define "life"?

Okay, rewind. I feel as though in my last blog I did not do justice to all the GOOD things that HAVE been happening, and all the moments that I've been forced to stop and recognize as such. I've seen some great movies lately, and read some amazing books. Not just any movies, or any books-but ones that highlight the little moments that make up an entire life. Because sure, we all have our "defining moments" : graduation from high school, your first job, buying a house, your first words; but those big life altering moments become uniform for everyone. Most people can describe their graduation and it goes a little something like this: Ugly gown. Hat designed so it's impossible to look normal. Alphabetical order (and if you're a fellow S, the annoying wait). Pictures. Grandparents. Bullhorns. Pomp and Circumstance. the book as a metaphor for life- "NEXT CHAPTER", "TURN THE PAGE". Yes? Mine too! Because yea, graduating from high school marked a huge turning point in our lives where we marched out on our own to do whatever the next step was for us. But our lives are not about our generic moments. Our lives are about the details and the emotions and that one memory of nothing in particular that stands out in your mind for no apparent reason. High school graduation is a summation of your time there, but only barely. It overlooks that time Ashton and I snuck Vince and Bobby into my basement at 2 AM on my 16th birthday to eat cake, and ended up getting caught by my mom. It doesn't include my first kiss with my first love. It forgets to mention my friends and I crying in a friend's basement, trying to intervene in her disorder, or the time we skipped class to watch the volleyball team go to states but ended up in PetCo trying on dog cones. So even though most of us took algebra and bio, everyone's uniform graduation ceremony personally represents a series of memories that are drastically different.

It's all about putting yourself into your everyday....because your everyday will turn into your lifetime. We're always looking to the future for our next defining moment. What should our decision be? Where will we go? Am I going to be ready for this? My next one will be graduating college, I suppose. The hats, unfortunately, will be once again present, and my days at Cal Lutheran will have hopefully prepared me for that propelling moment. Now, I'm not saying that I'm going to throw my future to chance, but I won't forget that every laugh and cry shared between friends has had just as much to do with my success as my studying has. I can't prepare for life...but I can live it right now.

brains of steel

I've literally just typed out three different possible topics to run with on this blog, since it's been awhile since i've written anything. But the sad reality is that I'm completely uninspired and slightly pissed off. Now, I have occasions I could elaborate on- my mindless job in retail, too much family togetherness, our lack of interest in other's lives in general, the life changing topics in a book I'm reading- but I don't want to. My mind is rapidly turning to mush and I am not reaching for the emergency brake. Indeed, I have been experiencing a storm of family activities that I did not take full precautionary underground shelter-esque measures for. In the wake of these events, I have been putting up a wall to keep from completely losing my mind. 8 hour days at Pac Sun folding clothes also has not aided in snapping the synapses in my brain. I need to get back to school where there is constant stimulation and connections and...dare I say it...school ( who knew?! school at school, who woulda thunk). My mother will pout when she reads this one, and mommy I love you dearly! But your favorite daughter's IQ is dropping 10 points a day...at this rate I'll be well into the negatives come 2010, and I'm far too young to have a bed pan. Let's get this break over with.

oh this old thing?!

I have a shopping problem. No really, it's getting pretty serious. When I saw Confessions of a Shopaholic in theaters, I was the one nervously laughing along with everyone else, while really thinking...mannequins don't speak to other people?! Walking into a store gives me a barrage of emotions that I can't quite cultivate any other way.

Emotion #1: pure excitement! I'm rounding the corner to one of my favorite stores and I see it's front window with the mannequins perfectly, if not somewhat overly layered. Clothes I would never be caught dead wearing simultaneously look beautiful and cohesive. I want that exact ensemble (no I don't-where the hell would I wear that?!) But let's for a moment throw reality aside and focus on the perfection of that dress. GOD i'm excited to go in!!!

Emotion #2: overwhelmed! Now, I go from being sooo excited, to being a little scared. There are so many pretty options all around me! I have what I call my scanning eye; often useful in finding lost friends at crowded venues, scoping for hot guys, and of course taking in mass amounts of clothes and zeroing in on what I like. So I have to take a moment to freak out over the selection and then focus on bringing out my scanning eye, so I don't have a meltdown.

