It is raining. I am sitting in the "gameroom" at my apartment complex, one of the employees of latin origin is eating her lunch, intently watching her soap on the big screen.
It isn't raining. It's some where between raining and pouring.
I feel as huge as humpty dumpty, and I have to work in two hours.
I am happy...
Overall I am very happy...
Nothing is perfect, but everything is perfect...
I'm in love, I have a family, I have friends, and some people think I'm pretty all right...
Yes...
Happy

About a month and a half ago, my very wise Grandma Judy said to me, "when God closes one door, he opens another."
Or something to that effect. I would quote directly, but my school has banned evil Facebook from usage.
At the time I was feeling like a pile of not-quite-human shit, reeling at the completely unfair hand that life had dealt me. Well, now time has passed, and prespectives have changed, and as that door behind me slid into its jamb and finally settled into its place, not only did another door open, but the best person that's ever happened to me came walking through.

Grandmas are so wise.

Through countless amounts of lachrymal secretions blown into the nearest item of soiled laundry; through hand cramps and spent pens and about thirty trees worth of journal paper; through the exhaustion of any unsuspecting eardrum within my vicinity; through the answer of why this happened and where this is going finally seeming to come into focus; and through meeting Forrest, I am well on my way to being myself again...

Regardless of the fact that my life for the past few months reads like an outline for any given episode of Jerry Springer, I am happy.

I reckon that is life

There's too much to elaborate on.
Let's just say, I've needed this time to write endlessly in my journal, and therefore haven't had the time or energy to write here.
How about, I'm going to be a mommy, and I'll be chosing the baby's name myself.
That says volumes.

ugh...

YAY!

I'm going to a Roundrock Express game tonight!

Pictures and funny anecdotes to follow...

101X Grind Festival

I'm sorry. These pictures are in the opposite of chronological order.
They are in chronoillogical order.
Pretend you are time travelling and everything will be okay.

My horrific sun burn.

The mos beautiful thing I've ever seen polluting water.

This was absolutely necessary.

Through the ancient art of wizardry, Steve smashed his water bottle into this. Be very afraid.

Aww.

Token campus photo.

That time when we were in jail. And you wonder why we're so hard...

Can any one say "supermodels"? I can.

Hello, Renaissance Festival, we found your tent...

I hail the crotch of the Lone Star!

Steve asked for my camera under the guise of taking a picture of Mel and me, but took this one instead. There's one for the mantle!

Steve playing with his thingy.

Who would spray tan in public where people like me can take a picture and stick it on their blog?

Wake boarding, sans wake. Should be called cable boarding.

Those kids were playing their rock-n-roll too darned loud! Jimminy Cricket!

I should be a sports photographer I am so awesome.

What else can I say besides yum-diddly.

I dunno.

Awesome trick! Wow! And his voice didn't even crack as he soared through the air...

Something smells fishy...

I just made, and subsequently ate, sweet potatoes, swiss chard, and mahi mahi. First off, I am a master of sweet potatoes, so of course they were delicious. Second, you've never tasted swiss chard until you've had mine, cooked Asian style. Chances are, you've never had swiss chard any way. It's one of those highly nutritious, dense leafy greens that you find glistening in the produce section, that most Americans tend to avoid.
But not me. I gobble em up!
Now the mahi (I only say "mahi" once because it wasn't tasty enough to warrant saying twice)was a different story. In the collection of the many things I've tried and easily mastered or become enviably proficient at in my life, making fish is not included. It was meh.
And now my house smells like a dumpster at a fish market.

Confession

I still love Marilyn Manson.

Do you have a confession?

Another response to mystery commenter (you really should be reading these)

That was alot to swallow after having literally woken up 3 minutes ago.

But I'm not going to rip you a new one. Why would I retaliate against one of the few people who has read my entire blog and took enough time to write me a post-size comment?

