and as long as you live it

When I was 20, my mother sent me this, after the first time I got my heart broken (though it would be broken again, and again after that…ahhh young love).

This has become my motto.  Not the essay itself, but the ideas behind it.  I even got into a debate with an acquaintance a few weeks ago when they called me “overly picky” when it came to dating (it’s called “not settling”, jackass).

It Is Better To Be Alone, Than In The Wrong Company

* Tell me who your best friends are, and I will tell you who you are.

* If you run with wolves, you will learn how to howl. But, if you associate with eagles, you will learn how to soar to great heights.

*”A mirror reflects a mans face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses.”

*The simple but true fact of life is that you become like those with whom you closely associate for the good and the bad. The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve.

* Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. An important attribute in successful people is their impatience with negative thinking and negative acting people. As you grow, your associates will change. Some of your friends will not want you to go on. They will want you to stay where they are. Friends that don’t help you climb will want you to crawl. Your friends will stretch your vision or choke your dream. Those that don’t increase you will eventually decrease you.

*Consider this: Never receive counsel from unproductive people.

Never discuss your problems with someone incapable of contributing to the solution, because those who never succeed themselves are always first to tell you how.

Not everyone has a right to speak into your life. You are certain to get the worst of the bargain when you exchange ideas with the wrong person.

Dont follow anyone whos not going anywhere. With some people you spend an evening: with others you invest it

Be careful where you stop to inquire for directions along the road of life. Wise is the person who fortifies his life with the right friendships.

Haley and I discuss this constantly.  As people who have both fallen victim to staying in years-long relationships that simply didn’t work, and that we stayed in because we were scared/young/didn’t know any better.  I personally, don’t so much regret the time spent in the relationship as much as what I let myself turn into.  I loved my boyfriend immensely, and probably always will on some level, and being with him as long as I did was a learning experience if nothing else.  But I regret letting myself turn into the pathetic, weak willed, nutcase that I was, instead of the independent, strong willed nutcase I am now

Another good friend of mine just recently broke up with her on and off boyfriend of 6 years, this time for good.  Remembering all too well how irritating it felt to have people giving advice or even saying “good riddance”, I have simply tried to share with her all the happiness I felt when I no longer felt chained to a sinking ship.  How, despite being heartbroken over losing my first love, I felt invigorated with the independence and possibility that lay before me.  I think she is starting to feel the same way as well.

It’s one thing to be picky…it’s another thing to settle for less than you deserve (and that goes for all human relationships – So and so may be a very nice person, but if you don’t enjoy their company or feel like you gain anything from the relationship…why?  That doesn’t mean be a jackass and cut people off.  Thats what “acquaintances” are for.  But if you are going to invest time, energy, love…you have to wonder if it is worth it.

H sent me “If You Forget Me” by Pablo Neruda the other day, and I can’t get it out of my mind, and think its fits nicely with what I have been saying(it’s slightly edited, click the hyperlink above for the full poem)…

I want you to know
one thing.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Sadly, I feel that, I am still lacking in this area.  While I make it a point to not be taken advantage of others, and keep the clutter in the form of people in my life to a minimum… to keep around those who love me, the ones that when I hug, they will hug back, that put in as much into the friendship/relationship as I do…I do, sometimes keep trying.  Occasionally my “love” does not feed on their love, but on my wishes and hopes and sometimes good old fashioned denial.  Occasionally, my roots do not set off for other land, but set up camp in the hopes that the person and/or their affection for me returns.  Occasionally, it pays off……..Most of the time, it does not.

 

“Annoying”

That word.

I was always a weird child. While never anything closely resembling “popular”, I wasn’t ever quite the leper, the weird girl who wore cat sweaters and ate paste. I had friends. But never very many, and for every 1 person that genuinely liked me, there were 2 people who didn’t. Who thought I was “annoying”.

Now, annoying behavior encompasses many things. As I got older, my peers were able to better articulate what it was they didn’t like about me. That I talked too much. That I was loud. That I always tried to be involved in a conversation/fit in/was too clingy. Sure, there have been other disliked qualities, but never quite as universally agreed on, nor have consistently spanned quite so many years as these few.  And while they have been toned down to a large extent over the years (a fact I was discussing just the other day…that for someone to picture how I was in high school, they should visualize how I act when I’ve had a drink or 2…and then exaggerate THAT  times ten.), occasionally it comes up.  Sometimes it’s joking, sometimes it’s not (and sometimes I’m not sure).  And when it’s not, the party in question will usually bring up a particular one, not the “trifecta”.

