for the day on Saturday. I went along, somewhat begrudgingly. When I was younger, I had a love affair with Manhattan. I thought it was magical somehow. I thought I belonged there. That feeling has waned. Now when I walk through Times Square, I see a tourist attraction. Maybe it's just because I live in Chicago, but New York seems sort of fake to me now. I've become less enchanted with it. Not that there's anything wrong with New York; it just isn't want I wanted it to be.

We elected to see a Broadway show while we were in town. After a great deal of debate over what show we should see (and, it seemed, no one being 100% happy with the chosen show... the joys of compromise), we ended up getting tickets to The Farnsworth Invention. It's the first non-musical I've ever seen on Broadway (as my family generally gravitates toward spectacle), which means I can cross something else off of my list of things to do before I die ("see a play on Broadway": check!). And, I have to say, I really enjoyed it. I found it to be entertaining, educational, and thought-provoking. And I got a little emotional near the end of the play. I don't think the rest of my family got quite as much out of it as I did, but I don't think there's any way they could have. My brothers aren't ever going to appreciate theatre the way I do. My father was still disappointed that we hadn't gone to see Cyrano de Bergerac (which, actually, three of us voted for, but we didn't see due to a misunderstanding of who-wanted-what), so nothing was going to completely please him. And my mother... I think she just really wanted to go see something big and shiny like Mamma Mia! for the fourth time, which this play most definitely was not. Ah well. I loved it. And as the resident actor of the family, I like to think that my opinion matters most in this case. Or maybe not.

While in the city, we also went on a hunt for Pinkberry, which my brother and I had read about online and wanted to experience firsthand. Pinkberry is a sort of frozen dessert (I don't know if it's a frozen yogurt or ice cream or what... I'm not even sure it's dairy). It comes in two flavors: "Pinkberry" (Pinkberry-flavored Pinkberry ingredients list: "straw, rasp, blue, blackberries, & pinkberry"... what the heck a pinkberry is, I still don't know) and "Green Tea" ("green tea & pinkberry", which my dad preferred but the rest of us were repulsed by). It was a good experience. My mother described the icy mystery treat as "frozen yogurt crossed with lemon Italian ice". Frighteningly addictive. I got mine with blueberries. One of my brothers got his with diced mango and Cap'n Crunch, which I thought was an intriguing combination. My other brother referred to it as "Crackberry", saying that one of his classmates spent a good portion of her internship at an advertising agency retrieving Pinkberry for the models.

One other thrilling thing happened in the city. In November, I bought a lovely hat that I adored. I brought it to Connecticut for Thanksgiving, and then promptly lost it upon my return to Chicago (perhaps even in the airport... I don't remember it making it back to my apartment). Today, my brother spotted an identical hat on the table of a street vendor. I happily plunked down another $10 payment to replace my missing headpiece (I'm horrible at bartering... I probably should've tried to talk him down to $8). I'm thrilled. I hope the original hat is very happy, wherever it has ended up. And I hope that if I ever cross paths with it again, it won't be too resentful of its doppelgänger.

So that was New York.

And now, for the New Year.

After a great deal of debate over whether it could, should, or would happen, I found a way to get to Michigan for New Year's Eve, and I'm ecstatic about it. I'll only be in town for a brief whisper of a stay (so I won't be able to see most of the people I love there... sorry guys!), but that's enough for me. It's more than I thought I'd get.

There's a familiarity that I long for.
There are people that I crave.
There are things that need to be said.
And there are some things that can only be sorted out in person.

Sorry for being cryptic, but there's not much else I can say about it until it happens. Or doesn't.

To recycle an emotion from Sondheim that I find myself quoting repeatedly, I feel "excited; well, excited AND scared."

I think it'll be a good trip.


May you never stand still for too long.

~A~


P.S. Favorite "Apples-to-Apples" play of the night: I won "Feminine" with "Feminists". HA! Awesome. Also, my dad won "Insulting" with "Helen Keller", proving the versatility of the card.

I'll Be Fine and Dandy

I left a few of my favorite Christmas traditions off of the last list in order to save something for this post. Surprise!

- Angels
Since my very first Christmas, my Auntie Alice has given me an angel Christmas ornament every year in honor of my name. They're all different. One's fabric. One's made out of a pinecone. One resembles a pillow more than an angel. A couple of them are broken, from years of love. I have a lovely collection now. Last year she didn't give me one, saying that she always thought that the one I got at 21 (my 22nd ornament) would be my last. She thought I'd have grown out of liking it by now. I let her know that I was sad about that. I love it. Somewhat surprisingly, my aunt is the only person who has ever played up the the "angel" in "Angela" (my dad has played up the "gel", trying to get the nickname "Jelly" to stick, which, thank God, it never did). Oddly, someone else got me an angel ornament last year (someone unaware of the tradition), so I still have a full set. I don't know if I'll be getting an ornament this year or not. She hasn't mailed our gifts yet. *crosses fingers* I should really tell people that I like angel things more often. Maybe they'd buy me ornaments as a way to get into my good graces... It would probably work. (SHHH! Don't tell. Wouldn't want to make it too easy on anyone.)

- Christmas Pajamas
I debated even putting this on here because it's so excruciatingly dorky, but I love it. Every year, my mother buys "Christmas pajamas" for my brothers and I. We get them on Christmas Eve, and change into them before the gift exchanging begins. She started it when we were kids. One year, she forgot the pajamas, and we were furious. So she's kept up the tradition. This year, I got some decent ones (although I had to wear a hoodie over them for the gift giving, as I didn't want to wear a bra with the pajamas, and they're made of a thin material. The pants are as well, so my brother pointed out he could see my pink underwear... If it were anyone other than a family member, it would've been beyond mortifying.) My brothers hated the bottoms they got with wine bottles all over them, complaining that they weren't "classy". But really, Christmas pajamas aren't supposed to be classy. They're supposed to be ridiculous. I think my mom nailed it.

- Young Frankenstein
I've always thought of Young Frankenstein as a Christmas movie. Strange, right? I have a childhood memory involving watching it as my family was either putting up or taking down a Christmas tree. I was picking up pine needles and watching the movie, with all the dirty jokes (and some of the clean ones) flying over my head. Anyway. I always have a craving to watch it in winter. A few years ago, my dad bought it on Christmas Eve, saying that it seemed like a perfect Christmas movie to him (my dad and I have a similar sense of humor. We even have the same favorite movie, Animal House, which we also have in common with my youngest brother). So we watch it together around Christmas. We haven't gotten to it yet this year, but hopefully we still will. After all, I'm home for another four days.


Oh, and going back to "The Last Present" that I mentioned last time... My mom won this year! It was amazing. My dad hid two presents, but, thinking that he was the last to give anything, broke them both out from hiding. And then my mom revealed that she'd been hiding one for my dad in the closet. Brilliant! My dad claimed that, since he gave two at once, he COULD have won. Then my mom tried to say it wasn't a competition, but we all know it is. Yay Mom!

I finished off the bottle of Midori while we were opening presents. Everyone else was drinking non-alcoholic cinnamon eggnog. That's right. I was drinking, and my family wasn't. I think they were confused. Especially since at dinner I had toasted with skim milk against their glasses of red wine. Ah well.

The cinnamon rolls were made (although I fell asleep before helping much). I helped deliver them to the new neighbors. The people who live next-door are Jewish, speak with an East Coast dialect, and want to have the whole family over for drinks (including my underage brothers). Yeah, this is definitely a new neighborhood. Merry Everything!

At church I sang the alto parts to the carols. My dad asked why I did that instead of just reading the music (my father knows that I inherited his ability to sight-read). I shrugged and told him that the alto parts just feel more "right" to me. And I sang them anyway.

My family and I played some rousing games of "Apples to Apples" (one of my gifts this year). I easily won the first couple of rounds, but lost subsequent ones as my family got the hang of it. I enjoy the game because it allows me to utilize my skill in communicating through abstract thought. That, and I know which cards are trumps. There are some cards that will win almost any round. "Amputees", "Rosa Parks", "Anne Frank", "Cults", and "Vietnam, 1968", for example. And the card that I think trumps every other card: "Helen Keller". Honestly, what would she NOT be the best choice for. She wins any category either literally, figuratively, antithetically, or as an ironic statement. Cuddly? Helen Keller. Timeless? Helen Keller. Rare? Helen Keller. Normal? Helen Keller. Loud? Helen Keller. Quiet? Helen Keller. Popular? Helen Keller (although "Ernest Hemingway" won that last night... And "Cults" would've won if it had been played. Or "The KKK". Or "Captain Kirk". Or "Morticians", "Sharks", "Rust", "Milk", "Cabbage"...). You get the idea. One of my favorite plays from yesterday was when I won "Funky" with "Going to Grandma's". Or when I won "Patriotic" with "Will Smith" (I've seen Independence Day and Men in Black. Strangely, someone else played "Alien Abductions" that round, using similar logic). I also liked my brother's play of "Worms" for "Touchy-Feely".