The fact of the matter is, my life isn't precisely as I'd like it to be right now. I admit that.
I work at Kerbey Lane, which, as you correstly surmised, isn't what I'd like to call "my career". But to say that I didn't want to call my old job (if you've read my entire blog, you know what that was) "my career" would be even more true.
It is true that I'm not travelling now, and what travel plans I do have for the near future don't consist of a six month stint in South America. It is true that things aren't as carefree for me as they used to be. It is true that I've gained weight, due %95 to the fact that I no longer have my old job.
I'm in a period of paying my dues. Because yes, working when you want, drinking, spending the days at the greenbelt, saving money and travelling is a fun way to live life, but it's not going to get me where I really want to go.
I'm in school full time now. I work full time now. Does this make for an exciting life? Not so much. Is it necessary? Absolutely.
Some day I'd love to join the Peace Corps. You need a bachelors degree to do this. I'd love to write for a travel magazine, or a newspaper some day. You don't just need to travel to do this, you need an education and credentials.
I'm not going to school for a business degree or a computer science degree. I'm going for a degree in Journalism with a minor in Spanish, so I can acquire the knowledge I need to make those dreams my reality, not just temporary haituses between long periods of working in a club.
Can you imagine how easy it would be to go to school full time working until 2:30 every morning, and under the influence of certain people in that scene?
I'm not a person that was brought up with alot of discipline, so the answer to that question is, not very.

So maybe I have a boyfriend who doesn't like to read, and maybe he has a girlfriend who doesn't care about working on cars. These things aren't the only things you need from a relationship.
And incidently, my last boyfriend, with whom I had a great relationship, would read my blog (when I made him...even though he liked to read in general), and he didn't like it. He didn't like the way I wrote.
To be honest many of the people closest to me in my life don't read my blog: my best friend, my mom, my boyfriend, my sister.
So big frigging deal. Maybe I like it that way. Leaves me free to write about them unabashedly.

Maybe all of this is just a big justification. Jusitification and reason, there's a fine line between the two.

I just feel like I'm doing what I have to be doing right now. It's not very glamorous, but I'm 26 by now. I don't want to be working in bars and restaurants forever. I want to be able to accomplish the things that can make my life great, and not just 1/3 of it, while the other 2/3's I try and hide.

to the person who left a comment on the next to last post

Nicely written, but not exactly spot on.
A change of circumstances doesn't exactly equate to laziness or neglect.
Also, I'm not exactly sure how I've tried to cover my ailing lawn with distracting lawn ornaments.
And I certainly haven't installed a middle finger shaped pool. (Though, if there was a pool shaped like a finger, how would you be able to tell which one it was? I'm sure you meant "shaped like a hand giving the middle finger.")
I guess I'm misunderstood, even by my self, but especially by other people.

And really, I've never been too lazy to water my own lawn. Everything has its turn.

p.s. I really did enjoy the writing.


If you care to read the comment I'm writing about, and you haven't gleaned its location from the title, look at the post which begins "The grass is greener on the side you water."

I got one vote on a "shut the fuck up" at the end of a post!!!!!
I'm pretty sure this is the dramatic highlight of my day.
I was sad it wasn't accompanied by any comments, much less a hateful one!
I suppose I get some sort of demented charge out of people being mean or confrontational to me. My heart starts pounding, my brain racing to find an appropriate reaction.
I love it and I hate it.
But the ugly truth of the matter is, I spend more hours of my day imagining possible scenarios in which a violent showdown might occur than I do anything besides sleeping or working.
It's easy since it finds its way into most of my daily activities. What would go down if a perceived malicious askance glace turned into snarky comment? Would I have to throw down in the hallway of my school with a complete stranger? How would I take her down? If she's a hair puller, am I willing to risk my luxurious mane to win the fight? What if she's well versed in jiujitsu?
And what if a dissatisfied customer threw their drink on me? Or smashed a plate of cold, undercooked food into my chest? What would I say? I've come up with so many perfect things. Would I just clock her right there? Or if I was feeling espcecially testy, would I pick up the aforementioned plate and smash her face with it? How much time would I spend in jail for doing that?
I think these things and my heart gets to racing, and I just pray that someone will cross me, because goddamnit, I am prepared.
Let's not even get into constant car wreck fantasies whilst driving?
We all do that though, right?
The point is, if you feel like it, don't be afraid to drink your haterade and throw a little my way. It'll give me something to compulsively and systematically figure out how to approach, and finally, never deal with.
Maybe I have too much time on my hands.