But occasionally, I’ll get the word “annoying”.  And after almost 25 years, that one still stings.

The fact is, at the risk of sounding cocky, I am a fairly self-realized person.  While I make no claims that I need no improvement (far from it), I have a pretty clear idea of who I am as a person, what my strengths are, and more importantly, what my weaknesses are (Now this is not to say that I know who I am going to be for the rest of my life. At the age of 24, that would be quit e presumptuous).  Which is why when people make generalized assumptions about me, or act as though they have me “figured out”, it angers me more than anything else can.  I’m a realistic person, and while there are plenty of things I do wrong in life, “deflecting” is not one of them.

While my abilities at fixing said weaknesses is another matter entirely (because knowledge and action don’t always go hand in hand, the latter takes a great deal more work), I am aware of them.  Of how they hold me back.  Or in this case, of how they drive others away.

I know that I talk a great deal.  Usually, when I’m excited or passionate, and often when I’m nervous too.  I have been that way, literally, since before I spoke my first actual word.  Some people call it babble, or rambling (when it’s the nervous talking), and more recently someone was kind enough to affectionately refer to it as being “verbose”.

I also know that I speak very loudly.  Whether it stemmed from being in performing arts for the majority of my life, or a need for attention… who knows.  It usually comes out when I’m excited, passionate, or just downright pissed about whatever the topic is.

But the fact is… it’s who I am.  I continually try to become more concise, or just shut my mouth entirely…but it doesn’t work all the time.  I try to be more aware of my volume, and do a fair job of controlling it about half the times…as a result it usually only gets past me when, I’m not paying attention.  And I try to be more concise, but most of the time I feel like when I am, I’m misunderstood (and as I mentioned before, I hate being misunderstood), so I constantly feel like I need to compensate and clarify.

I guess there is no real point to this post.  No grand epiphany, no vow to do better (as I already have been trying for years), just a quiet “huh” moment where I realize how much one little word has so much power to tap into all my deep seated insecurities (in addition to those closer to the surface).  Obviously, it depends on who that word is coming from.  But I know that I ultimately care too much about what others think and feel about me, and at this point, I’m trying to figure out how much is stuff that I need to change about myself (as self improvement is always part of my M.O) and how much is me just adopting an “If you don’t like me for me, then too fucking bad” attitude.

As with most things, it’s probably not as simple as one or the other, but a combination of the two.  I just need to figure out the formula.

Huh.

:/

 

yes yes yes. A thousand times yes.

There is nothing about this that ISN’T full of WIN.

 

“Anyone could buy a green Jaguar, find beauty in a Japanese screen two thousand years old. I would rather be a connoisseur of neglected rivers and flowering mustard and the flush of iridescent pink on an intersection pigeon’s neck”

-White Oleander by Janet Fitch

 

Autumn

every day it seems, I swear to myself I’m going to write…and every day it slips away from me, until my brain is such a bowl of mush that conveying any articulate (and for that matter, remotely entertaining) musings is an impossible dream.

So the jist:  unemployment and a time consuming hobby (passion? career?) have turned me into someone with the most dysfunctional sleeping patterns, who stays up until 8 am on a regular basis and occasionally does not go to sleep at all, simply grabbing 2 hours and 3 hours here and there, like autumn leaves falling.

I have become someone that holds onto anything and everything, in the hopes that it can be used in a piece of art or jewelry or…something.

That carries their expensive camera with them everywhere they go, thus being titled “Girl with the Camera” (and believe me, I’ve been called worse).

Who is staying oddly positive despite the looming possibility of bad bad luck.

Who, despite the paint under their fingernails and occasional bags under their eyes and severe lack of unemployment, is more content right now than she has been in years.

Who will post more later, honest.

 

But in the spirit of being thankful, tips her hat to those few things that make her truly calm and peaceful (which is a hard thing to do even on a good day) this week in particular.

 

Farmers Markets

Etta James and Nina Simone

Some people look at cold weather months as depressing…I find them beautiful, and quiet, and a time when everything slows down, just a little bit. Just enough for you to pay a little bit better attention to everything around you.

The cold weather’s bite of chill is just enough to make every day, every moment…seem a little bit more special.

I could lay underneath this at night, and stay there for hours:

(i’ll write more later, I promise)

 

Falafel dreams

I will keep this brief, because I am attempting to be asleep before 2 am (a task I have been epic failing at all week).

Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, even with Soy milk, isn’t vegan (the syrup has milk in it).  So…dammit.  But thank the good lord above for soy eggnog.  And the fact that I’m baking a pumpkin pie next week, just because….well, why ON EARTH not?

