Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: 30, aging, alcohol, birthdays, drinking, life, love, music, proverbs, quotes, random, Sex in the City, skeletons, thoughts
Last night’s drink: Some delicious wine at Pizza Fusion
I failed to blog about my birthday a few weeks ago. It wasn’t totally intentional, but at the same time I’m finding this new age — 28 — to be a puzzling one. In the past, when I’ve blogged about birthdays, I’ve felt more in control than in past years — more collected. However, this birthday has had a sort of numb feeling, despite that it’s been one of the most liquid months of my life.
Jenn and I talked about it last night, since her instance of this age is fast approaching. She was the first to mention “30,” and we wondered briefly why it seemed like such a dirty word. Even in Sex in the City the women are all in their 30’s and seem to own it, but there’s definitely an undercurrent of discomfort in each of their conversations.
California calls you an adult at the age of 18, but I don’t think it actually starts until 21. While alcohol is not the dividing factor between men and boys, you really have no idea what you’re subconscious is capable of until you’ve known yourself drunk in public. Co-dependence, jealousy, loneliness, rage, depression, promiscuity — most of your social inhibitors keep these skeletons in check. A few drinks down the road, though, and they get one step ahead of you.
Of course, there are lots of materializations of this metatarsular two-step: drunk dialing; drunk texts; brawls; regretable sex; tattoos; karaoke. While on the surface some of these things can seem bad on the surface, I think they all have their upsides. Aside from the humorous aspects, releasing your skeletons can feel really good, maybe even thrilling. And even though you can blame it on the alcohol, everyone knows that the guy/gal that did that is actually you — just not the intentional you.
So at the ripe old age of 28, I’ve been confronting my skeletons in various environments for 7 years. And while I’ve tried to beat down some more than others, they are all pretty much still in tact. At the age of 30, I will have lived with those guys for nearly a decade. And you are the company you keep. It’s a frightening prospect.
The simple solution is to stop drinking, I suppose. Out of sight, out of mind. But I think life is just as much as battlefield as love is, and I choose to keep my enemies close.
How can you argue with all that ancient wisdom?
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: cuddling, love, men, relationships, sex, women
Tonight’s drink: Banrock Station Shiraz
I’ve never liked cursing much. I used to abstain from it pretty wholeheartedly up until about two years or so ago when I wrote a song that had the “F” word in it. I sang it to my then boyfriend and he immediately shut it down with a, “No good — you don’t say that word.”
I guess I sort of felt compelled at that point. My insides definitely said that word — and on more than one occasion, I might add.
Before my F-bomb liberation, Zack and I used to joke about our largely informal and un-sexual relationship by calling eachother “Cuddle Buddies.” Obviously a play on the “F” version of the term, but true nonetheless. While we had a unique connection, we only practiced it over the phone weekly with an excitable chat, and on the weekends predicated by a “Cuddle Call.” The puns were endless.
While the whole thing definitely had its place in summing up the tenor and tenacity of our “relationship,” I began to realize how much I loved cuddling. I could talk about the details of cuddling the way a man might talk about sex. The foreplay. The positions. What he did with his hands. The afterglow — which also typically resulted in sleeping. While many men use cuddling as a way to get the goods, it’s the cornucopia for me. Spooning serves it up like nothing else — and any interruption only takes it down a notch.
Guys take cuddling as the first sign of success. It leads into neck kissing, attempts at groping and that breathy ear thing. Though those things can be great and sex can be fun, when it creeps into my cuddling it becomes an unwelcome distraction. Sort of like interrupting sex to eat a giant chocolate fudge sundae. Two goods don’t always create a happy harmony — sometimes, they spark a cat fight of catastrophe.
This tendency make me question a lot of things. Like whether or not it’s linked to my fear of having children. Or if my memory is waiting to surprise me with some crazy blocked memory from 20 years ago. Or if I’ve gotten to a point where even my subconscious wants to control everything — including me.
Maybe it’s just that cuddling is so hard to get from men without committment — to sex.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: anger, humor, love, men, relationships, sex, women
This morning’s drink: Stash green tea
Someone once told me a joke that compared men’s view of sex to women’s view of shopping. The man took the woman to a huge shopping mall and told her to grab a cart and pile as much stuff as she liked into it; to try on everything in the store and take hours; to ask him his opinion a million times, and even ask him to carry the bags. The woman goes on a flurry and spends hours on each floor, finally arriving at the checkout counter with her man and an expectant glance. The man then says, “Actually, I’m too tired to pay for all these clothes. I have a headache. I don’t feel like it. Let’s do it some other day.”
Of course, the joke is meant to illustrate the disappointment men feel when they are rejected in their advancements for sex. I view it, however, as an illustration of how numb or expectant men are relative to what they get from women. When’s the last time you had sex with your man? If you’re married or committed, probably at least once during your relationship. When’s the last time your man ever took you on a shopping spree? I can count zero times over every relationship I’ve ever had, and I don’t think I’m alone. Yet somehow, men see purposeful disappointment akin to not getting sex, even though they’ve likely had sex at least once in their life.
