Today is the first day since Saturday that I haven't wanted to shove a knife in my stomach and just end the damn rumbly tumbly pain. I'd managed to catch some pesky stomach bug and let me tell you, it has been oh-so-very less than pleasant. Eating just about anything caused my stomach to feel all sorts of wonky (in the bad way), so for the past few days, I've had that permanently-hungry-yet-can't-really-eat-much feeling.
Finally, today, I feel back to normal and can once again, enjoy what I'm eating. So, for today, I've allowed myself to eat whatever the fuck I want.
That means for breakfast, I had two bacon wraps from Dunkin' Donuts. For lunch, I had a Kobe beef burger with blue cheese and bacon. And right now, I'm about to eat these. Remember these? I don't eat an awful lot of candy but if someone gave me a bazillion of these tasty little bastards, I'm fairly certain I could eat every last one.
But I don't have a bazillion Bottle Caps. So, I'm only going to eat these three here.
I've been MIA here for quite some time, huh? I suppose it's time to come clean with the deep, dark secret as to why. No, I haven't been living on the streets or hanging out in jail or running from the law so as to avoid hanging out in jail.
I've been busy being smitten and somewhere along the line, falling head over ass for a guy who, when I know I'm going to get to see him, makes me feel this giddy:
And for every moment of togetherness that follows (and during the times we're not together), he makes me this happy:
I haven't written much about it because actually putting it out there in public almost makes me feel like I'm jinxing things. Or that, should it crash and burn someday, this is going to be one of those posts I'll look back on and read and think, "yeah, ya dumbass. See why you don't do that much?," which will result in my, once again, toughening up and bidding adieu to My Vulnerability once and for all.
But life's a risk, ain't it? So is love. And honestly, it's pretty nice to finally be comfortable taking it.
I live with a somewhat consistent fear that the people in my life are going to one day discover something about me they don't care for and decide, "eh, fuck it. See ya." It's always been there and in my good ol' younger days, I always chalked it up to insecurity. But as I've gotten older and thankfully, far more secure in who I am than ever before, I've often wondered why the hell it's still a lingering fear. It's not constant and I consider myself lucky that I'm drawn to people who challenge that fear, allowing it dissipate (and on the rare occasion, disappear) rather than people who perpetuate it. But still, it's there. Only when you get down to it, the 'why' doesn't really matter at all. No matter the reason for its existence, I can either let it stick around or *I* can be the one to say, "eh, fuck it. See ya."
I've always been someone most people would say tend toward the quiet. It was only sometime in adulthood that my parents finally told me they used to sometimes worry about me because growing up, I spent so much time in my room reading or listening to music or writing in one of my bazillion journals. It was definitely somewhat of a coping mechanism back then but it was (and still is) mainly due to the fact that if I don't have anything to say, I'm not going to say anything. I've always dug my alone time, I've always dug just being quiet, and I can't stand the forced filling of silence.
But my quietness has often been one of those things that makes some people think something is wrong and I've grown so accustomed to that that even when I'm around people who I'm fairly certain understand that isn't the case, I sometimes find myself, after all these years, still apologizing for being quiet.
It happened last night with a friend; one of the people I can be dead silent with and not feel it's an awkward silence. Whether we're talking or not talking, there's a level of comfort there that makes me feel like I don't need to apologize, whether I say a big, fat nothing or I say a big, fat something stupid. He sometimes apologizes for unnecessary things like falling asleep while we're watching television and I usually give him shit about it because it's important to me that he not feel like I expect anything from him other than kindness and respect. It's all I expect from anyone, really and provided those two things are there, I could give a flying fuck what else comes along with it.
But I realized last night just how goddamn second nature it can be to apologize for stupid shit. Hell, I even apologized for suggesting that hanging out at his place is comfier than mine. Which is ridiculous. Mine isn't uncomfortable at all; I love my apartment and I'm always comfortable there and I want whomever else may be in my apartment with me to be comfortable there too. If he isn't and if he hates being there, I'm pretty sure he'd say so and wouldn't have explicitly said otherwise. But much like my apologizing for the silence, my apologizing for that wasn't at all based on any kind of ... well, truth. It's based on absolutely nothing but a possibility. The possibility that I somehow won't live up to some stupid-ass, imaginary, self-imposed standard of 'good enough.'
I'm not uncomfortable with silence and I'm not uncomfortable in my apartment. But I was worried that *he* was uncomfortable with the silence and / or in my apartment, which somehow would have translated to some kind of ... personal fault of mine. Remember when I said a few sentences ago, "which is ridiculous"? Yeah, so is that translation. It's not at all what that translates to and I know that. I also know that the apologizing has become nothing but a habit. Like putting away my dishes so they're alternating colours (purple, orange, purple, orange). Like when I eat M&Ms or Skittles or something with different colours and I separate them into piles with equal amounts of colours in each pile and then I eat ones of the same colour from each pile until they're gone. They're silly little things I do only because I've done them for so long that they've become second-nature.
