This morning’s drink: chamomile tea.

I don’t recall ever asking for journals, but I do know that I’ve always received them. Christmas, birthdays, Valentine’s Day — family and friends alike have gifted me with journals since I can remember. And I’ve loved it — I’ve always loved it. I have stacks of ravaged journals and almost equal numbers that are dying to be filled.

One journal in particular came to me a few years ago with a matching photo album. Printed all over them in cursive and gold script are the words “Dream Journal.”

I don’t use this journal as my dream journal — or maybe I do. My confusion comes from the way people use the word ‘dreams’ to describe both the crazy things that go through their head at night, and the hopeful ambitions they cling to throughout the day.

Who ever made that connection? I’ve never had a night dream that encapsulated a fantastic job or a perfect mate. In fact, when I’m not dreaming about totally benign things like rearranging furniture or working, I’m fleeing from murderers in impossible alleyways or finding illogical solutions to riddles that don’t make sense.

Even when I’ve taken my dreams and tried to “read” them for their symbolism, they “tell” me things that a drunk person could probably elucidate with more elegance.

For this reason, I can’t think of the things I actually want to do in life as ‘dreams.’ Dreams are uncomfortable and confusing. Ambitions are optimistic and encouraging.

Which is why I get a slight feeling of uneasiness when I read Anais Nin’s quote, also scrawled on my journal’s hardcover:

“Dreams are necessary to life.”

Either I’m missing something in life, or I’m missing something in my dreams.

This morning’s drink: chamomile tea.

I should not be writing this right now. It’s almost 7 a.m. and writing for pleasure should be strictly relegated to pre-dawn and post-sunset hours. The sunrise knows this and it’s hunting me down. Creeping into alleys, spotlighting certain buildings and gradually making it’s way to my southern-facing windows.

I should also not be writing because I’ve been reading young Hemmingway. Like Henry Miller and Anais Nin, Hemmingway puts me in this crazy, liquid writing state where every color is saturated and every emotion more dense. I like writing this way, but it’s made up of pieces that I’ve already digested. Which, in turn, makes it rather unappetizing to anyone else.

Still, I am writing this, and I’m mentally reclined in thoughts of Sedona. I took my one and only trip to Sedona about four years ago, and I’ve never been able to reclaim the part of myself I left there. The red rocks of sandstone cut so much against the sky that it seemed like a movie set, and in the back of my mind it was a scene that had been cut from Willy Wonka. I imagined I could swipe my hand along the side of those bluffs and return with cinnamon-spiced chocolate. I would imagine all the things the indigenous folks used to use it for.

But I’m not in Sedona — not even a little bit. My neighbors are audibly showering and I’m running out of tea. When the sun reaches my window it will already be hot, and the spider in my pane will have caught another fly.

Last night’s drink: Xtremo [sic] Mango Gatorade

I’m writing from a hotel room in San Francisco where I am swollen with fertility hormones, fighting off a virus, broke and alone. Surprisingly, the worst aspect of this for me is that I’m not at home, but I guess all of the aspects are sort of interchangeable. If I weren’t broke, I could get myself out of bed to do something cool since the hotel is very close to Union Square. If I weren’t sick, I could get a lot of work done and catch up on my narcissistic blog. If I weren’t incubating my eggs, I could go for a jog along the bay or over these crazy hills. Instead, I’m sort of half-assing on all of the above. Taking walks through Chinatown, window shopping, and writing this post. Still, I feel optimistic.

This post has been a few weeks coming, but not because it has anything particularly poignant to say. It’s the first since Josh and I completely broke up. We each moved into new spaces, and are moving forward separately. So this blog marks the first in my re-entry into writing whatever I want, whenever I want without inhibition nor inquisition.

I’ve been cooking up some interesting activities already, but nothing is quite ready to serve. This week will mark one of the first dishes, though, as about 3 dozen of my eggs swell within me and eventually join the sperm of a man I’ll never meet. Outside of my body, I should add. I’m not close to ready to be a parent, more or less Octomom.

On the menu are stories of law enforcement, divas, coffee shops, high school reunions and flipping the bird. Maybe even a few hardline decisions mixed in for taste.

But for now, it’s time to get in the shower and tower above San Francisco’s Chinese, and otherwise.

After all, I’m still a young (wo)man.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Blog World and New Media Expo

SXSW Interactive

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!