Anyway, if you aren't familiar with "Apples to Apples", you should find someone who owns it and get them to play. I swear, it isn't nearly as lame as it may sound. And I don't remember the last time that my family had that much fun playing a game together.

I also sat down and watched Shaun of the Dead with my dad and youngest brother (I mentioned before that our senses of humor are usually in line). My dad said it was one of the strangest movies he's ever seen, and he didn't seem to love the silliness of it as much as my brother and I do. My dad's the kind of person who asks the logical questions ("Why would he stand by the window?" "Why wouldn't he shoot them?" "Why did he answer his phone?") instead of accepting that it's a movie (a trait he passed down to me that seeps out on occasion... not one of my finer qualities), and asks movie-ruining questions to the people who have seen it before ("Is he going to shoot her now?" "Are they going to kill him before he turns into a zombie?") instead of just watching. Therefore, Shaun of the Dead was the wrong movie for him. Maybe we'll give Psycho Beach Party a try next. But then, my brothers got National Treasure and Superbad for Christmas, and I think they'll want to watch those... Ah well. I always think of Christmastime as movie season.

We were thinking of going to the theater to see a movie, but it seems everyone is rooting to see something different. The votes were cast for National Treasure 2, Walk Hard, Juno, Enchanted, and Sweeney Todd. (Ready for a surprise? My vote was Juno. That means that three of my family members voted for musical movies, and I didn't. Weird). I'd be willing to see any of them, really. Except for NT2, as I haven't seen NT1 yet... but maybe we'll remedy that.

You know, as much as I complained about being here instead of in Michigan, it's nice to have had a couple of holidays with just my immediate family. Usually we're with my mom's whole family, sometimes with my dad's, and on a few occasions had both families at our place. Frankly, it's a lot less pressure without them around. I haven't had to worry about looking particularly put together. It doesn't matter if the house is spotless. And, perhaps the biggest relief, I don't have to worry about what I can say in front of whom. Normally I have to not avoid words like "stupid" in front of the children (who have been instructed to treat it like a curse word). I can't discuss politics in front of the adults (as every married couple in my family seems to be comprised of a republican and a democrat). I'm not supposed to mention that I have friends who are gay, atheist, or cohabitating in front of the Latin-Mass-preferring, pre-Vatican-II Catholics. But with just my immediate family, the censorship is gone, most taboo words are fair play, and subject bans have been lifted. Excellent. Also, it has given me the freedom to wander around my house in pajamas at all hours of the day. And really, is there a better gift than that?

So maybe this extremely long stay in a place that isn't quite home isn't so bad after all. Don't get me wrong, my soul is still aching a little, but it's nothing that time won't heal.


And now for a final thought that my choir-member friends from back home might appreciate... (despite being a little late)

On this day, I wish you good cheer
To the friends I love, far and near
May this holiday be a joyous day
And may God bless you all
And may He bring you a happy new year.

~A~


P.S. The title is taken from lyrics to "Hard Candy Christmas" from the musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

P.P.S. I have the sudden urge to sing "This Little Babe" from "A Ceremony of Carols". Oh, how I miss my Someko (a choir I was a member of back in high school).

P.P.P.S. Happy St. Stephen's Day! Happy Boxing Day! And a very happy everything!

ETA - I forgot my favorite Apples-to-Apples move! For the word "Realistic", my brother played "Romeo & Juliet". GENIUS!

Not Quite Merry and Bright

Here's a quirky fact about me: after years of being an alto in various choirs, I have difficulty remembering the melodies of carols. I always sing strange harmony parts that I've picked up at one time or another. There are some songs that I flat out don't know the melody to (such as It's a Marshmallow World in the Winter, or whatever that horrid wreck of a song is called... had to learn it in a choir, but didn't know it outside of that). It's very strange. And with the possible exceptions of the harmonies I know for Angels We Have Heard on High and Silver Bells, alto lines are boring. Usually, they're just a sequence of of notes that are lower than the melody line by thirds or fifths. Either that, or they consist of three notes sung in a random, somewhat repetitive order. I'm always a little nervous about singing carols as I walk around town, because I'm so worried that I'll accidentally start singing the alto part and people near me will just think I'm tragically tone deaf.

Generally, I'm a big fan of Christmas-time. People always seem a little cheerier than normal. A little more generous, perhaps. It's contagious. But this year... I don't know. It's like it isn't quite clicking into place for me.

My family was driving around today, and we all started snapping at each other. We stopped for lunch at a rest area with a food court. I wasn't hungry, so I sat down at a table by myself as everyone else ordered their meals. I sat and begin to question whether the car trip had put me in a bad mood, or if I was in one already. I started getting upset without much cause or warning. And then the speakers playing holiday music started emitting a woman's voice singing, I'll Be Home for Christmas.

Before I knew what was happening, there were tears streaming down my face. I tried to stop crying, but I couldn't. I ran up to my parents and asked if I could wait in the car. They started asking if one of my brother's had taunted me, and if that was the cause for my tears. I mumbled something about the song. My dad handed me the keys, and as I hurried away I heard him explain to my mother that I wanted to be in Michigan for Christmas. Not in Connecticut.

I climbed into the back of the mini-van and just started sobbing. One of my brothers called me on his cell phone to ask if I was alright, so I said I was. I tried calling a friend on the phone, but he didn't answer. After a few minutes, my mother came into the car and asked if I was okay. I gave her an "I don't want to talk about it" brush off, and she sat there with me until my dad and the boys returned.

This is the longest period of time I've spent away from Michigan in my entire life (and that includes the semester I spent abroad). When I was four, we moved into the house I call "home", and now I haven't been there since the first week of August. And I don't know if/when I'll be back. It just feels... wrong. Something is different. Missing. Lost. I've been with my family for two days, but I feel like I'm still waiting to get home.

I have a nasty crying-induced headache now. As I've mentioned before (see A Little Water Clears Us), when I start crying, it stays in me for awhile. The rest of my family is downstairs watching television together, but I wanted to get away from that. So I'm in "my" room, breathing somewhat erratically and trying not to relapse into my liquid state.



I'm sure it will be better tomorrow, once we start celebrating. We'll take on our old traditions, and things will start fitting together again.

And now, for one of my signature lists:

- Truffles
My dad makes chocolate truffles. He's let me help him since I was a wee child. I don't remember when it started. I don't really remember my brothers ever getting involved. It was more between my dad and me. Earlier today, my dad was searching for his recipe, and when I showed signs of excitement, my mother said she didn't know I helped with the truffles. No idea how it has escaped her attention for almost twenty years.

- Cinnamon Rolls
My parents made cinnamon rolls every Christmas Eve while they were Santa-Claus-ing, and we'd have them for breakfast on Christmas morning. Once we grew out of the Santa thing, my brothers and I began helping. Now we make batches upon batches, and give them to neighbors as gifts.

- Carols
My dad is a phenomenal pianist, and he likes to play every carol imaginable while the rest of the family sings. Of course, now that we're in Connecticut, my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandmother aren't here to sing... So it'll really just be me and my mother. And maybe one of my brothers. Not quite the same.

-The Over-Wrapped Present
This one has been absent for the last couple of Christmas celebrations, so maybe we've grown out of it. Every year with my brothers and I, someone would give someone else something in which the wrapping was more fun than the gift itself. Like a Russian-doll inspired wrapping job with a box in a box in a box. Or putting a small present in a huge box, and including some large books from around the house inside to make the box heavy in case they tried to shake it to guess what it was.

- The Last Present
We exchange presents on Christmas Eve, and for some reason it's a big deal to give the last present of the night. We've never even verbalized this; it's just understood. This was my dad's specialty, but occasionally others of us will try to fight him for the honor. We'll hide presents around the room. Once nothing is left under the tree, someone will say, "Wait! I've got one more." Once that's unwrapped, someone else will have one more... One year, I hid three presents under Santa hats around the room, which I broke out after I thought everyone else was done. My dad still "won", by putting a present for my mom on top of a bookshelf (and it was a HUGE gift in clear sight. No idea how no one saw it). Last year, he hid something between chairs in our family room by cleverly NOT wrapping it, but instead leaving it in a plastic bag. Somehow, it didn't register that it was a gift at all. I only bought one present per person this year, so I won't be in the running to give the last gift. Ah well. Maybe next year.

- The Pickle
This is a new thing for us. There's this urban legend that in Germany families hide a pickle somewhere in the Christmas tree, and the child who finds it gets an extra present. My dad claims that this is a fake tradition that doesn't actually exist in Germany, but we think it's hilarious nonetheless. So last year, my mother put a hamburger dill in the Christmas tree, and it was really just a race to find it before the dog did. This year, I bought a pickle ornament at Christkindlmarket (a German Christmas fair in Chicago), but when I got here I realized that the tree is much smaller than we used to have. In Michigan, our family room had a high ceiling, allowing for thirteen foot trees. This year, the tree is not much taller than the giant mutant beanstalks I call brothers. So maybe we won't hide a pickle. But I'll still get a kick out of seeing the ornament.