Emotion #3: Love! This emotion doesn't always happen for me. It's like when you go to the beach and you see a dolphin. You're like, whoa, I just saw a dolphin, that was so special! But the next time you go to the beach, you'll still have a great time, but you might not see a dolphin. But when that dolphin does arch above the water, and you find that perfect piece, there's really no other way to describe it! I feel like I was called to this perfect item-fits like a glove! on sale! adorable! Many of you reading this may recall a certain skirt that I fell in love with around my birthday. It was a Kimchi Blue high wasted pinstripe skirt with all the right details, down to the cotton covered buttons up the side. This skirt was made for me by the skirt gods, and we would live happily ever after together...until I got chocolate on it. I felt like a loved one was injured. My poor skirt, you did nothing wrong, and I was careless with my birthday cake and hurt you! After a careful hand wash with Resolve, my skirt soulmate made a full recovery...but still, I felt like I had betrayed a good friend.

Emotion #4: disappointment! I suffer a huge blow when I find something that I'm sure will be the equivilant to something like my skirt soulmate, and it turns out to be all wrong. Too big or worse-too small! Too expensive, too many defects, too baggy, too weird, too all wrong!!!! I thought this was it! I was all in, and it let me down.

Emotion #5: greed! My inner mantra while shopping: "I need this". These pj pants, this flowy shirt, these leggings, those boots, that jacket...the list goes on. I get so emotionally attached to these items that I start to believe that my life will actually be better with them. I envision a small scenario in my head: upbeat music starts playing and in I walk wearing those to die for riding boots with a girly skirt and tucked in oversize tee. A faceless, but extremely attractive guy (? i don't know how it's possible, it just happens...) notices my effortless looking style, and leaves that other faceless, but extremely attractive girl to come talk to me. Obviously, these scenes actually do play out around 2-6 times a week...I know a lot of facelessly attractive people, but I should still be practicing a little more self control. .............nah.

Emotion #6: Triumph! I feel a sense of accomplishment and pride after I've purchased something. I wear it as soon as I can...but after I do, it almost always loses it's charm. Either that or it's so unique I have to wait at least another 3 months to wear it again. It's not really about what I bought though, or how much I'll actually wear it. I love my clothes like my friends or my children because they're the physical manifestation of my taste-which is a reflection of me. Each connection I build with a piece in the store and in the dressing room is emotionally charged.

So maybe I'm shallow, or maybe I have a serious problem that will require years of psychotherapy and credit card swiping withdrawl...or maybe I just love to shop, and there's nothing wrong with that.

don't prepare

Anyone who knows me even a little bit know that I love a plan. I started reading this book made up of maxims to live by that a friend lent me. I read the book twice through on the plane home, fascinated with every concept, and a heightened sense of wanting to be rising. Wanting to be what? More. Better. Free-er. Livlier. Patient. Wanting to feel alive in every inch of my body. So on the second read, I started taking notes and just writing down things that struck me. Tonight I'm once again flipping through the book, and there are so many grabbing and moving ideas, but I keep coming back to the second maxim. Don't Prepare. To me, that's like saying, hey, let's jump out of this plane and leave our parachutes here. The book says, "We often substitute planning, ruminating, or list-making for actually doing something about our dreams." I think back to all the times I've daydreamed about this or that...or made in-depth lists to find that all of my time has been spent writing it, and no time acting upon it. I am so centered around my plans that if something strays off course, my day is altered negatively. I'm setting myself up for disaster, but planning and lists are my safety zone! The book suggests that the space outside your safety zone is actually the best place to live. When we substitute attention for preparation, we get to live right now; responding to each moment as it comes. There's an exercise in this chapter that asks the reader to envision a box...ok. Mine's shiny yellow with pink ribbon. Yea, it's kind of ugly. Next we have to shake it and open it...what is it? First, I blank. Then I start to absolutly panic! Images of what it might be race through my head, but I can't think of anything clearly and I'm starting to get nervous. Quick! Pick something! At this point I'm devastated because this proves just how plan-oriented and closed minded I am. So I shut the book and put it down for an hour. When I come back to it, I vow to myself that I will clear my mind, and allow it to wander where it will. The suspense in opening this imaginary box is killing me! What could it be?! It's a toaster. A TOASTER?! Is that normal? Shouldn't I want like a pair of Christian Louboutin heels or keys to a new car? Apparently, I really want a toaster. But that's okay because I'm beyond thrilled with myself. I am a vast and deep abyss of unique knowledge, and it's time I trusted my moment to moment instincts.