Women have amnesia about the awful, uncomfortable conditions of pregnancy — assumedly as an evolutionary trick to keep women from stopping at just one. Men seem to have amnesia about the satisfaction associated with sex — assumedly to keep them seeking that pleasure (and spreading that seed). Both men and women are wired to breed — not to just have sex.
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t forget as grand a gesture as a shopping spree, and I don’t forget the times I’ve received flowers or other thoughtful things. That’s because they show a woman that her significant other is thinking about her and is interested in her happiness — an emotion that women should earn from their man. To an extent, I think women give their sex and their love to men in the same way, and that men should also earn that — yet men see it as something owed to them for simply agreeing to be committed. And if they don’t get it, somehow it’s because women are spiteful and mean.
I am not a shopping mall.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: life, perspective, Stevie Wonder, SXSW, thoughts
Last night’s drinks: vodka and sodas
So am at SXSW for my first year ever, and so far it’s been an interesting experience. The weather has sucked, but Austin has been great, and I’ve already seen more pasties and laptops in two days than I have in my entire lifetime.
While I did go to a really good panel yesterday on the Ecosystem of News, I’ve also been inspired by something Josh said yesterday – “Take pictures, post stuff. I’ve never been there before, so I can’t imagine anything that you’re seeing.”
It made me look at this trip, and this conference, in a really different way. This blog isn’t just my barfing emotions and thoughts all over you, it’s a chance for you to see what I see. If I just imagine that all of you are Stevie Wonder, I can make it my goal to describe the ribbon in the sky.
Just don’t be surprised if it has a lot of geeks hanging around.
Tonight’s drink: Little Black Dress Merlot
I’m in Ripon this weekend for my grandmother’s 90th birthday party. I’m discovering that you don’t realize how old 90 is until you’ve seen someone get there over two decades.
When I worked at the newspaper, I had a column called “Friends and Neighbors” where I wrote about local people of interest. It was pretty commonplace for me to get letters about people turning 100, or 102, or 104, etc. I referred to them, appropriately, as the centenarians.
That was over five years ago now, and I have to believe that some, if not all, of the centenarians I met are gone. When I imagine that, I picture them as little dandelion puffs just whisking away with the breeze. If you don’t watch someone get old, it’s almost impossible to see them as anything but. They become their own sort of life form – a fleeting one, despite the evidence to the contrary.
My dad picked me up from the airport and I went with him to get some groceries for the party. The bag girl asked him if he needed help out, and he replied, “I’m not that old yet.” As we walked out, I thought, “Neither am I,” but something about the “yet” made me feel so mortal all of a sudden. I felt my muscles shiver in the cold air, the strength of my bones, the fluidity of my joints and movements. And then I pictured my grandmother the last time I had seen her. Frail and pale, fingers crooked from arthritis, sliding on her walker. Yet.
It really bugs me when people spout their mantras about “living for today” and “siezing the moment,” because I feel like those things are luxuries, not rights. It’s great to go around smelling the roses, but if you can’t make rent at the end of the month, you’ll be smelling a lot more than that while you’re living on the street.
So this post isn’t about that — or any other sort of advisory about how you’re supposed to appreciate this totally random, irrational existence. It’s just an observation on perspective, I suppose.
And a reminder that I need to take more calcium.
Filed under: Daily Specials
Last night’s drink: Alice White Cabernet Shiraz
So I don’t have the full story behind this yet, but one of Josh’s friends told me to buy a lottery ticket today. Well, he told Josh to tell me. And Josh texted me… I’m overcomplicating this part.
I can’t remember the last time I bought a lottery ticket. I’ve bought scratchers to break $20’s, but a lottery ticket seems much more serious for some reason. It was like graduating from slots to blackjack tables. Except I didn’t have to hide that little cheater card in my lap.
I found out lottery tickets aren’t something you can just pick up at Albertson’s like stamps. You have to go to places like the liquor store on Washington St. which, for some reason, always looks damp and dank. Moldy or no, however, I felt compelled to buy this lottery ticket. Josh’s friends never tell him to tell me to do anything.
It made me think about my dad, and how he used to buy lottery tickets, but only when the pot was $25 million or higher. He couldn’t be bothered with $1 million, or $10 million. He was one of those guys who played the same numbers everytime, but he also bought quick picks. One time he won $20. He gave it to me.
It isn’t that my dad was rich — quite the opposite, actually. He was almost bankrupted by my ex-stepmom. I don’t know what his strategy or theory was, but he was pretty religious about it for a long time.
One day, when I worked at the newspaper, one of the reporters was going off on a rant (as they sometimes do) about how the lottery was the “idiot’s tax” because the odds of winning were so low. To this day, I think that’s a crappy way to look at life.
I’d be willing to bet that most people who play the lottery do it for fun; for the “what if” factor. Of those people, I bet lots of them believe in luck and serendipity. Many of them are probably pretty optimistic, too. Quite a few of them probably have big dreams and even bigger imaginations. Most of them probably have their share of hope.
To deal strictly in tangibles is idiotic, in my opinion.