- The Emotional Breakdown
It seems that every holiday, someone in my family has an emotional breakdown. Before the holiday is over, someone has run out of the room crying. Sometimes there's a fight. Sometimes it's completely irrational. At least one time it was alcohol-induced. A few years back on New Year's Eve we had a huge family blowout (and we were in Paris at the time... it was miserable), in which I think every one of us was screaming, crying, and verbally attacking the others. I've had a few Thanksgivings in the past where I was the insane one (the relative I was named after died on Thanksgiving, and I've always wondered if I have a negative feel for it because of that. Also worth noting: she died after being hit by a car while crossing the street, which made me getting hit by a car especially terrifying for my mother). New Year's Eve is traditionally mine. I had more than one argument with my mother about why I wouldn't "toast with the family" (my family is big into social drinking, so I stopped drinking as a form of rebellion when I was younger), and someone ran to my room to drag me downstairs minutes before the ball dropped. But this year, it looks like I've got Christmas wrapped up.


May you feel at home for the holidays.

Much love,

~A~


P.S. The origin of the word "merry" was as meaning "blessed", not "joyous/happy/festive" as it has evolved to signify. So have a blessed holiday season (and know that I mean it as two syllables... bless-éd is so much more fun to say). After all, blessings are what the winter holidays are all about.

P.P.S. I had a dream last night about eating a salami sandwich and then feeling guilty about it. Do other vegetarians dream about meat? Or is it just me?

Impractical Interests

Let's begin with another episode of "what Angela dreamt last night":

I got a phone call from someone saying that the person playing "Kate Monster/Lucy the Slut" in the Broadway musical Avenue Q AND one of her understudies had gotten sick, and the other understudy was like 8 months pregnant. They needed someone to be her backup in case anything happened, and for some reason, they wanted me to do it. Even though I didn't remember auditioning for it. And I'm not Equity. And I don't know the script aside from what's on the cast recording. And I've never worked with a puppet. The producers seemed convinced that they could teach me.

The next thing that happened in the dream (presumably after some fiery rehearsal time) was me finding out that the pregnant understudy had to be rushed to the hospital for some reason (labor?), and I had to take over the role. Somehow, the audience was all people I knew. My family was in the front row (as, in real life, my family is almost always in the front row... my mother is very particular about that). The first act flew by. I was terrified that I was going to sing the lyrics to "There's a Fine, Fine Line" in the wrong order for some reason, but I didn't. I did, however, go up at one point (going up = forgetting lines... or just mentally misplacing them), but my scene partner (I think it was Trekkie Monster... no clue what scene it was) fed the line to me rather nicely, so it worked out. And I apologized profusely backstage. The second act seemed more difficult than the first. I wasn't doing anything wrong, but I couldn't remember what I was supposed to be doing until I was actually doing it. Sadly, my alarm clock went off before the curtain call, so I'm not sure how the show ended.

(Feel free to analyze in the comments section.)

And now, we return to our semi-regularly scheduled programming.

I was offered an acting gig this week. It was going to pay $50 per performance (with the possibility of additional profit sharing). And I turned it down. I had to pass it up because the performances are the same week as auditions for graduate school (I'm not even sure that I want to go to graduate school right now, but I'd like to keep my options open), and I felt like I wouldn't be able to give either event all of my attention if I were trying to do both. So it's a little sad. And I would've liked the money. And something to do theatrically. But it's probably for the best. Everything happens for a reason.

It was flattering to be asked, though. Seriously, it's a great feeling when someone really wants you to be in a show. This one is a cabaret sort of thing, and they wanted me to do a 10-minute monologue for it, and it sounds like they wanted me to sing as well. That gave me sort of a boost. Someone in this city thinks I have talent. How lovely that is!

Anyway. I shouldn't be typing this right now. I should be packing. But I never pack when I should be packing. I'll probably goof off on the internet until around 1am, and then start cleaning my apartment. And once I can figure out where most of the things are that I would want to pack (around 2am or so... or maybe I'll take a nap and start at 4am), I'll start packing. And I will inevitably forget something of questionable importance. Last time I went home, it was socks (I borrowed them from my mother the whole time I was there). I'm just going to pray it isn't Christmas presents (which I'm bringing not wrapped. Why waste money on wrapping supplies when I'm sure my mother has them stocked in abundance?)

I have to be fully packed and out the door with suitcase in tow at 7:30am. I'm leaving for Connecticut tomorrow directly after work. I'm headed to see my family for nine days. As much as I love them, that's going to be rough, as we have very little in common with each other. Last time I was home we sat around drinking and watching movies. One of my brothers is in Nicaragua right now, so at least he'll have some interesting stories to regale us with. And I'm sure I'll go into Story-Mode for awhile, entertaining them for as long as they'll allow me to do so. I haven't told my brothers about my car accident yet, so that'll be some interesting new material.

But yes, nine days is a frustrating length of time (I had originally anticipated seven days, which I thought was more than enough... but my parents are graciously funding my air fare, so there was little I could do about it). Particularly since my flight schedule for that trip ruined my ability to go to Michigan for New Year's Eve, as I had been planning. And I'm not the only person who's disgruntled about the fact that I won't be there. In fact, I think I'm more upset by the guilt from disappointing others than I am by my own disappointment. But such is life.

By not going to Michigan, I'm missing out on seeing a few of the people I hold dearest, so that's horribly depressing.

And now I'll leapfrog over the paragraphs that would connect my thoughts, and hop directly into what I really want to discuss...

I have this new problem in my life when it comes to males. Usually the problem is either "too many" or "too few". Right now, the problem is a world of unlikely, impractical, and impossible. The males in my life have pretty much all been forced into the unfortunate category of "as good as gay" for one reason or another (you might want to refer to my post Flipping the Switch for background). Why? They're taken. They're in other states. I don't actually know them in real life. I made them up for my novel. You know, normal complications like that.

I dislike the feeling of a crush, as it's all-consuming and often puts me in a downtrodden sort of state, as the fellow I aim my attentions toward always seems to be the one who doesn't realize I exist. Instead, I'm a big fan of the concept of being "interested". You can be "interested" in a thousand people at once, and you never have to get hung up on any of them. It's really just a matter of recognizing the potential for something more.

And being interested as opposed to crushed has saved me from many emotional train-wrecks since I implemented it, but it comes with its own problems. The biggest of these is that there are more chances for heartbreak. It's not just one guy that isn't reciprocating your interest. It's three. Or five. Or twenty. And the worst problem is when you're interested in someone (or several someones) with whom the potential should be ignored (or where it doesn't actually exist at all).

It used to seem that the greatest pain in being crushed/interested in someone would come if they weren't reciprocating the crush/interest, but from my experiences as of late, that isn't the case. It's far less pleasant if the other person seems potentially interested, and you think it might work out quite well if it weren't for the major obstacle in your way. Some unavoidable, unconquerable obstruction preventing you from getting to know each other better or seeing where the other person might lead you.

But the identifying tag of "as good as gay" (AGAG) is here to help, not hurt. It's in practice to prevent me from entering into any glaringly bad situations. It's a wall. A guard. A layer of protection.

It's meant to sew up my heart before I bleed to death.

Admittedly, there are some problems with the AGAG label. The first of which is that it occasionally gets applied where it shouldn't. I recently read something comparing it to a job interview... I can't remember where, so I'll paraphrase.

Let's say that a woman has a close male friend who is interested in her but whom she sees in a strictly platonic light. She says, "You're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way."

This is basically the equivalent of a man interviewing for a job and the company saying, "You're well qualified, and you have a great résumé, but we're not going to hire you. But we will be using you as a standard to measure all the other applicants against." And then they go on to hire someone who is obviously less qualified, whom they attempt to train to be the right sort of applicant, but it won't work out. And even after he's been fired, the original applicant won't get the job. Some other loser will. But the company will call him on occasion to complain about the person they hired instead.

It seems rather foolish when you look at it from that angle, doesn't it? But platonic friendship isn't the only reason that a guy becomes AGAG, so this comparison isn't enough to make me eliminate the tag from my vocabulary.

The other problem with the "AGAG" label occurs when it gets applied too late. For example, a girl becomes crushed on a guy, only to find out later that he's gay. It's hard to erase all those feelings she had with that revelation. Yes, it's helpless, hopeless, and pointless, but she'll pine away for him a little while longer. She probably won't even admit to it, but she'll do it.

It's the same way if she suddenly finds out that her best friend was interested first. Or if the guy is interested in her best friend. Or if he has a girlfriend. Or any other of the myriad of reasons that being interested in him would be a horrible idea. Doesn't matter. The fantasy is already there, and it's hard to stamp that out. As the movie When Harry Met Sally claimed, once the possibility of a romantic/sexual relationship is on the table, it pretty much ruins the potential for a normal platonic friendship. (Although I disagree with the movie's idea that men and women can't be friends... I've mastered the platonic thing with a few male friends of mine, and it's working out quite well.) And as good as I am at talking myself out of things (and trust me, I am rather adroit in that area), this is one concept that I struggle with: how to forget that you fancied someone.