Tomorrow I will go with what moves me, no plans included.

final daze

Finals are a fun time, aren't they? I've been so incredibly sleep deprived that it's a wonder my organs are still functioning. In my quest to stay up at all hours of the night doing work, or attempting to...I've consumed mass quantities of caffeine. In the midst of all this drinking I seem to have swallowed the filter on my mouth. Sure, it's always been small and the holes in the sive extremely large, but without it, I am a real piece of work. Thursday I used the phrase "sucking on the teet of annoyance" in a sentence. ..in broad daylight. I should be locked up, or at least have a muzzle. I'm actually a little afraid of what I might say next, seeing as how it's really not up to me.

Yesterday I got out of the shower and could not find my hairbrush. The first thing I did was sing the Hairbrush song from Veggietales...naturally. Then I started to feel a rising panic in the pit of my stomach headed north toward my chest. Who displaced this extremely necessary accessory?! It certainly wasn't me, I'm as fit as a fiddle. So I decided to think back to the day before's shower routine and try and map out where I might have placed it...or more importantly, if I could remember someone scaling the side of the building to the second floor in the middle of the night and stealing it. The latter of course being much more viable since I am so on top of my life lately. duh. I looked for any clues that might point to an intruder, and i realized that my room was in complete disarray! OMG someone DID break in! This place is a mess! Clothes are scattered, books everywhere, valuables overturned! It took me a second to connect the fact that I in fact just tore apart the place in the past 4 minutes during my panic. So no intruder. I started calling up memories of showers past, but couldn't place the days in the correct order, so I moved on to the next obvious step: yelling profanities. I really can't remember the last time I snapped the way I snapped yesterday after my missing hairbrush. Just ask my roommates, I think they were 2 seconds away from grabbing a straightjacket. (yes, grabbing...who doesn't have a spare straightjacket lying around?!) After 45 minutes of screaming and tearing my room in a million pieces all the while in a towel, I found the damn thing on a dresser. Weirdest place ever, I know. Instant relief. I calmly sat down in the living room and brushed out my hair like the whole thing never happened. I went about my business yesterday, chugging caffeinated beverages along the way, and went to bed later than anticipated as always. This morning I had a terrible discovery, though--someone must have broken into my room my last night....

memory lane

I called my grandma today because it was just one of those terrible, awful, no good days, and I needed to hear something real. Usual topics with my grandmother are centered around food, school, the weather, and food...and why your plate isn't cleared. So today I asked her to tell me about growing up in New Orleans and what it was like to be at Mardi Gras in the 50s. Instantly her speech slowed and her Louisiana accent became thick and she started to tell me about the balls where she and her friends would dress in gowns and sing for the rich. She told me about the fried doughnuts they would eat in the streets and how boys would soak themselves in grease and chase her friends around. Her images were of a time that I've never known-a time when a girl could walk the streets of New Orleans alone and never be bothered, and a time when the celebration was centered around our Cajun culture, good food, and great company. She was born in the city, and her parents spoke French to her as a child. Her father made his own beer during prohibition in their backyard shed, and she can still remember the bottle caps popping on their own inside. But at age 5 when she found her mother dead on the bathroom floor, her father moved her and her sister to the suburbs. They owned a general store where people came and bought food out of wooden barrels-her job to measure it out. Her family moved back to New Orleans when she was 11 and she embraced the city life. As she was describing away her teen years filled with movie houses on Canal St. and the street cars they took to the beach, I asked her something I'd never thought to ask before. How did she meet my grandfather? It's funny how you can know people your entire life and never think to ask about their defining life moments. She met my grandfather on a steamboat at a dance when she 18. She said he asked her to dance and she never got rid of him. He was in the Navy, and about to ship out to finish his duty, but before he left, he promised my grandma he would marry her. She told him to go home, and that she would not end up marrying him, he was crazy. But a year later, he bought a car and drove from Pennsylvania to New Orleans, found her, and proposed. She said yes, and the rest as they say is history.