But – just to clarify – I won’t turn away a tangible load of cash.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: Blog World, fortune, Google, gratitude, reader, religion, winner, work
Last night’s drink: King Fish Merlot
So it only took me one day to fail at NaBloPoMo, but that day was SO great, that I’m going to forgive myself and keep going.
Today’s thought on “letting go” has to do with the phrase, “Let go; let God.”
If you know me, or just happened to come upon a few specific posts here, you also know that my views on religion are a little scattered. A part of me even had a hard time capitalizing the word “God,” because it seems to hegemonic. And my idea of God is humbler than that, and less singular.
This phrase crossed my mind this morning as I was considering my fortunes of the past few days. I’m such a control freak, that I’ve been working myself into a froth over the way some things have seemed to tank in my personal space. I finally peaked like a stiff merengue, and just sort of crumpled down from there. And then, things just started happening.
Most notably and relatably is my winning the Blog World contest yesterday, for which I am extremely grateful. While newspapers fall and the career paths that truly stoke my passion start to face uncertainties, this opportunity feels so crucial to their survival and mine. I’m definitely going to make it count, and even more exciting to me is that I’m going to be meeting others who are doing the same.
I’ve also had many freelancing opportunities recently open up to me, which is definitely a godsend considering all else. The market is so fierce right now, I have to be grateful for any extra work that comes in — especially work that doesn’t involve waiting tables or sucking up to jerks.
Also, the more I let go of my inhibitions and protectionist attitude, the more I find that people open up to me. And I really like you guys, so it’s a pleasure — no matter how strange the stranger.
Finally, I have to give a shout out to Google Reader, because I just recently set it up and it makes me happy in a million different ways every day.
And if any technology embodies God’s work, it has to be related to Google somehow.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: Blog World and, Blog World and New Media Expo, blogging, nablo, NaBloPoMo, SXSW, SXSW Interactive, twitter, vlogging, writing, YouTube
Last Night’s Drink: King Fish Merlot and some others that will go unmentioned.
To kick off the month of letting things go, I finally got over my trepidation for posting videos online, as is clearly evidenced in my submission for the free SXSW Interactive badge from Blog World and New Media Expo. You can see it in all its glory here. (And if you’re feeling so inclined, please retweet!)
I’m also exploring the world of 12 Second Video, though with arguably less flair than my YouTube venture. I’m having a hard time finding interesting things to talk about in a 12 second window of time. I like to expound, pontificate, elucidate — some of those words take 12 seconds just to say!
Maybe I need to implement something like a Na12PoMo (National 12 Seconds Posting Month) so that I’m motivated, incentivized and inspired to post there more.
Oh, how I do love the big words.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: Austin, Blog World and New Media Expo, blogging, BlogWorldExpo, New Media, Podcasting, SXSW, SXSW Interactive, SXSW Interactive site, twitter, Videocasting
Dear Blog World,
When you announced that you were giving away an Interactive pass to SXSW on Friday I almost peed my pants.
Well – not really. I have a little more self control than that. But I was really excited.
Why am I so excited? Because I’m a young lady who’s been flirting with the tech scene in San Diego, working hard as a web development project manager, and blooming in her own rite as a hopeful journalist — a young lady who knows the value of technology, social media and networking as it relates to every industry today. One who sees a lot of opportunity, hope and excitement in the prospect of attending SXSW.
I’m also a young lady who’s been hit by the economy and, as such, is having a hard time justifying the cost of flying, paying and staying in Austin for this lovely conglomeration of geeks. But I’ve got the room situation ironed out and the funds for a flight – now all I need is a badge.
So, if my hard work and sob story aren’t convincing enough, I wrote you a song and have performed it below (with the help of a certain Alicia Keys).
Plus — I’m really fun to party with. Just ask Jenn.
Lyrics:
Some people live for the twitter
Some people live for internet fame
Some people live for the blogging
Some people live for role playing games
I’m not just one, but a little bit of all those things
I’ve never been there before, but SXSW sounds more like the right place for me
Some people want it all
But I just want to party and blog
And be with you BlogWorld
And party with you BlogWorld!
Some people want all the scenes
I want the panels and things
But SX don’t mean nothing
If I ain’t got you, BlogWorld
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: blogging, Catholicism, horoscope, lent, NaBloPoMo, venting, wine, writing
Last Night’s Drink: Montes Malbec
Every month, around the first, I carry out two semi-personal rituals online: 1) I check my monthly horoscope by Susan Miller because she is the best; and 2) I read the NaBloPoMo theme and consider trying out the challenge once again.
The first time I sort of tried NaBloPoMo was in November of 2007, and I got a pretty good start going until Jenn and I met up for Vegas for a week. Then it quickly tapered off. I read yesterday that the theme for March’s NaBloPoMo was “Letting (Go),” in something of a nod to Lent. Since I have a lot of stuff to set free, and I’m a wanna-be Catholic anyway, it’s the perfect time for me to revive, and unload into, my blog.
So March will hopefully be chock full of posts that are not sacrificing quality for quantity. I’ll start today by telling February not to let the door hit its buns on the way out.
Better stock up on some wine!