So without going into any more detail than I already have, I'll just say that my love life is just as screwed up as everyone else's. I will be leaving certain males on the AGAG list as opposed to going gaga over them and becoming agog (yay wordplay). The end.


May your intuition lead you away from romantic roads that will turn out to be dead ends.

~A~


P.S. I was walking through a department store doing Christmas shopping, and the overhead speaker paged a "Tyler Durden". No, I didn't mishear it. So all you Fight Club fans, if you want to get in on some underground action, you might want to head to Chicago.

P.P.S. I'm starting to get tired of my own Decemberized playlist... I'll keep it up for a little while longer. By the way, I recommend "Together We'll Ring in the New Year" by Motion City Soundtrack. Might as well take advantage of the list as long as it's up.

P.P.P.S. I didn't proofread this, as I'm completely hyper-active right now and couldn't be bothered to sit still long enough to read it before posting. So please forgive the errors. Maybe I'll go back and read it tomorrow... but no guarantees.

Dialogues & Somniloquies

I've been stuck inside my apartment all day with spurts of horrible cramps. I'm sorry if that's TMI for any of the males who read this, but I'm in pain right now and can't get my mind off of it. As I type this, I'm using my laptop as a sort of makeshift heating pad for my midsection. It's not really helping, but I figured it was worth a shot. GAH! PAIN! It's like my body is warring against itself.

And so is my mind, actually. There are two different posts that I want to write, and I can't decide between them (being decisive has never been my strong suit). I guess I'll just sort of squish them into one and pray that the result isn't too jarring. So here goes.

The last few days have been marked by long conversations and vivid dreams.

I ran into my college friend Charlotte as I was wandering around downtown looking for boots earlier this week. Strangely, she was out doing exactly the same thing. We walked around for awhile, chatting more than shopping. We discussed our simultaneously similar and divergent love lives at length. It was exactly what I needed. It's lovely to talk to people who are completely removed from your situation, but still know you as a person well enough to understand what's at stake and why you've handled things the way you have thus far (did any of that sentence make sense?).

The horizon of my love life isn't completely empty, stagnant, or static, but I haven't felt right about spewing anything here. First of all, it concerns at least one person who may or may not read this blog (he knows the address, although he reads it somewhat sporadically). Second, I haven't sorted out everything mentally yet, so trying to compose anything would be more of a goulash than an actual stream of thought. Third, once I do sort everything out, I feel I owe it to certain people to discuss it with them before discussing it with the electronic world. Lastly and least importantly, I suddenly feel the need to censor myself, now that I know that certain friends have access to this (including a brother, an ex, and a couple of coworkers... no offense, John & John). It was easier when mostly strangers read this. I didn't care so much what they knew.

Suffice it to say, I have a friend who is "in love with" me (his words, not mine), and words like that tend to complicate lives.

Moving on.

I went to my company's holiday party on Friday. The party was held at ESPN Zone. It's a cross between a restaurant and an arcade, but with only sports-related games and no prizes. Instead of letting free alcohol flow and creating the awkward drunken social environment that one might normally associate with the holiday season, each employee was given a card pre-stocked with game credits. We got to leave work at 11:45, but were paid for the full day. And on top of that, we got a free meal out of it. Long live corporate America!

Really, it was a splendid idea for a holiday party. I enjoyed letting loose with my coworkers in a fun environment. Everyone was acting silly, which is normally territory that only I dare to enter. My boss' boss' boss' boss (I'm incredibly low on the totem pole) complimented my skills on a game (more on that shortly). My boss offered to buy drinks for my department, leading a coworker to say, "This is the best day of work ever!" as his giant mug of beer arrived. I played games against people who apparently work in my building but whom I swear I've never laid eyes on in the past.

One of my coworkers beat me at air hockey. One beat me on dirt bikes. And I think all of them beat me at basketball. Not only am I completely lacking in skill at sports, but apparently I'm devoid of the ability to master their artificial arcade-style counterparts as well.

Anyway, I played this game called Pump It Up. It's similar to DDR, except it came out like a week before (and won a lawsuit against DDR which is why that had to change to a plus-sign configuration from the x-shaped one). I'd never played before, but I gave it whirl. I beat three coworkers in a row. A guy who worked at the place said I was quick learner. He then demonstrated his own warp-speed skills in a special mode in which he used BOTH boards, and occasionally had to hit four buttons at once (meaning both hands and both feet became necessary). It was so insane and incredible. And one of those things that I could never, by any stretch of the imagination, ever physically accomplish.

(As a side note, I've decided I really want Monica's power from Heroes. She's a mimic. Anything she sees someone else do, she suddenly knows how to do. It's a great power, especially since it makes you more of a genius than a freak. Possibly the best power ever. Except for maybe having a "save game" function for your life. That would be awesome... whenever you screwed up, you could just "revert to saved". Brilliant.)

Non-coworker Ben (of the purely platonic pudding) challenged me to a game of table hockey (imagine foosball, but with hockey players), which he used as a platform to metaphorically slaughter me. So I brought him over to my turf and schooled him in three consecutive rounds of Pump It Up (I got three As, he got three Fs). After that we had a lovely, lengthy discussion, that spanned from the bar to beyond the L stop. As a result of it, I've decided that he and I are going to be good friends.

Saturday night I had dinner with John, a friend from college (it recently occurred to me that I know a large quantity of Johns). We've been living in the same city since August, but this is the first time we've actually been able to see each other. After dinner, we walked around talking in the blizzard for a long while until we were both covered in a layer of white and losing feeling in our toes. John is among the extremely small contingent of people who has figured out the art of teasing me without incurring my wrath. A rare skill indeed. He's fun to be around, which is why it's strange that we don't hang out more often. Every time I get on the phone with him we talk for long periods of time, but then I guess that happens more often than not with me.

And now for the unconventional section of the post (not that there's ever any convention utilized here...):

I've had more frequent dreams lately than usual, and they're all pretty strange. Maybe it has something to do with the accident? I don't know. I've been waking up in the middle of the night a lot (not all that unusual, sadly), so I've been remembering multiple dreams per slumber period. I had two dreams last night that I feel are worth mentioning, despite the fact that I haven't properly analyzed either of them, if only because they were somewhat lucid. I remember them both rather vividly, and I'm curious as to what I'm trying to tell myself subconsciously. If you have a guess, feel free to share it.

In the first, I was at a formal, old-fashioned sort of party. The kind that you might see in a movie version of a Jane Austen novel. It was the middle of winter, and everyone was in intricate ball gowns except for me, and I was in a contemporary party dress. A friend introduced me to an attractive man, who started staring at me to the point that I became uncomfortable. He approached me and asked me to dance. I said no, because everyone was doing some sort of complicated waltz-like thing that I'd never done before. He insisted, and he said I needed to change my shoes. So I took off the high heels I'd been wearing, and put on socks, and then he put a pair of Keds on my feet (my favorites!) and laced them up for me. Suddenly, swing music started playing, and I sort of knew what I was doing. We began swing dancing, with him spinning, twirling, and flipping me in ways that made me feel more like a baton than a dance partner. It was a blast. One by one, the room, the people, and the snow all melted away, and we were left standing outside in a field in the middle of spring. Then I woke up.

In the second dream, I was on some sort of a boardwalk or pier or something, running around with friends like I did when I was a child, without a care in the world. I had a kindergarten mentality throughout the dream. Between spurts of running, we were all reading things from scraps of paper (lists or something) and laughing wildly. We went to get ice cream, but the stand was running out of strawberry, so they only partially filled my gigantic cone. I started eating the cone first, saving the best for last. I offered a bite to a friend of mine (who, in the dream, was played by Prince Harry of England... no idea why... don't think it's important, but figured I should mention it). He took a bite, and promptly threw the entire cone into the water. He laughed as I yelled at him. I tried to kick him and hit him (again, kindergarten mentality), but he just batted away my hands and legs and kept laughing. I couldn't understand why he would do that when I hadn't gotten to eat any of my ice cream yet. If I weren't so angry, I surely would've been crying (they say not to cry over spilled milk, but spilled ice cream is an entirely different matter). He said that it tasted bad, and that he'd take me to a different stand he knew about that had better ice cream. So we separated from the rest of the group in search of this superior ice cream that he most definitely owed me, but by the time we got there, it was closed. He offered to break into the ice cream stand, but I told him not to because I didn't want to get in trouble. Next to the stand, there was narrow, lemon-lime shack with a door on the front. We walked over to it and discovered that it was unlocked. When we opened the door, there was just a staircase in front of us. We walked upstairs, and there were three rooms. One of them had a bed and a trunk in it. We began trying to open the trunk. And then I woke up.