"The grass is greener on the side you water."

Hmmmmm....
I like that.

Except it's not really true. We're talking about the desirabiltity of that which you don't have...the unattainable.
I can set my sprinkler system for 6:30 both times around the clock, feed it miracle grow every day, heck, I could even play it classical music, but no matter how good my grass gets to looking, there's always going to be something I don't have that I want, that looks a hell of alot better than what I have, just because I don't have it.

(Successful) adages become adages because they're true. Come up with new ones, but leave the time tested alone. It's lasted for a reason, that reason being that it accurately portrays a facet of the human experience, regardless of what era it's used in.
Until we've all acheived Buddha nature, I think this one will apply.

Maybe this was just someone's nice way of telling me to stop complaining. They're probably right.
But I probably won't.

It's in my nature to be dissatisfied with my position. Accept it.

p.s. now's not a good time for losing weight

Wow!
Martyn you are completely right.

If you'd like to know what Martyn was right about read this
http://emberjeunesse.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-efforts-to-post-everyday-have-been.html#links
and then read this
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=9586546&postID=5213875332709963455

I'm terribly sorry but this page keeps loading with "errors" and therefore I cannot add links. So I guess you'll just have to quit being so goddamn lazy and do the old copy and paste.
Kick it old school.

It sometimes catches me completely off guard how, when I think I'm being insightful and thought provoking, I'm actually overlooking something so obvious as the complete misuse, not just in word, but in meaning, of the word "sadly".

Sadly shouldn't even be used in reference to the past. Take that as you'd like, we could argue, but I don't feel like proving you wrong with tireless rationale. (Aren't I presumptuous?)

I was always where I needed to be, travelling as I needed to be, and acting as I needed to be at the times I was doing those things. I couldn't have been any other way.

I guess that it's just easier to take whatever unfulfilled longings you have in the present, and kick your self in the ass for not taking the opportunity to do them in the past, instead of just looking for a way to bring those things to fruition in the future.

It's like my absurd regrets for not learning to play, say, the violin.
I used to have a violin. As a matter of fact, I had one for about 5 years. I stored it at my mom's house, attempted to play it once, and then let it collect dust. Now, is it fair for me to chide myself for not having learned to play it in that time?
Some may say yes, but they're stupid.
If it was right for me to learn to play the violin in that period, I would have done it then.

I'm babbling.

The point is, as it turns out, my reasoning is fallible. I know, I know, it's an utter shock to me too.

This time Martyn, my friend who I was never able engage in a philosophical discussion (or at least who never permitted me to subject him to the inane rambligns of my mind), has schooled me.

Well played sir.

(He must have taken a class or something...)

Sadly

Why should I "consider using this is future posts" Mr. Martynez?
Because it's a good way to begin a sentance?
Or because to the observer my life has become something that would necessitate the more frequent usage of "sadly"?
Hopefully the first reason, or some other one.
It's a beautiful day and I don't want to adopt a "Negator" attitude today.

Question...
Would I become less a person if I went to church?
What if I went to a Buddhist temple or a mosque?
What do your answers tell you about your prejudices?

DON'T JUDGE ME!!!!!
please

I need some blogs to follow. Some times my old reliables aren't so reliable, and I find it tiresome to look through endless boring blogs, serching for something as awesome as mine...
:)
Do you write a blog?
Would you like for me to read it so we can perform mutual commenting?
Come on it's hot!
Plus, I get bored.
Let me know people (or person. Not exactly sure how many people read this).
Tell your friends, tell your relatives, tell that coworker you can't stand but just can't figure out why.