How beautiful. What a stunning and free life story. I feel like my life is a bowling lane, but I'm lucky enough to have bumpers to keep me from falling in the gutter. But even so...my life seems so planned out and so by the books. It's narrow and straight without spontaneity. School is stretching as far as I can see in both directions, because without it, you have nothing. My grandma lived a life that is not possible to live anymore. We crave money and are so set on finding happiness, that when we do, we convince ourselves that there must be something even better out there, and we leave to find it. Life has become too dangerous...or maybe we're all just too afraid. My great grandfather passed a valuable lesson to my grandma-that all that matters is who you're with and that you're sharing and celebrating and loving together for no apparent occasion...just because you can.
So call the people you love and ask them about the things that made them who they are...because they've helped shape you too. You don't need a reason...do it because you can.

food for thought?

I'm sitting on my couch Indian style with my computer on my lap, and I have all these emotions and thoughts pumping through me. The only problem is that they're moving entirely too fast for me to catch. I had every intention of sitting down and writing the next great piece of literary wonder. People would read it and laugh and cry and between sobs or chuckles, gasp, "oh Skelly...she's a literary genius". Instead I'm eating Raisin Bran Extra pretending that it's actually good. But really, who are we kidding, Raisin Bran is a boring cereal, preferred by prematurely balding men in their late 30s and housewives between the ironing and the vacuuming. I'm thinking that the averageness of this breakfast food is seeping into my brain and affecting my ability to produce worthy thoughts. Tomorrow I am only eating exciting, thought-provoking, intelligent, chatty foods. I'll let you know when I figure out what that is.

my reminder to myself

What happened to just getting to KNOW someone? Our generation puts so much pressure on the relationship and naming it and keeping it in a cage and cuddling it so that it dies prematurely due to suffucation. What's wrong with just keeping a steady pace and being friends first? I too am guilty of wanting to jump the gun, but only because it's beaten into me. Everything moves too fast. Everyone's at a full on sprint, like life and love is a race to the finish line. Meet, lust, date, force relationship, boring lull, fight, break up, hate. Is it so terrible to want to be old fashioned and understand and fully appreciate the person I'm with? The real me is introverted, self aware, self respecting, and shy. I feel all around me the growing trend of skanky sex pot, but I have no desire to compete. Then I see the army of hoes with boyfriends on their arm and look at my own arm which is surprisingly lonely...and yes, you guessed it, my arm is attached to my body and therefore all of me is lonely. So what to do?! I am happy with myself, so I'll wait to find a guy who is equally as happy with the girl who hides behind her camera and thinks she can talk to dogs-- because that person will be worth it. They just have to take the time to figure me out themselves...and once they do I just have to hope they are a similar breed of crazy. So let's slow down our sprint and take a walk and enjoy each other. We have time.

this that and the other thing

I have nothing in particular to rant or rave about tonight, but it's 1:30 AM and I can't sleep. so here goes my thoughts from today.

-old people always assume you're freezing, and feel the need to tell you. "you must be freezing! why aren't you wearing a jacket?!" maybe because i'm NOT freezing. thanks for you concern
-when it IS freezing, I always want fro yo.
-the build up to something fantastic happening is so much better than when it actually happens...because then it's over.
-mochi is the most delicious thing ever created. thank you, japanese people
-this list has a lot to do with cold things.
-people who write blogs are fucking crazy. i'm sorry mom for my language but there really isn't any other way of describing them. I just scrolled through some and found anything from ghost hunters to 2012 pessimists to people who worship this hill in Massachusetts. ya. a HILL.
-obviously if people of blogspot had to choose a president, it should probably be me seeing as I'm the most stable. That, my friends, is saying something.
-What is the point of dog shows?? Dogs are dogs...and I love how they decide when a new breed can be added to the AKC list. It's like adding the word bootylicious to Webster's dictionary. The whole thing makes no sense to me.
-i'm so tired that i'm writing about dogs. maybe i should try this sleep thing one more time with feeling....

back to the stone ages

Today I proved that it is possible to survive without my Blackberry and Facebook. Along the rocky path, I learned a few things. Let me take you through my day.

7:45 AM- My Blackberry automatically turns on for my alarm, I wake up, turn it off, and shove it in my desk drawer where it will live for the day.