I woke myself up from both of those dreams by talking in my sleep. I do that a lot. I think it's hereditary, because my mother and one of my brothers do the same thing. My mother cries and screams in her sleep as well. I don't scream. When I'm about to scream while sleeping, I swallow first for some reason. The swallowing wakes me before I yelp. I also have a cousin with a history of sleepwalking, but I'm not sure if that's connected.

There's actually a really lovely word for sleep-talking: somniloquy (I swear I'm not making that up, although spell-check dislikes it). I rather like that, as it sounds sort of theatrical. Even in my sleep I'm a performer.

A friend of mine once claimed that he heard me singing in my sleep. I thought he was joking, but to this day he swears it to be true. He said he didn't recognize the melody, and he thinks I may have made it up. He couldn't decide if it was cute or creepy. Neither could I.

I want to go on and make more sense of this entry (edit it and whatnot), but I really can't. Pain, pain, pain. Every few minutes while writing this I get a lightning bolt through my body. In light of the way I'm feeling right now, I'd say I've done pretty well with getting out what I wanted to, even if it's somewhat jostled. But I'm not even going to reread this before posting tonight... So please forgive any glaring spelling, punctuation, or grammatical errors that you may have noticed.

May you have outlets to discuss your problems, awake or asleep.

~A~

P.S. The band Semisonic has a song called "Singing in My Sleep". It's actually about hearing someone else singing to you while you sleep, and not singing while you're asleep... but I reminded myself of this in the post. I enjoy the song, and Semisonic in general. Overlooked group. People only seem to know "Closing Time" and "Chemistry". The lead singer, Dan Wilson, is doing a solo thing now. He's a Grammy-winner, because of co-writing that ubiquitous Dixie Chicks song last year... but anyway. Semisonic. Yes. Good group. Look them up.

P.P.S. GAH! PAIN! Will it never stop?!

Almost-Perfect Strangers

In attempting to recuperate from the accident, I ended up just laying around for most of Sunday. This gave me an excuse to finally read the book Sloppy Firsts. My friend Kate recommended it, saying that the main character reminded her of me. So I bought it back before NaNoWriMo began, and it's been sitting on my kitchen table (a.k.a. desk) waiting for me to crack the spine. So I did. And I loved it.

The main character is a high-schooler with a great affinity for playing with language, a cavalcade of hopeless Mr. Maybes on the fringes of her life, and a lot of confusion on how to handle most forms of socialization. I wonder why Kate compared me to her...

If you're wondering what accident I was just talking about, then please go back and read my previous entry, Autobiographical Autopsy.

Seriously, stop reading this and go read that. Now. I command you. (Please?)

Have you read it? Okay, good.

I ended up with delayed reaction injuries. Even though I spent the day taking it easy, I was more sore on Monday than I had been on Sunday (how is that even possible?). First my knee hurt. Next my neck hurt. Then my all-of-me hurt. I had to stop dancing as I type at work because it's too painful. Most unfortunate.

When I got to work on Monday, I sat down and started doing tasks. I was in pain, but I saw no reason to call in sick. As one of my ex-boyfriends used to say, "playing hurt is heroic; playing injured is stupid." I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like that. I think he meant that if you were hurt but you kept doing what you had to do, that was brave and noble. But if you were seriously injured and ignoring it (particularly if you were putting yourself and/or others in a bad situation because of it), then you had no business doing what you were doing. Well, no one at my job is going to be affected by me typing without being able to turn my head. And I didn't think that sitting all day was going to exacerbate and of my physical problems. So I played hurt. (Saying that last sentence aloud makes it sound like I was "faking sick" or something, but I assure you, my pain is real.)

I told my boss a couple hours into work about the accident (I was a little late, so I explained that I had been moving slower in my morning routine and walking more cautiously than usual over the ice. And I showed her the police report so she wouldn't think I was just making up excuses... people assume that you lie a lot when they know you're an actor). She then told a coworker, who then approached me about it in front of another coworker... It didn't take long for everyone in my department to find out.

As it turns out, that's a really great story to tell (that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger... or makes a damn fine story). And I do love going into Story-Mode. Even though the work version is sort of a mild form, it still makes me feel like a proper entertainer. I do love having the floor.

At lunch, I told the story to a fellow, Ben, who works in another department. I've actually mentioned Ben a couple of times in this blog, although not by name. He was the "friendly chap" at the L in Pantslessness & Delayed Goodbyes (mentioned briefly at the end of paragraph 5) and the guy from #38 in Happenstance? Fire? Skidoo!.

Ben seemed very sympathetic asked if there was anything he could do (to help distract me from pain or something, I guess). I told him that he could dance at his desk and help fill the company's dancing quotient, as I would be unable to.

Instead, he showed up at my desk about an hour later with a gift, saying, "I thought of something I could do... Sick people eat pudding, right?"

In case you can't read it, he affixed the words "Colonel Ben's" over where the "Hunts" label normally is. And that's a picture of him in his Halloween costume on the right, with a speech bubble saying "I KNOW pudding." It might be the funniest gift I've ever gotten (well, either this, or that time that my friend Phil and I bought each other copies of Britney Spears "Oops! I Did It Again!" album so that we could tell everyone that we got them as gag gifts, when the truth was that we were just too embarrassed to buy them for ourselves). Amazing. And totally cheered me up back into my normal self (as I've said before, my nickname around the office is "Sunshine").

Isn't it delightful when people you don't know very well can have a positive effect on your day?

There's another of those, of course. A male stranger, almost-perfect in my mind, who occasionally leaps into my brain (although not into my life): the guy I keep casting in my novel (please see #58 in Camouflaged Delusional Insanity).

I think he may have read this blog... I shouldn't say this, in case he reads it again, but I'm going to anyway. I can look at IP addresses from one of my counter-site-thingies, and there was one that I had good reason to believe may have been him. And he (or whomever it was) stopped reading (either that, or he has a new IP address... which is possible. Mine seems to change about once a month, and then I have to go to the trouble of figuring out what it is and blocking it again so that my hits won't be tracked). Anyway, that's a little upsetting. I probably said something off-putting (or he made the connection that the person I mentioned may have been him, and he freaked out). Anyway. I don't know if it was him to begin with, but I liked the idea that it was. Made me all giddy when I saw that IP address show up. (Have I mentioned that I'm a delusional loser? A "deluser", perhaps?).

Daydreaming that the IP address was his is just another example of a mistake I make over and over again: seeing things as I want them to be instead of as they are. Particularly with people. A former friend of mine used to take advantage of my kindness a great deal. I eventually realized that about her, but whenever I see her, I find it happening again. I see her as the type of friend she should be, and not the type she is. And there was occasion in which I thought that a guy and I were in some sort of quasi-relationship, but I think in retrospect that I may have just wanted us to be.

And therein lies my addiction to finding almost-perfect strangers in my life. There's something wonderful about people existing on the edges of your universe. So experimental. So malleable. If you know a few things about them, you can fill in the rest however you like. And then you can begin to adore the character you've built up inside the shell of a person that you've met (ah, the joys of non-sexual crushes). I like filling in the blanks with my imagination. Reality is never as appealing.

Another angle of why I enjoy these figures so well only occurs when the crush is not entirely non-sexual: the thrill of the chase. It's such a sexy little game. Not that I'm really a game-playing type of girl, I just mean the act of circling the table, wondering who will pounce first... or if either of you ever will. That will-we/won't-we tension is beautiful. It's intriguing. It's fascinating. (It's the reason people watched the first two seasons of The Office.) And it's so much fun to be involved in. In fact, there's part of me that prefers it to an actual relationship. I love the stage of fancying. The special place in which you're interested, but not infatuated or crushed. Where you'll gladly flirt, but you won't be completely heart-broken if nothing ever moves forward.

Even when everything is purely platonic, it's nice to have a friend to idealize or idolize. Almost-perfect strangers are ideal for that (pudding is just a bonus).

Well, I've rambled enough for tonight.

May you appreciate the almost-perfect strangers in your life.

Much love,

~A~

Autobiographical Autopsy

It's interesting how all your plans can change in a matter of seconds.

I was going to write a journal entry about friendship. Or love. Or little adventures.

I was going to tell you about my last Advanced Monologue class. Or finding out that my most recent ex-boyfriend already has a new girlfriend. Or how I saw "Dewey Cox and the Hard Walkers" (a.k.a. John C. Reilly in character for the movie Walk Hard) on their "Cox Across America Tour". I was going to write about seeing Edward Albee being interviewed by Richard Christensen. Or hanging out with two of my high school friends, and then going to a party filled with fringe-friends from my college days. Or the complications of my upcoming vacation.

I had a lot to write about, and it was going to be a light, airy, happy entry.

But then I was hit by a car.

Yes. Literally.

You know my theory that traffic stops for me because I'm cute? Turns out that it doesn't work when it's icy.