I've been looking back through old pictures, and realizing that in alot of ways, I really miss the life I used to have.
I guess because I used to have a life.
I wouldn't want to go back to everything. Only parts of it.
I guess when you compare fun, carefree times with weighing 20 lbs more, sitting at home alone while your boyfriend drinks and smokes weed with his friends, having no life outside of work and school, oh and let's not forget, not being able to drink, the past is always going to sound better.
I had such fun taking Curry to Bull Creek with Tiffany, going to the green belt, dancing in front of the mirror, Spiderhouse, even going to work at night.
I wrote on my blog all the time. I wasn't doing any drugs. Just some drinking and some having fun.
I was saving money and I was going to South America for six months.
When I compare then with now, I get such a strong longing for the past.
I suppose the grass is always greener.

This is one of THOSE posts

I think I like being alone more than with anyone.

When I'm alone, there's nothing to pretend. No talking for the sake of talking, no acting like I feel better than I feel for the sake of being good company. I don't have to be some version of myself. I'm just myself.

I can not talk all day, get lost in my thoughts, sing without self consciousness, and fart without embarrassment. I can eat my store-bought sushi in the driver's seat of my car and when I'm done, I can sit in the HEB parking lot, windows down, enjoying this perfect day, just because I feel like it...
I have no secrets from myself, no hidden thoughts, there's no quiet bitterness of self consciousness. There's the wonderful freedom of being with the one person in the world who knows me completely, and accepts me that way.
I keep my secrets with myself. We know how to keep things on the DL.

Sometimes I imagine this enormous world inside of me, and I'm amazed. Then I imagine every other person I see, walking around with just as colossal and complex of universes inside them, and I am flabbergasted.
I don't feel I'll ever be able to exhaust my terrain. I wonder if other people feel the same.
I know that you don't always present to the world what you really are/think/feel inside. Surely tons of people keep up a simple front, but on the inside....

How could anyone tire of exploring their own unknown?
Maybe some people are scared. I know that when faced with a space vast enough to appear infinite, terror is a common reaction. Perhaps that's why some seek the constant company of others; to distract each other from the undiscovered within.

When I take time to look inside, I discover that every thought is poignant, every moment is documentable, every idea novel, and that, yes, you make a movie from my life.

Maybe that's just me.
Maybe I'm just more awesome that everyone else.
Maybe other's inner worlds are more akin to 90210 (the new one duh) than chaotic cosmos of resplendent captivation.
It's hard to say.

Well I brought the ol laptop to a coffee shop to upload the aforementioned pictures, bought a decaf mocha and everything, and it's just not working.
It lets me sit there as it "uploads" for about five minutes each time, before suddenly the "page cannot be displayed" although I'm doing a crossword on another one. Fucking lying machine!
Any way, I've decided not to upload pictures today, since I have to be at work in an hour, and I have a bad attitude.
Sucks to be y'all.

I have so many "good" ideas for posts rolling around in my head, but for some reason I don't just sit down and stamp them out.

We had a hail storm here the day before yesterday, and I have a bunch of pictures and video to post, but they're on my laptop and I don't have a wireless router in my apartment, and so, there's my excuse for that one.

Also, I went to a Latin American restaurant last week called Cafe Colombia and took pictures of my food and wrote a whol review. Why don't I post this? The trouble of deciphering my own handwriting from my journal.

Also I had two funny thoughts while at work which I can't share yet because that will spoil them, but I don't feel emotionally ready to do them justice. They're not amazing thoughts or anything. I just know I can make them funny.

Okay enough being mysterious.

I have real writing to do... After breakfast.

Frio Frijoles

Someone follows my blog!

Well, I just went to Sonic to get a watermelon slush with half syrup, andI'm pretty darn sure that it has full syrup so I am devastated.
Also, watermelon tastes like vomit.
From now on I won't test fate by trying new slushes. I'm sticking with blue coconut from here on out.
I also ate a chili-cheese dog and a pack of Mike and Ikes from 7-11, since I'm on a diet.

Not.

But seriously I ate two bagels with cream cheese this morning, and about an hour and a half later, I threw them up, since I'm involuntarily bulemic.
Chili dogs just seem like the right thing to eat on an queasy stomach.

