For reals this time… October 13, 2009

So it’s been a while…like two months. I am finally going to start keeping up and keeping this blog as a real life journal like it’s supposed to be.

I turned 29 the other day and feel mostly fine about it. In my 28th year, I quit drinking alcohol and caffeine. There are several times a week/month where I feel the need to splurge on one or both but I am too crazy to give in because that means I lose. So, alcohol free for almost a year and caffeine free for almost 8 months. Also, it has been 4 months since my last mental breakdown. Meds seem to be working and I am mostly putting one foot in front of the other. Some days are better than others. I seem to be becoming more well adjusted in public and have made a couple of day road trips. Hopefully this time next year, most of my anxiety will be banished and I will have a hard time calling myself the girl that never goes out.

The most exciting/stressful thing lately is that I have bought a house. It’s being built and will be ready in January. I am completely bent out of shape and stressed and feel this intense pressure all the time about it until I walk through the partially framed house alone and I feel at peace and very happy. I have a feeling once it is completely framed that I will be spending quality time there alone on Sundays during the building process (kinda like on Scrubs when JD hangs out on his empty lot on the porch). Some light packing has occurred around my apartment which is nice too. There is still a long way to go and so much I want to do. My sister is going to help me pick out colors for the rooms and such.

One of the major things I am jazzed about is knowing that 30 years ago it wouldn’t have been possible for me to buy a home as a single woman and just be me on the title. It is extremely satisfying. Although there were/are times during the process (at least 6 weeks of looking at houses) where I wish I did have a partner to lean on when it got to be too much. I have an amazing realtor so the process hasn’t been too bad.

My goal is still to hopefully get a new job by the time I am 30. I am not happy with my job but I am lucky to have a seemingly stable job and with a mortgage payment coming soon I need it. The plan may have to be put off. But finally after 9 years, I have finally learned to be above all the hate and bitter and anger that seems to flood all around. My department is all women so it seems worse. I hate when women tear other women or keep them down to make themselves look better to male superiors. I don’t get it and refuse to participate.

Do I have any goals for the last year of my 20s? I think it is a safe bet not to set any and see what happens. Hopefully my mental health will progress and things will fall favorably. Although I am hoping most of my posts will not be so introspective and blah blah blah. I hope to document funny and interesting stuff too. I am also going to start blogging more on the three other blogs I have going with my friend Daniella Marie. The links should be on the side, Mouthy Maries, Socks Debunked and Indie As. I have a post going up tomorrow on Indie As about what song I cannot stop in my head.

Current Listening: NPR Live Concert-Jason Lytle

A Little Bit of Knowledge… July 9, 2009

It’s no secret that I am a total nerd for This American Life. Ira Glass is the bee’s knees and so on. I haven’t been able to get enough of the show so I have been downloading episodes from itunes to listen to at work (I would stream them from the site but I don’t have speakers on my computer). Yesterday I heard the episode titled “A Little Bit of Knowledge,” one of the acts talks about beliefs that are completely not true or normal that are held into adulthood. Since it was just the 4th of July, it reminds me of the thing I thought everyone else did until I was 19.

As a child, I really thought my family was the most normal family, not that my family is a band of gypsies or anything but I really thought everyone’s family was just like mine. I thought everyone’s dad worked on motorcycles, rode motorcycles, had a garage so orderly like a workshop with posters and such, listened to hard rock, had tattoos on their forearms. I figured out mid elementary school that it was not the case. I went to school before year round school became more prevalent so I never talked to kids in school about the 4th of July.

I never realized until having a conversation at work with my friend Tara, that people do not normally light sprinklers and fireworks with a blowtorch. I really thought everyone did that and that was completely normal. So I was talking nonchalantly about dad getting out the blowtorch and how my sister, Diana, wouldn’t go near sparklers since she was burned a little bit when she was like 6 (totally thinking the being afraid of sparklers was odd.) I will never forget the look on my friend’s face.

She said “blowtorch?”
I was like “yeah don’t you use a blowtorch? what?”
and she was like “NO.”
I was like “really? Not even to light sparklers?”
“NO Christina.”
“oh.”