Last night, around 11:40pm, a friend and I were walking to a drugstore to get some munchies after dancing like mad-women at a party (a party at which we were pretty much the only ones dancing... but we had fun). As we were crossing the street, and the flashing red hand was telling us to speed-it-up-a-little, I saw a car approaching us. It was making a left-hand turn into the lane we were crossing. He saw us and smiled, so I didn't have that instinct to get out of the way in the split-second that I realized that our paths would cross. But the car couldn't stop because of the ice-covered road. We were both thrown up onto the hood before I knew what was happening.

My friend got the brunt of the hit, as she was walking on the outside. We were both in the air at some point, and the next thing I knew, I was face-down on the pavement.

My lower back broke the side-view mirror of the car. As some of you may know, I have back problems. Specifically with my lower back. I have an over-curvature of my spine front-to-back (lordosis), which has proven to be quite painful in the past. I also have an extremely mild case of scoliosis (an S-curve, side-to-side). And anything that touches my back in the wrong spot, even lightly, causes me to tense up because I'm so used to pain in certain areas. Actually, my back has been pretty good for the last three years or so. But there have been times when I couldn't be hugged without pain. Times when my spine was locked and I had difficulty walking. Times when I couldn't open a door for myself. So a side-view mirror to the back really wasn't the best thing for me.

Don't worry, we're both fine. Miraculously, we both got out of the whole thing relatively unscathed. She called me this morning to say that she's a little loopy (probably a result of the drinking she did last night, not the accident), but she doesn't have a mark on her. I gave myself a once-over in the mirror, just to check. Aside from a heart-shaped dark purple bruise on my bum (which looks a bit like a tattoo, and seems like a fun thing to get inked in the future. I think that of all the bruises I have ever gotten, this one is my favorite), I don't have any scrapes, scratches, or other visible injuries. Thank God for layers upon layers of thick bubble-wrap winter clothing. My back hurts quite a bit, but that's not unusual for me, so I can handle it. My neck hurts (which really isn't shocking). My knee hurts (I don't remember it hurting yesterday... must be a delayed reaction). But other than that, I'm oh-bee-kay-bee. Very lucky.

There were about five witnesses who stopped, helped, and freaked out on our behalf, asking if we needed an ambulance (they were all male, and a few of them extremely attractive, which I think helped calm us down... all that beauty... *sigh*). One of them stayed all through the police report and asked that we call him in the morning to let him know that we were alright. I just called and got his voicemail a few minutes ago.

It turns out, the driver of the car that hit us (a foreign food-delivery guy, who is terrified that he's going to lose his job... poor guy... really wasn't his fault, and he was very nice) was trying to make a left-hand turn when a bus cut through the intersection on the yellow light, preventing him from either turning or being able to see us. So then he was in the middle of the intersection on a yellow light as it was about to switch to red, and had to turn. And he saw us, hit his breaks, and couldn't stop. Really nice guy. He actually drove my friend and I home after the police report had been filled out. My friend told him that if his employer gives him any trouble, that she'd be happy to vouch for the fact that it wasn't his fault.

I can't help but wonder about what could've happened... My autonomous mind automatically turns toward an autobiographical autopsy. (sorry... wrapped up in wordplay... hope someone out there understands/enjoys my little joke).

What if my blog entries had stopped? What if I didn't return e-mails or facebook posts? What if the people who only know me from the internet never heard from me again? If I had amnesia, if I were in a coma, if I had died... they'd never have any more than assumptions and theories. They'd probably never have access to facts. It's a little unsettling to think about.

I sent a friend request to a former classmate of mine on facebook several months ago. I found out less than 24 hours later that he had died. And that friend request will forever be left as pending. It's haunting. I actually had a crush on him in third grade. And the boy I had a crush on in second grade has also died. I occasionally wonder if I should warn the boys I was crushing on in fourth and fifth grade, as I might be cursed or something, but I'm sure it's just a coincidence and that they'll be fine. No use worrying them over nothing.

Here's a weird quirk about me... You know how they say that in near-death experiences, your life flashes before your eyes? Didn't happen for me. In fact, I had this strange feeling like the whole accident was a dream as it was occurring. Maybe I had dreamt something similar and was experiencing deja vu? But even in the process of being struck, I wasn't really scared. It didn't seem real. And though I know that I could've been killed (did I mention that there was traffic in the other lane coming right at us as we laid in the street?), I wasn't any more terrified than I would've been if someone had come up and shoved me from behind. I think I was more frightened after the event than during it, although I'm not entirely certain as to why. Shock or something.

I'm thrilled that I'm not dead, by the way. It would be wholly depressing to die right now. I haven't accomplished very much. And I'm not really working on anything exciting. I'm just sort of floating until the next project comes my way. So really, it would be a horrible time to die if only because it's NOT a horrible time to die. When I die, I want it to inconvenience people (that's a sort of Wilde-esque thought, isn't it?). I want them to scramble to make the show go on. I want them to wonder how they'll ever replace me. And right now? My death would be a tragedy, of course, as I'm young and vibrant and have potential. But things would keep moving without me.

The only thing that would stop is this blog. And my unfinished novel. At least that. People will take the 147 unpolished pages off of my computer, read them, and imagine how great my novel could've been if only I had been able to take the time to edit and complete it. And their imaginations will create something far more impressive than I ever could've achieved. These things I write are, at present, my only unfinished work. They are the compositions written by my own hand. They are, to dissect the word, my autographs (heh... that one wasn't intentional... promise I'll stop).

Perhaps that's part of why I write. Theatre, my greatest love, is by its very nature a fleeting art. Once a production is over, it's over. Attempting to record it is not much more successful in its preservation than catching lightning in a bottle. Something seems a little more permanent about the written word. Maybe I'm attempting to grasp at the straws of immortality. (Tangent: I often wonder if that's part of the reason some people have children... In some cases, the children they produce are their greatest contributions to society, far surpassing anything else they create.) But really, I'm not all that worried about immortality. I'm not obsessed with fame (although I wouldn't mind a taste of it every now and again).

I don't care much about how long I'm remembered after I die. More important to me is that I'm remembered while I live.


May you find a way to make your life worth living (and remembering),

~A~


P.S. No man is truly invincible until he stops fearing death.

P.P.S. It has come to my attention that, for some reason, several of the pictures I put on posts in November have inexplicably disappeared. I'm not going to bother fixing any of the images. Too much work. I'm just going to ignore it and hope that it stops happening.

ETA P.P.P.S. I have taken a picture of my posterior for posterity, but it will not be going online.

Followthrough

Felicitations, dear readers!

I was hesitant to post again for the following reasons:

1. I said I was going to start posting once or twice a week, and I like to keep my word.

2. I said I was going to take a break from writing, and part of me thinks I should.

3. I know that if I write in long form too often, no one will have time to actually keep up with how much I'm writing.

4. I didn't want to bump the information I deem to be "important" from near the top of the page. This includes the Craziest List Contest voting page (my list is "Words And Phrases I Want to Use"). And also the link to my brand new other blog, which I seem to be the only fan of (ah, well. That's the response I expected to get from this blog, which in comparison is wildly popular. One out of two ain't bad.)


And here are the reasons I decided to throw caution to the wind and post again tonight:

1. Yesterday, my blog got a new record number of hits: Sixty (60)!!! You like me! You really, really like me! (I think it was still just a freak product of the NaBloPoMo Randomizer which I don't anticipate will ever be recreated, but it made me leap for joy nonetheless!) And I realize that the more frequently you post, the more frequently people check your site to see if you've posted. And that means more hits. And seeing the line graph on an upward slant? That's like heroin. (Not that I know anything about drugs. Writing is my anti-drug. And actually, even if I didn't write, I wouldn't do drugs. Seeing drug-addicted people and knowing I never want to become that is my real anti-drug.) And also, the more I post, the more people respond... which I LOVE. And maybe I shouldn't admit that because it's so horribly vain, egocentric, and shows just how needy I am. But at least I'm honest.

2. Not-writing is more difficult than writing after my double-dose of insanity-induced word-conjuring last month.

3. I was looking for an excuse to avoid washing dishes.

4. I wanted to make sure I mentioned here how much NaNoWriMo changed my life.

5. I wanted your opinions on the next step in my writing...


And now we move on to the real entry.

NaNoWriMo didn't just alter my life because it was an exhausting, time-consuming, masochistic pain-in-the-neck. See, that's just how it changed my November. But I'm still reaping the benefits from it.

First of all, I've never really committed to anything like that before. I have revelations every so often about hobbies I should take up or things that I should do to improve the quality of my life. And since I love making lists so much, here are a few examples:

- I taught myself to crochet one insomnia-induced-sleepless-night in college, and I thought I would become "a crochet-er". But no. That lasted for about a week and a half before I gave up on it. I made a scarf and a belt (both of which my family's dog later attempted to eat).