I am contemplating what I want to do for Thanksgiving this year, as I think I’d like to avoid the family thing (and actually, haven’t spent it with blood relations for the last 2 years…so maybe that should be my new tradition.  Stay at home, eat some seitan and paint a pretty picture of a living turkey.  Oh, and I can stay in my pajamas and watch movies.)

I kinda hit on a Top Chef contestant (from a few years back) tonight at an art show opening, to no avail.  Epic fail #2.

Project Organization and Decoration of Allison’s Tiny Studio is going swimmingly…I’ve gotten a few new items (all given to me by excessively generous friends and loved ones) who needed to get rid of  them anyways…This place is slowly but surely becoming the dream home I always wanted for myself, ever since I first started living by myself (even though it doesn’t have a full kitchen or a bathtub, but…eh).  Pictures will come soon.

Oh, and while aimlessly surfing Facebook, I came across one of those 25 Random Things About Me things I wrote in February.  And this one caught my eye:

8. I’ve recently learned that my warm nature and open heart are often misconstrued as “desperation” or even “easy”, both in friendship and dating. It is very frustrating, and I’m starting wonder if I have to become a colder person just to gain people’s respect.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  However:
15. I got 99 problems but a bitch aint one.

 

 

lots more teachers, lots more books (and paint, and paper, and charcoal, and….)

Well, I have some work cut out for me.

I went to see a counselor at school today to figure out my next steps now that I know what I want my major to be.  I’ve already started my pre-requisites to get into Graphic Design 1, and have completed 2 of my gen. ed courses (over the course of a year and a half, go me!*insert sarcasm here*)

The majority of graphic designers I have met only have Associate degrees (AA).  You can usually break into the field with just that (depending on what area you want to work in, obviously), so I have been considering just getting my AA, so I can actually get started doing what it is that I want to do (after working for 6 years at dead end jobs, I don’t know how much longer I can do that for.), and THEN deciding whether I want to continue on and get my bachelors.  Because you need an AA to transfer anyways, right?

WRONG.

Apparently, only certain community colleges do it that way, lay out the credits and course so that everyone who transfers “graduates” with an AA.  My friends Elaine and Geo both graduated from PCC with an AA, and then transferred to CSUN immediately for their bachelors.  But at LAVC (my college), it doesn’t work that way.  Either you do “Plan A” (a general education certificate for transfer to a Cal State) or “Plan B” (an associate degree).  There is no Plan C.

So I have to do both.

Basically, if I want to enter into the field I want to work in before getting my bachelors, I’ll need to complete what is needed for an AA, in addition to my transferrable credits.  Which means more work (about 16 more units).  Luckily, I can craft my curriculum so that most of the “general ed” courses I take can fulfill both.  But it also means a lot of extra work in the art and media design field to get my AA, about half of which are classes I will have to take AGAIN when I go to CSUN (if that is where I end up going, though it is looking more and more that way, because they are nearby and have a good graphic design program).

I COULD just wait to get my bachelors.  But I can’t.  As it is, I don’t know how long its going to take me just to get my AA.  I’m 24 years old.  It’s taken me this long to decide what I want my focus to be (hell, I didn’t even go back to school until I was 22).  I have few regrets in regards to the choices I have made or the path that life has taken me.  It has made me who I am, and being older and wiser, doing well in school means SO MUCH MORE to me than it would have when I was 18, 19, 20.  I also have years of work experience that many of my peers do not.  Even today, it’s amazing how many people my age need help crafting a resume, or looking for an apartment, or even learning how to cook for themselves.

But regardless, now that I DO know…I want to get going already.  And if that means extra work…then so be it, it means extra work.  And as for the bachelors…part of it is making more money down the line, but mostly?  I just want to be the most well rounded person I can be, and getting a bachelors degree will help that.

After my meeting, I went to Financial Aid to follow up on my grant paperwork.  Because I had a shaky start when initially going back to school (signing up for a heavier courseload than I could handle and dropping a course, and then getting a D in Art History later that year, when my brain was just…not in a school mindset), I have to write an appeal.  In addition, I somehow made too MUCH money last year (even while being out of work for 4 months), so I have to fill out paperwork so they can adjust it.

(Excuse me while I rant for a minute:  After the age of 24, you are considered an independent.  Before that, even if you live on your own, don’t get financial help from your parents, nada, they still base any financial aid on what your parents make, which is moronic.