Those habits aren't bad and I don't give a tiny rat's ass about re-learning how to stack my dishes or how to eat candy like a normal person. But the other one? The other one is a bad habit and one I do not care for. It seems kind of shitty to expect and encourage others to be 100% who they are if I'm not willing to try and do the same, doesn't it?
So, I'm going to be the one to say to that bad habit, "eh, fuck it. See ya." And I'm going to break it. Well, not immediately, of course, because habits take time to break. But I'm going to work on breaking it. Which is, indeed, good enough.
Seems quite appropriate ...
(Ignore the part where the lyrics say, "even when I numb myself" because I'm fairly certain the actual lyrics are, "even when I am not myself.")
It's been quite some time since I've said anything even remotely resembling significant, huh? I'm gonna roll with that for just a bit longer.
While looking for the video of a commercial my friend and I were talking about last night, I stumbled upon this gem of a banned Skittles commercial. Surely, it was never intended to make it on television because sweet holy god, I can't imagine in what world it would ... but I still find it hilariously ... well, hilarious.
I dislike Oprah. I dislike her a ton. If I wasn't trying to steer clear of truly hating anyone or anything, I would entertain the possibility of saying, "I hate Oprah." Yes, I realize all the good she's done in the world money she's thrown at the world, but I always have and always will stand by my belief that she's a horribly wretched interviewer, a narcissistic jerk of a woman, and I can't wait 'til she gets the hell out of my city.
So, I shall steal some internet hilarity and join in the mocking ...
Write about a moment when you and another person (sibling, friend, parent, etc.) bonded.
My brother and I have never been terribly close. Once we got past the stage where we flung, "you're a jerk!" insults at each other every five minutes, we seemed to basically ... exist just fine together in the same house but we weren't particularly friends. I think we're both pretty different people than we were when we were younger (thankfully) and even though neither of us are chit-chatty phone call-y types and we don't talk all that often, we *are* closer than we ever were as kids. He sent me an email the other day that said, "Cool bookmark. Thought an avid reader might appreciate it" with the following picture attached, which reminded me why I believe so strongly in the, "actions speak louder than words" mentality. I don't need a phone call every other day or a constant reminder that someone cares about me. I just need an occasional one that tells me you really know the kind of person I am.
One who would just about give her tits to have this bookmark!
One of my favourite childhood memories definitely falls under the 'bonding between siblings' category. My parents have a ranch-style house so the three bedrooms are in the same hallway and the only thing separating what was my brother's room from what was my bedroom is the bathroom. When we went to bed at night and left our doors open, we could talk to each other until the parentals told us to shut the hell up and go to sleep (but in a loving, apropriately parent-y kind of way, of course). So, until that time came, we talked. And we played Scrabble. Scrabble is a fairly visual kind of game and when I try and think back to how we would have made that work with just talking, I have absolutely no idea how we did it. The only thing I really remember was saying things like, "I'll take a B, Chuck" (because when he wasn't making Love Connections, Chuck Woolery was hosting a bazillion other game shows, such as Scrabble).
I don't remember what words we ever played or how exactly we played or who ever won. But I do remember not hating having to go to bed at the end of the day because I had a brother two doors away who, for the most part, was the last person I talked to before falling asleep every night.
So, Judgment Day is coming in a few days, huh? From what I've heard, we'll have about five months after that before the world ends fer realz. And after having just read this post over at Feministe, I got to thinking about the self-indulgent things I would really, really, really, I mean really want to do if I knew the world was going to come crashing down around me, making the consequences of those actions quite minimal. I think I'll have plenty of time to fit them in and cross them off as I skip my way down the Path to the Apocalypse.
1. Ecstasy and heroin. Yes, I know and yes, really. You know how the uber anti-drug types are all hung up on the belief that simply talking about doing drugs is a way of glamorizing them? To a certain extent, I kind of agree. I've heard in detail what those highs are like and they totally make me wanna try it but there ain't no way. Well, that's a lie. I would do X tomorrow if opportunity knocked on my rave cave and said, "hey, let's have a happy, dancey, touchy good time." But if any of my family members are reading, relax ... the heroin is, without doubt, safely stashed behind Indulge Only In Case Of Apocalypse glass.
2. Fuck eight ways to Sunday. Whomever I want, as often as I want, however I want, with an absolute disregard for anything but the pleasure (and enthusiastic consent, of course) of whatever parties may be involved.
3. Rob a bank. It's the only way I'll be able to ...
4. Go to France and frolic the fuck out of the entire country.
5. Smoke as many cigarettes as I want without even the slightest bit of guilt or regret.
6. Quit my job after making my way around the office, telling each and every pretentious prick just what pretentious pricks they are.
7. Bungee jump.
8. Steal a CTA bus and drive it as fast as I possibly can on Michigan Avenue.
9. Smoke a whole punch of pot, put this song on repeat, and have hours of stoned sex.
10. Karaoke. Scandal's "Goodbye To You." And I will rock that bitch Kate & Allie-style.
So, to sum up ... if the apocalypse comes, please do beep me. Just be sure to give me plenty of time to take care of these things before hopping on a plane back to New York to shuffle off this mortal coil with my family, mmmkay? Thanks!