- I started writing a book on names (more specifically, what NOT to name a child). But then I moved home from college, disconnected that desktop computer, and never plugged it in again. I sort of gave up on the whole thing, although my younger brother is insistent that I should write it someday (which I think is because he thinks that I'm a screw-up and this book is the only worthwhile thing I've ever considered doing. That, and he's a business major in college right now, so he naturally thinks that anything that I can market and potentially make bank on is a brilliant idea. He thinks it's stupid that I don't put ads on this blog, for example. But really, what's the point of putting ads on? I have a job. I don't need pennies from people clicking on things. And they're ugly. Of course, I put AdSense on my other blog, just so that I can tell him I did and hopefully get him to quit bugging me about it).

- Beads. Every few years, I become completely obsessed with beads and making jewelry. And then the craving for arts and crafts disappears as quickly as it had consumed me. And I'm left with a whole bunch of pretty beads that I never intend to do anything with.

- I had a Belly Dance for Beginners DVD when I studied abroad. For the first couple of weeks, my roommate and I did it every night, like clockwork. Then, she started being "too tired". I kept going for a few more days before caving to the peer pressure (or, really, just the lack of a buddy to do it with).

- A list of majors/minors I had in college that I ended up dropping: Anthropology, Art History, Biology, Business, Communications, Education, English Literature, English Writing, German, Humanistic Studies, Italian, Mathematics, Philosophy, Psychology, Religious Studies, Sociology. Really, it's amazing I graduated in four years (but by changing majors so many times, I accidentally fulfilled the general education requirements of my liberal arts college... it worked out pretty well). Oh, and I considered transferring to another college for either Playwriting or Pre-Dentistry. Why? Oh, just a passing whim.

- Quitting my nail biting. It has been one of my resolutions every year since 1993. I actually made it until February 24th in 2006. I started telling people that "I used to bite my nails." Then, a friend backstabbed me (and I'm sure she didn't realize the extent to which she broke me. She didn't just hurt my feelings; she actually jeopardized my academic career. I cried on the phone to about eight people, all hours that night. And although she and I are friendly toward each other now, I'm not over it. She never apologized, and I seriously doubt that she ever will), and I bit off all my nails out of an overwhelming sense of frustration, a good level of terror, a culmination of stresses, and a need for something comforting and familiar.

- Vegetarianism. I've been doing it for a few weeks now, and I'm still going strong. But really, I know it isn't going to last. I'm sorry, friends who are vegetarians who are rooting me on (thanks, by the way). I like the idea of being a vegetarian, but I just like cow/chicken/turkey/tuna way too much to be able to fathom never having any of them ever again. As it is, I have frozen dinners containing them, Spaghettios with meatballs, and tuna all in my kitchen right now. I'm going to have to eat them eventually (I don't want them to go to waste).

But now that I've done NaNoWriMo, I know that it's possible for me to really commit to something. I can set a completely self-imposed goal and stick to it. Maybe this year I WILL give up nail biting, once and for all. Maybe I will finally write that book. Maybe I will be able to hold out with the vegetarianism for a few more days (it's really shocking that I've made it as far as I have... It was tough to say no to the sloppy joes in the cafeteria yesterday). I have tested my willpower, and I am obviously more tenacious than I ever realized.

Also, I usually suffer from a bit of Seasonal Affected Disorder (S.A.D.). It breaks into full gear in February, but it starts as soon as the weather starts to get cold. But here I am, almost a week into December, and I'm happy. I'm actually enjoying winter. Snow has been coming down like mad the last couple of days, and I've been dancing down the street on my way home from work, smiling like a child. I don't have the normal unsuccessful, untalented, undesirable, worthless, lonely blues. Instead, I feel powerful. I feel like God has blessed me with strength, ability, and opportunity. And I'm downright giddy. Of course, I anticipate that this post-writing glee will melt away long before the snow does, and my weather-induced depression will set in. But I'm enjoying life until it does.

As a side note, I'm listening to my playlist titled "Decemberized", which is not only Christmas music, but also things like "Hazy Shade of Winter" by the Bangles (I have the original, too, but I prefer the Bangles version), "River" by Joni Mitchell, "Frozen" by Madonna, "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice, and "Holiday" by Green Day. Ah, how I love my playlists. (I won't stay in this playlist 24/7 all month, though, because then I'd miss out on things like "Paperweight" by Joshua Radin and Schulyer Fisk, and I couldn't possibly go without that. Too lovely).

Alright, back to the subject at hand.

NaNoWriMo also gave me a chance to interact with people. I mean, I only took advantage of that at the very, very end of the month and the Thank God It's Over party, but I loved it. I've been missing that sort of casual social interaction now that I live alone. And the powerful synergy that was created by the atmosphere of the Write-In made me feel like I was a part of something larger than myself. I need to find new ways to meet people in friendly environments. But that brief period of interaction has certainly contributed to my good mood.

And now I come to the next hurdle... what next?

I have the first 56,000 words of a novel on my hands. And, to be honest, it's really quite terrible. I was focusing on the quantity of words instead of the quality of them (which is precisely the point of this exercise). It's not readable, and there is so much more to go before I'll get to anything close to an ending.





A guy at work asked if he could read it, and I said no. He said, "but you're so proud of it!" I responded with, "yes! I've never been more proud or more embarrassed of anything I've created in my entire life!"

What a strange dichotomy of emotion that is! Getting as far as I have with this thing is a major accomplishment, but that doesn't stop it from being dribble. Contemplating people's reactions to it makes me want to bury my head in the sand. After all, most of the people who want to read it are people who barely know me outside of this blog, if at all. What if those people become disillusioned with me as a result of how truly awful my first real expedition into the land of fiction turns out to be? I can't bear to think of it.

I've considered just stopping. Without the deadline I had before, it'll be tricky to keep myself motivated. And I'm not giving myself a deadline to finish it by. I do know that I need a break. Yes, I know I said the same thing about blogging, but I mean it about novelling.

And then I had this idea about posting my novel in blog form. Maybe posting a bit each week, and turning it into sort of a serial. The first problem with that is that it isn't divided into chapters at the moment, so I have no good way to divide the sections that I would post. The second is that every section would be very long. The third is that it's crap.

I suppose that I could edit it as I go, but I have a feeling that my editing will involve cutting out large portions of text in order to really retool the story. And since the story isn't finished yet, what happens if I post something and then decide that I need it changed in order to serve the end of the story?

Also, there are things I need to take out for... personal reasons. As I've mentioned, I occasionally "mentally cast" people as my characters. And there are a couple of times when the "actor" took over the character a little too much. I need to take out a couple of scenes that are a little too true-to-life, so that the people involved never read them and get suspicious.

If I did blog my story, would anyone read it? I mean, no one is reading my other blog now. I'm going to say that the odds aren't great. But would that be so bad? My story is terrible. So, really, the fewer people who read it, the better.

I shared this idea about blogging the story with a few people at the Thank God It's Over party, and they seemed wholly positive about it. A couple of them have requested a link to it already. So that's encouraging. And I had a couple of online friends who had expressed interest in reading it as well, although I think that they'll be disappointed if they read it, as it's truly horrible.

I feel vulnerable putting my work out into the web. I don't know why I should feel any more vulnerable than I do when typing a normal blog entry, but I do. It's the same sort of fear that prevented me from singing in public for all those years. It's the fear that I'm not good enough. And that I'll be judged. Not to mention that I'm admitting that the work I'm being judged on is something that I think to be far less than what I'm capable of. At the same time, there are pieces of me hiding in the pages, between the lines. Maybe I'm a little afraid that people will see the insecurities that I've given to my characters and recognize them as being my own.


Now mind you, if I did post it in a blog, I wouldn't be starting it tomorrow. January at the earliest. February might be a little more realistic (and it might provide some good distraction from getting S.A.D.). Just thought I should mention that.

And then there's the issue that my business-oriented brother would bring up... If I publish it on my blog, and it turns into a good story, could I still get it published? After things are on the internet, they're on the internet forever, right? Should I really be giving away my hard work? Although, at the moment, I should be paying people to read the inexcusable mud I've composed thus far.

Anyway. I'm opening it up to you. There is a poll in the RIGHT-hand column of this page [E.T.A. when I first posted this entry, it said left, because I'm a ditz. But it's on the top right]. And we'll see what you think I should do. And I'll probably end up taking your advice, because that's the sort of person I am. Easily influenced (seriously, it's amazing that I've never entered a cult, what with my addictive personality, malleable psyche, and sub-par self-esteem).

I'm off. Ta-ta, toodle-oo, and what have you.

~A~

Vote for My List!

Okay, so this isn't a real post. This is me asking you to do me a favor. Please go vote for my list on To-Do List blog's "craziest list" contest.

VOTE HERE

My list is "Words and Phrases I Want to Use". It's in the book of lists that I mentioned in my very first post on this blog. I started it in 2002. And I'd like to win this contest because I like getting free things. So please, vote for me.