So I bought those previously mentioned pornos, and when I got home, I decided to preview them, you know, to make sure there was nothing too graphic for Cris.
As I'm watching one, Cris comes home, and starts unlocking the door. Fortunately I had enough foresight to lock the dead-bolt, but I panicked nonetheless.
After turning off the tv and dvd player really fast, I bolted over to the door and I kissed Cris, and immediately said, "I threw up both my bagels. But don't worry I brushed my teeth."
Real smooth.
To get him out of the way while I set up the porno-watching seduction I had planned, I told him to go take a shower and brush his teeth.
Of course he got all butt hurt at that, because it's really nice to come home and the first thing you're told is that you stink.
I say, "I have good intentions," and this pacified him not at all, so he stomped off to the bathroom.
Next thing I know, he's unscrewing the bathtub drain cover, and plunging the drain. When he came out for more supplies, I ask what the heck he's doing, and he said, "I told you that next time I take a shower, I'm going to clean out the drain.
To be fair, it had gotten to the point where one would no longer feel comfortable peeing as they showered.
Well, long story short, I tell him I was planning a seduction but was just trying to get prepared for it, and it didn't cheer him up, and his plumbing skills and tools were proving inadequate, and then his boss called him back in to work.
Needless to say, I had to watch the porno by myself.
C'est la vie...

Now he's still not home, we're having a severe thunderstorm warning, and a tornado watch, the sky is the color of a dead mackerel's eyeballs, and goddammit, I still want another chili dog!

I can't believe that someone remembered a small sentence from a large blog entry of mine from almost a year ago that perfectly applies to what I wrote about last night.
"Your life will not change in ways you want it to unless you do something about it."
My how I contradict my self. What can I say, I'm an enigma, full of opposition.
Rereading this entry, I realized that I've, at least at some point in my life, been awesome. Or at least I could convince someone that I was with my writing.
So that's pretty cool.
To be honest, I just woke up from a tumultuous night of tempestuous carnal dreams, so I'm still sleepy, and also I haven't brushed my teeth yet, which isn't tasty.
I just don't think I'm prepared for a revelation right now. Even a minor one.
But as a reward for the several hours of studying for a history test I have ahead of me, I'm going to the porno store and buying some butt sex porn.
Ha ha ha!
Don't worry, I'm gonna watch it after I finish studying. =)

More deep thoughts later.

Girlfiend in a Coma

I thought I had written something brilliant in my journal today, but it turns out I was just whining about life.
How do I constantly deceive myself into believing in my cleverness?
Earlier I spent about an hour reading Henry and June by Anais Nin. Seven years have passed since I read it last. That basically just means that I'm old.
Rereading those first pages made me realize how much has come to be missing from my life that I didn't even realize was gone.
Passion, stong emotion, abyssmal depression and intense joy. Some how my burner has been set to medium. My pendulum no longer swings, but only flutters mildly from time to time.
I don't think I like this place.
"Vivacious" could no longer be used to described me. Along with "wild" or "spontaneous."
All of my worse fears have come true.
Except the fear of cutting my eyeball with paper.
Is it time for me to settle into a life of emotional mediocrity?
I feel the answer is no but I don't know how to make a change. Maybe something extreme needs to happen to me. Something bad, something good; either way, something to knock me out of my coma.