Now, as I am 24, they WILL consider me an independent, but because I made a living wage, I’m being penalized.  Which pisses me off, because they don’t factor in rent, bills, etc.  Therefore, the OTHER 24 + students who still live with mommy and daddy, and only work 10 hours a week because they don’t NEED to, will qualify for the aid.  It is exceptionally unfair, and really pisses me off.  And LAVC is FILLED with these people.  they are the same girls that walk into class a 1/2 hour late, and spend the whole time talking to their firiends.  Maybe this is unfair on my part, to lump people in.  I just wish financial aid would factor in rent and general cost of living IN LOS ANGELES in a realistic fashion).

Whats funny about all of this is, usually, when faced with a looming goal, I get really stressed out.  About how it is too much, how am I going to be able to do it all, etc etc.  But I now have a clearer idea of what it is I need to do.  And that makes me oddly serene.

 

just a reminder…

I’m a genius.  That is all.

 

(However, NOT when it comes to computer hardware or refrigerators, both of which have decided to stop working properly RIGHT when I have no income to pay for repairs.  Dammit.)

 

book book bwak

Sometimes when I can’t sleep…

I climb onto my couch and peruse my bookshelves, trying to decide what I want to read.  I have 20 + books that I have yet to read, about half of them non-fiction…but yet none of them seem to be calling to me.  Subsequently, I end up pulling 8 titles from my shelves that I’m going to try and sell at The Iliad tomorrow (and will try VERY hard to choose cash over the store credit).  I have a hard time getting rid of my books, even after I’ve already read them, and know that I will most likely never read them again.  When I was younger, my book purchases were entirely at the whim of my parents, so maybe once a month I would get a new book, which i would of course, devour immediately.  When going to the library, I would walk out with a STACK of books, which would sit in a stack by my bed, a comfort…that after I finished this book, there would be 7 others just WAITING for me.

My bookshelves currently span a little more than half of my widest wall (they have recently grown again, after a couple more wine crates became available for me.  I now have 13 crates, and approx 18 “cube spaces”, in addition to my other bookshelf that was already built into the wall before I moved in.).   Them being filled with books is a security blanket, something that makes me happy just looking at it.  I would much rather look at a wall of books everyday than a particularly pretty paint color, or a framed poster.  My dream for the longest time was to live in a home where one whole wall was just bookshelves (like those distinguished New York apartments you see in movies and television)

Also, I greatly enjoy lending my books to people. When a new friend comes over and see my bookshelves, if they are any sort of a reader, their eye usually picks a title and inquires about it. Nothing gives me more pleasure than lending a friend a book (though, on occasion, I fail to get it back, either because we lose touch, or I forget. I should probably start writing these things down). I know that when I enter someone’s home, I immediately look at their books.

But, like I said…I have issues with getting rid of them. Its selfish, I know. regardless, I did pull about 8 books that I will try to sell, because, well…I need the money. Sure, I enjoyed Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary”, but I’m not a huge King nut, and it’s not his best. Now, “It”, however? The only book I have ever read that made me genuinely afraid to fall asleep. I’m keeping that. I also have a couple indulgent “chick-lit” novels that I bought several years ago, and have re-read occasionally when I wanted to read something but wanted to give my brain a break. I’m getting rid of those (but keeping Pamela Ribon’s books, because I love her and have been following Pamie.com for years).

Books like “Suite Francaise” I probably won’t read again…but I like having it there. It was a bit more difficult to read, and having it on my shelf is sort of a…reminder that I did, in fact, finish it. And then I have books like “Pride and Prejudice”, “Franny and Zooey”, and a book on the history of candy, all of which I have started and stopped several times. But I keep them, I remain hopeful…and someday I will actually finish them(“Rebecca” by Daphne Du Maurier was one of those books, that I have been trying to finish since 8th grade, and I finally read and finished earlier this year).

Wow, i just spent an hour writing about my BOOKSHELVES. I should really go to bed.  But dammit, I still haven’t decided what I want to read…

 

A discussion about marijuana between 2 non pot smokers:

Tera : I mean if you’re gonna have a vice, at least there’s a large amount of artists who were alcoholics.
There’s an entire art around drinks
But pot?

Allison : haha. Meh. I mean, I know people who smoke pot and who are productive. I don’t understand it at all, though.  Hence why I don’t smoke.

Tera : Everyone I know who’s been a pothead has done nothing but sit around and laugh idiotically at nothing. They seriously become a waste of space.

Allison : Well, I know people who use it to help them sleep.

Tera : ohhhhhh.  that makes sense.  I still would rather be an alcoholic than a pothead.  Alcoholics are badass.  Like Bukowski!

Allison: HAHAHAHA.  Tera I love you