Much love,

~A~

Me, Me, Me, Meme-ee

So I've been tagged three times for a meme. I had no idea what a "meme" was, or even how it was pronounced ("meem", rhymes with "seem"? "me-me", like the character Mimi from La Boheme/Rent?). Lucky for me, one of the people who tagged me had similar questions and looked it up.

meme (meem) A cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.

meme (mēm) A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.

Anyway, since I've been tagged THREE TIMES (apparently the cosmic forces of the universe would like nothing more than for me to do this) I figured that I should probably take on the challenge. And since I was challenged three times, I shall do thrice the work. But if anyone tags me again, I'm not doing it. Sorry. Three times in one sitting is enough.

I have been given three different sets of instructions, but they all basically amount to this...

1. Provide a link to the person who tagged you, and spell out the rules of the meme on your blog.

2. Share seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.

3. Tag seven random bloggers with this meme and post links to their blogs at the end of this post. (If you need help finding people, you can use the NaBloPoMo Randomizer)

4. Let those who have been tagged know so by leaving a comment on their blog and telling them where to find information regarding the meme they are now expected to do.

I get it. It's like a chain letter, but for blogs. I'll play this little game.

Now, anyone who has been paying attention to my blog knows that over the course of the last month, I've basically listed 90 random facts about myself. And now, instead of the requisite seven, I'm going to write 21 more. Which means I'm a masochist. And I've had to be creative to come up with new things (lots of reaching into the past... and a few things that, when listed together, make it seem like I'm a horrible braggart. Please forgive me, but those were the only things I could think of that I never would've mentioned otherwise). It also means that a bunch of strangers on the internet are about know nearly as much about me as my parents do.

Okay, here goes.

The blogs that tagged me are:
- Under the Stars
- Ramblings Of A Madman
- Sanity

And I'm sure the three of them would appreciate a little extra traffic to their blogs (what blogger wouldn't?), so if you're in a "surfing the net wherever it may take me" kind of mood, stop by and check them out.

Anyway. Here is my list, times three...

1. My favorite color is cerulean.

2. My favorite movie is Animal House.

3. My favorite song is "I Want to Save You" by Something Corporate. (Although I always have a few favorite songs "of the moment" as well... Right now, those are "As Things Collide" by Kara's Flowers, "Ruby Blue" by Roisin Murphy, "Kicking the Heart Out" by Rogue Wave, and "Paperweight" by Joshua Radin & Schulyer Fisk... a few of which can currently be listened to on my ProjectPlaylist above).

4. My favorite singer is Natalie Imbruglia. (I love, love, love her)

5. My favorite food is day-old reheated chicken fried rice (preferably from Oodles of Noodles on Clark Street) with melted butter and red wine vinegar (although I'm currently testing out a vegetarian lifestyle and therefore cannot have it... which is one of many reasons I probably won't be able to last forever as a vegetarian).

6. My favorite book has probably changed to Bridget Jones' Diary, although the Harry Potter series holds a special place in my heart as well.

7. When I was in seventh grade, I made it into the State Honors Choir. I was in my school's highest choir in high school. I was a member of two different vocal groups that made it into the Michigan Youth Arts Festival. And upon entering college, I made it into the highest choir there as well. Despite all of this, it took me until I was a junior in college to get over my fear of singing solos and my hatred of my own voice.

8. My dad bought me a copy of The Odyssey when I started fifth grade. I remember reading it with a dictionary at my side. I got frustrated, and didn't end up finishing it until I was in seventh grade. I did a book report on it, because I was a very strange and ambitious child. I then decided to read The Iliad, and attempted to write a book report on that, which was the dumbest idea in the world (do you know how much STUFF happens in that thing? Very hard for a detail-oriented middle-schooler to summarize). The Odyssey was required reading in ninth grade, so I remember feeling pretty superior to my classmates, seeing as how I'd read it years before. (I felt a similar emotion when Hamlet and Macbeth were required, as I'd read them already. In fact, I think I'd done a book report on Hamlet in middle school as well. Thankfully, my teacher stopped me before I did a report on The Book of Genesis, which had been my plan).

9. I have bad TMJ issues, and my jaw can make very loud clicking noises if I want it to. Once I demonstrate it for people, they usually ask me to never do it again in their presence. And sometimes it happens when I yawn. Or when I scream. Mostly I think it's funny, but there have been a couple of times that it has happened in embarrassing and awkward situations.

10. I'm pretty good at walking on stilts, I'm excellent at limbo, and I've done a fair amount of dancing in my life. Therefore, I like to think that I have good balance. But then sometimes when I'm walking, I trip over nothing. So I guess that negates it.

11. If I had to describe myself in one word, I'd pick "analytical". (I told my dad that last week. He said that to him, that means that I "think like a man." I didn't know whether to be offended or proud. Instead of being either, I lightly scolded my dad for being sexist.)

12. I can pick up card games extremely quickly. For example, I watched one game of Euchre and played the second, without any explanation. I think it's because my father taught my brothers and I card games when we were pretty young. I could play Hearts, Five-Card Draw, Five-Card Stud, and Seven-Card Stud by the time I was in second grade. Most of my peers at the time were just getting the hang of Solitaire, War, and Uno.

13. I have several weird physical tricks I can do. I can cross one eye at a time. I can raise one eyebrow (and I do it constantly without thinking about it). I can wiggle my ears. I can make my thumb and pinky go in a straight line. The fingers on my right hand are double-jointed (they weren't when I was younger... I think they were trained somehow by years of holding a cello bow). I can go "en pointe" in bare feet (I've been able to do it since I was a kid. I'm fairly certain that it's terrible for your feet, but I do it anyway to entertain myself). And I can over-bend my knee, tuck my toes under my lowest rib, and let my leg stay there (I used to be able to do it with both legs at the same time and walk on my knees, but I think I did something to my cartilage, because it hurts way too much to attempt it now).

14. As I've mentioned before, I was a playwright in high school. In one of the one-act competitions took part in, I was the first person in the history of the festival to end up in the finals twice (2001 and 2002). I once won $400 for a play I wrote (I bought my first iPod with that money). And I actually have two copies of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare that I was awarded as prizes from those contests (come to think of it, I loaned one of them to my former boyfriend during senior year of college, and I think he still has it... Doesn't matter. I have another.)

15. I'm a pretty fast reader. I don't notice that I'm fast, but other people comment on it a lot when they observe me read (or when they're reading things at the same time as I am. Like when each of the Harry Potter books came out, for example).

16. When I was in high school, my choir performed at Carnegie Hall. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life.

17. When I was in seventh grade, Al Roker interviewed me from the random crowd that gathers around The Today Show. My parents wouldn't let me go on a class trip to Washington D.C. (can't remember why), so instead my dad had taken me to NYC for the weekend. I made a sign that said "I Skipped D.C. for NBC". Al loved it. I got to speak with Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, and Ann Curry off camera as well, and I got my picture taken with each of them. Ann was especially nice to me. She said, "Go for your dreams, kiddo, because when I was your age, I wanted to be doing exactly what I'm doing now, and I never thought I could." I've never forgotten that.

18. I've been nominated twice for the Irene Ryan acting scholarship competition through the American College Theatre Festival . Sadly, I didn't make it past the first round.

19. I received the "Excellence in Theatre Award" when I graduated from my college. My name is on a plaque in the "center for the arts" there. Every time I go back to the school, I make a point to visit it.

20. Out of more than 600 entries, I won the baby name pool last May on Baby Name Wizard Blog. (See? I told you I knew a lot about names.)

21. A list I sent in to To-Do List Blog was posted today. Woo-hoo! I started writing it in 2002, right after I graduated from high school. The "Green Party", and the "Denial Party/Ice Cream Social" were thrown that summer. The "Sexy Party" was thrown in July at my old apartment. And the other parties... well, I don't know. Maybe I'll get around to them one day.


Alright. And now for the last part of this. I'm going to tag 21 people to continue this meme.

Note to the people I'm tagging, I don't actually care if you do this or not (although really, you might as well. It's not like it's hard. I came up with 21 items, so surely you can come up with 7). But maybe this will drum up a little traffic for your blogs (you never know), so please don't be annoyed with me for tagging you.

1. Docket Full of Grumbles
2. Heidi Renée
3. In the Praise of Surviving the Day
4. Informed But Unimportant Musings
5. insight into my world
6. mambo palace
7. Master of Sellotape
8. Not the Boy Next Door
9. Sometimes I'm Not Myself
10. Suggs
11. Tainted by Possibility
12. The Angry Pirate
13. The Chaotic Libra
14. The Daily Dish through my eyes (and Tonka's)
15. The Lunar Gemini
16. Whatever and Ever, Amen
17. A Passive-Aggressive Life
18. Cogito, Ergo Sam
19. Mixed Salad of Thoughts
20. Retentive Wrimo
21. EleKtrofly


Yay-hooray! Let the games begin.

Much love,

~A~