When I got off of work, I drove straight home and told my parents that OTHER PEOPLE DO NOT USE A BLOWTORCH ON THE 4TH OF JULY NOT EVEN FOR SPARKLERS. IT IS DANGEROUS. Dad thought it was pretty funny. To be fair to my dad, us kids didn’t use the blowtorch, he just did. When the kids lit off the fireworks, we would use the lighter that people use to light candles. But still. Insane. It made me think about whatever else odd thing that my parents thought it was an okay thing to do.

My dad also told us that the “punks” (I’m not sure if they are even called that-who knows how much lying was done), the sticks that looked like sparklers but didn’t sparkle they just kept the light to light fireworks, was made of “camel shit.” Looking back on that now too, I suppose they are not. I could do research but I think I will make an educated guess that I am correct in my new assessment.

Current Listening-The Dead Weather “Horehound”

It’s you girl and you should know it. January 7, 2009

So continuing on my regression back to being a surly teenager, I have been watching classic shows lately while knitting. Currently, I am watching I Love Lucy season 2 and the Mary Tyler Moore Show season 3. I’m pretty sure that my parents thought it was odd that their teenage daughter would stay up all hours of the night to watch those shows and Dick Van Dyke and Get Smart. It was the best when Nick at Nite showed blocks of shows in the summer. Anyway, the two I am watching now are my favorites, because of the strong women characters. I’m pretty sure that I had seen all the episodes but can’t remember since it’s been like 10-15 years.

The third season of the Mary Tyler Moore show is absolutely amazing and just the first disc alone is some of the best comedic episodes ever, in my crazy opinion. The feminist issues that they deal with in those first 8 episodes: inequality/sexism in the workplace, sex, attitudes about unmarried women in their 30s (which was a lot less common then) and body image. Rhoda is my new hero and the actor who played her, Valerie Harper, was involved in the feminist movement before she started to play Rhoda.  

I can’t remember if it was in the first or second episode of the season, when Mary finds out she makes $50 a week less than her male predecessor and goes to confront Lou. I found myself yelling at the tv “Mary you tell him that’s bullshit” “tell him to shove it up his ass” “you march back in there Mary” and such. I’m sure the neighbors heard but whatevs. All the issues that they dealt with in those episodes are sadly still issues now, more than 30 years later. Are there any shows on today that deal with those issues? I can’t think of any. I wish there were. If anyone knows of any, please let me know.

Current Listening: Portishead-Dummy

Current Project: Staff Acct Sweater (just button band left!)

Current Reading: The Beach House (on the last disc-I can’t wait)

OMG it was New Kids day! October 12, 2008

Yesterday was the start of year 28. It started with tears (not the happy kind) but eventually progressed to better and then happy tears. Once I finished my spectacular moping on the couch and Henry Rollins spoken word tunnel focus, I talked to some well wishers and had lunch with mom and dad and went down for my nap. Also on Tuesday, it somehow turned into dead of winter here (just a sidenote). Once I was awoken by the insane amount of calls on my celluar telephone, I met up with Loud and Mouthy and headed out to the Mandalay Bay to see Santogold.

I had three options last night: Kings of Leon/The Stills or New Kids on the Block (I thought it was fate) or Santogold/Mates of State/Alice Smith/Low vs. Diamond. I like the Stills a lot but not so much on the Kings of Leon, I adored New Kids on the Block when I was much younger but felt that I would just be cringing the whole time and then be pissed I wasted my birthday evening having good memories ruined so when Santogold was announced I jumped up and down and squealed in my work chair. It was perfection. My dear friend Miles plus a couple of his friends met up with us also and there were good times and very offensive conversation in between bands. Laura! has a new favorite band in Mates of State. Dani worked through her hunger and only winced when Santogold covered “Guns of Brixton” (which of course I adored). I tried not to shed tears of happiness when I saw Santogold on the stage being awesome and amazing and full of confidence and did I mention just being so fucking awesome? I was also very happy to see Mates of State. I got Team Boo not long after it came out and hit Dani and Laura when they decided to play “Ha Ha” and got all sorts of crazy.

Day ended in front of the computer as it started and it was good. 27 was kind of a shit year but there were a couple good things that can be taken away from the year and marked in the good column. Meeting and becoming inseparable with Dani and Laura kind of (but not really kind of) saved me so I have them to thank for getting me to 28. <3

Too much babble not enough holiday gift making.

Current Listening: Mates of State-Team Boo