Trust Fund Baby

This weather is depressing.
After a week of sunshine and tanning and doing delightfully nothing (besides working); after a weekend of going shopping and getting one year older and eating gourmet french toast and getting teary eyed watching Shamu and friends leap from the water and finally, truly believing athat I can do anything, this grey sky, school and work and real life routine is severely depressing.
Some people enjoy living their lives of responsibility, working and then vacating for a week a year and doing it all over. Some how this is enough. Somehow, after one week, they are revitalized and ready to buckle down and get to work for the next 51 weeks.
I do not operate this way.
After any uber-joyful experience, I am left wanting more, always more, and find the return to normal life crushing. The more joyful and lengthy the experience, the harder it is.
Some people were meant to be trust fund babies.
Like me.
It's not that I'm lazy. Ask any one who knows me and they'll tell you I'm a hard worker and have been for the past 10 years.
It's that I would use it well. I would take that temporal freedom and that monetary freedom and build a life of adventure and unforgettable experience. An amazing life.
I wouldn't waste away in casinos or on beaches. I wouldn't waste it on expensive things to flaunt my privelege.
Life would rock.
Maybe that's not the best way to use it either.
I suppose I'm actually suppose to say I would use the money to help the poor, crippled orphans and tsunami victims of the world.
But the fact of the matter is, there is no trust fund, and my life is an unhealthy balance of school, work and not cleaning my house, so FUCK if I'll help any motherfucker out in my fantasy.

My efforts to post everyday have been thwarted by a curious happening...I have nothing to say.



Or maybe I just literally don't have the energy to formulate my thoughts into words.



Maybe my brain runs at a lower capacity without the occasional helping of undercooked or raw meat.



Last night, in an insomniac effort to lull myself to sleep by thinking (brilliant), I reminisced over past adventures, and tiptoed into dreaming about new adventures I pray come to fruition. I was paralyzed with the fear that they never will.

Something I've thought about. My past adventures, especially the "big" one, have, sadly, had a focus around drinking from about sundown on to the wee hours of the early morning. I've slept in a construction site, I've slept undersomeone's beach bungalow on a stolen towel. I've slept in places I either don't remember or wish I didn't.

That doesn't matter. The point is, while I still want to travel, I don't know if I can hang with so much drinking anymore.

The point of my last trip was to be free and have fun, go with the flow and see what fate brought me. And naturally I still want to do that, but I'm not 23 anymore, and by the time I travel again, I'll likely be embarrassingly old. I need a new focus.

It could be archaeological sites through out the world (after seeing The Ruins, this scares me), or I could take an anthropological standpoint and read up on the pasts of different cultures and while on my travels, juxtapose this information with the modern day cultures of different peoples. I could try to learn the language of each country I visit (ha ha ha ha). I could be be purely journalistic about it all and write every detail of my advenure down, in hopes of writing either a travel memoir or a some sort of pseudo-travel guide (I like the former better).

I don't know exactly. But I am sure that it will require both going to bed and getting up earlier, and meeting more people outside of the Anglo,English-speaking tradition.

Hmmmm. I think I've just inspired myself! You go girlfriend!

Despite the chill and gloom outside, I think I'm going to see what's going on in my lovely city today and take myself on a lttle Austin adventure!

Photos and writings to follow.

My Lenten Vow

Well that was a nice little booster-oo from my 2 "fans."
(Thanks Andrew and other person for helping to perpetuate the delusion.)

Let's compromise and say that I'm Super-Ultra-All right!
Yay!

Since my time has been completely usurped by unimportant things like work and school, let's underexaggerate and politely say that important things, like my blog, have fallen to the wayside.

Okay, I've pretty much crumbled it up and discarded it like a half eaten loaf of moldy bread.
I know.
I'm a terrible person.
Moving on.....

Next week is spring break for me (oh holla!) and while, sadly, this well timed hiatus doesn't extend into my piteous "profession", I do hear opportunity a-knocking.

So I just got up and went to see who was a-knocking at my door, and damn it to hell, no one was there.
Anyway, as I was saying...
Oh, wait, there it is again. Hold please.....

(Muzak rendition of Stairway to Heaven playing lullingly in the background)

Okay, that time it was definitely opportunity. Turns out it knocked on my door, thought it had gotten the address wrong and went to check the MapQuest printout in the car, and so when I opened the door, it was gone. Alot of confusion, etc.
Long story short, mine was the right address, and it basically just gave me this message:
"You have all next week off of school. Why don't you write on your blog everyday?"

Excellent idea.

So while some people have given up meat and alcohol for Lent, I am doing the opposite for my abbreviated Lent, and am going to write here every day. For Jesus.

That is everyday starting Friday. I still have two exams.

wow

i suck