9:30 AM Lesson 1: cell phones make you lazy
On my way back from the gym i run into Lindsay who asks that I call her before I leave for our class. When the time comes to leave, I realize I CAN'T call her! Panic. What am I supposed to do?! the girl lives on the 3rd floor. I think through some possible alternatives to walking. I could borrow Megan's phone- NO! I will prove to myself that I can do this without anyyyy phones. Option 2 involved throwing a rock at her window. "oh fair Linds, whilst thou join me to class?" No again, I will not let this turn me into Romeo. I walk.

10:05 AM - I am late to class. I should have bought a watch before this experiment.
Throughout class I catch my hand frantically searching the empty phone pocket in my bag.

12:55 PM Lesson 2: I hide behind my phone.
I'm supposed to meet Kbell at the caf at 1 and I'm a little early so I sit down to wait. Now, I've sat alone at the caf before, and I'm never bothered because I'm usually absorbed in a web page on my phone or talking to my mom. But now that I'm sitting here without it, I feel naked. Five different people ask if I'm okay- Oh I'm fantastic, just completely cut off from society, don't worry about it. People can see me?! Weird.

1:05 PM- These last 10 min=10 hours. She's late. What if she can't make it? I'll have no way of knowing! And those last 5 people will think I made up this "friend" I'm waiting for. This sweater I'm wearing is not helping. At least if I looked good people might let my loserness slide. I wish Kbell hadn't bailed on me. Oh. She's here...and only 5 minutes late.

Lesson 3: cell phones make you skittish.
As the day progresses, all I hear are cell vibrations, and I jump out of my skin to see if it's mine...yea, the one i don't have.

Lesson 4: Texting makes you paranoid.
the "did-I-d0-something-wrong?" texter: Uhhh, Skelly...so ummm...did you happen to maybe um like...get my text?
the hostile texter: SKELLY WTF I'VE BEEN TEXTING YOU ALL DAY, WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?!
the annoyed texter: Way to NOT help me out with my homework question. I texted you like 2 hours ago. geez.

3:15 PM - I start to lose it a little. I can no longer distinguish between what I'm allowed to do and not allowed to do. I see a coke sitting in Bobby's room and think, gee, I would kill for a coke, too bad I can't have one. What am I talking about? of course i'm allowed to drink a coke...coke is completely unrelated to Facebook and my cell phone. Bobby starts to Skype so I leave to go light some candles and finish my homework in quill and ink. Again, confused with the goal.

4:00 PM- I decide the best way to pass time is to take a nap.
6:30 PM- Shit. I slept 2 and a half hours because I didn't have my phone alarm to wake me.

It's now 11:06 PM and I've been focusing on studying for my French test all night. Just 54 minutes to go and I think I can do this! What I thought would be a relaxing day away from constant conversation turned out to be the opposite. Knowing that I did not have the ability to have instant connections with people if needed increased my stress by 207%. And that's a scientific fact. I wish I could say I'm so above all of this technology crap, but really, I'm the biggest sucker of all.

our deafeningly silent lives

Today I realized something that I already knew. Is that possible? Whatever. The point is that I am going to make a point to change it. My Blackberry has become a permanently attached appendage, and my health insurance does not cover cracked display. Our cell phones are our absolute life lines. I find myself wondering how the hell anyone ever got a boyfriend before texting and God forbid you ever get lost while driving and had to resort to one of those map contraptions. I have no idea how to read a street map. I suppose it has something to do with evolution, that knowledge is now obsolete and soon we'll be scoffing at GPSes. So not only has cell phones made us completely inept at simple tasks like reading a map, but we are socially backwards because of them too! I text people sitting 2 feet from me sometimes...and you know you've done it too! A text allows you to say something without actually saying it. we gauge our relationships on these tiny messages made of 100 characters and the length of time it takes to receive one.
-"IT'S BEEN 12 MINUTES, WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING?!"
-honey, he's probably just brushing his teeth, or at the gym, or performing CPR on a senior citizen
-but he ALWAYS texts back right away!!!!! obviously he hates me.

see?! instant destruction. we walk around trying to reach out and connect, while in reality we're saying nothing. SO tomorrow I am going to turn off my phone and turn off facebook and be free for a day.

i might go crazy :)