Just So You Know
I am moving most of my things to my new house today, so I may be without compy for a few days. This pains me - and I'm so sure that you'll be horribly sad without me - but it must be done.
Miss me while I'm gone!
Labels: updates
Scratching the Itch*
A week from last Tuesday, I felt
unstoppable. I went out, had a couple of drinks, and flirted with Hershey via text message. I know, what else is new. I had imagined that I would end up in bed with him, but by the time I got home at 1:30, he hadn't responded in what I considered an appropriate manner. I changed, set my alarm for work, and went to bed.
At 2:30, I finally received a reply. There was a brief exchange in which we established that we had both wanted to see each other and that neither of us was willing to leave our homes to make it happen that night. I was seeking to prove a point; he cannot be the one in control of the situation. I will not come just because he says so.** It was the principle of the thing, and I was proud of myself for sticking to what I had decided.
The next afternoon, I called Bradshaw and told her the story. She was, quite frankly, pissed off at me, and I think a little disappointed. She said something to the effect of, "You had a chance to have sex and you didn't go?" And then came the disparaging comments.
It was then that I realized something interesting, something that changed the entire situation in my mind. On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, while lying on my parents' couch dozing off with a cat, Hershey called me. He claimed that he was going through his phone and realized that we hadn't talked in a while. Let me remind you, my lovely readers, of the thing that he seems to have forgotten: I am not stupid. However, until talking to Bradshaw on Wednesday morning, I hadn't put all of the pieces together to realize how it could all turn out.
I now had all of the power.
He had contacted me twice for the same reason. I had come out of my self-imposed segregation from my social life, seen him out in public, and had an interesting conversation with him. The next move was mine, so to speak, and I was very excited by this prospect. I decided to move forward with it in order to get what I wanted. I worked Friday night, then went home, changed my clothes, had a snack, and fired off a "What are you up to?" text message.
I walked into his house at 2:25, greeted his dog, and let him unwind the scarf from my neck. When we finished, I patted his cheek, stretched like a cat, got dressed, and walked out. We chatted our way to the door, and I left feeling like we were in the middle of a rather trite conversation. It makes me feel like I still hold all of the power in the situation, and I like it.
I'll let you all know how things shake down from here, but just know that, for the moment, Nic is a satisfied, power-wielding woman.
*Whee, clichés! **Haha, that would actually be really fantastic.Labels: boys, flirting, updates
Things I Love Thursday
It's the Christmas edition! Oh my goodness, the things I have to be grateful for this year!
- My parents I am realizing, more and more, that they are fantastic and I am lucky to have them. They each have moments when I wish they would change, of course, but overall, I know that they love me and would do anything for me.
- Fun books Yesterday I read Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, and it was fantastic. The premise is that of a young girl who is put into what amounts to a wilderness survival contest. The catch is that there are twenty-three others trying to survive, and the winner must be the last competitor alive. They are expected to kill one another and the way this character - who was totally kickass, which I love - handles the survival aspect and the moral-emotional aspect is interesting and very compelling. Well-written teen fiction that stays away from the insipid! Love!
- Non-fiction I am primarily a reader of fiction; I prefer to immerse myself in the lives of imaginary people, in imaginary worlds, and in imaginary situations than to read a piece of writing that exists in and about my own world. Lately, however, I find myself drawn to some pieces of non-fiction (probably driven by my job in a bookstore, but what am I going to do?). I've been picking up style guides, inspirational (non-religious) texts, and self-improvement titles. Self-improvement! This is so far outside of my norm that I'm not sure what to make of it, but I am enjoying myself. For my Christmas gift to myself I picked up Notes from the Universe; judge me if you'd like.
- Acting on my own wishes I still kind of owe you all a post about last Friday night. I think that I was pleased with the situation was obvious, but you really do deserve to hear the whole story. For the moment, you should know that it involves Hershey and we both got our way on Friday night. And that Bradshaw was right. It's only fair to tell you that she was right.
- Home-related Christmas gifts Among other things, from my mother I received a new bedding set, a soup pot, knives, towels, and a vacuum. I am pleased with each of these things and already planning how best to use them.
- Mashed potatoes Yes, again. Still. They're just so delicious.
- Holiday text messages I spent a few hours away from my phone this morning and came back to find four text messages, all with holiday well wishes. So sweet!
- Honorable mentions Friends who are willing to help; moving heavy boxes on my own (I'm such a badass); book drive announcements; helping choose books for children; genuine smiles; feeling relieved; tiny displays of affection; grand plans; dinners with great friends; coffee!; positivity; the law of attraction; journaling; feeling beautiful; flirting.
Tell me right now what it is you adore! Please please please!
Labels: TILT
The Room was Mad with Morning
I wielded the power. And it was good. And it feels fabulous.
I think I should like to repeat this trend on a regular basis.
Labels: boys
Things I Love Thursday
Expressing my gratitude makes me even happier, I swear it.
- Being busy at work It isn't so much that I have a lot of specific things to finish at work, but that there are lots of customers with lots of questions to ask me. I like being able to help people choose gifts for their loved ones, and I like feeling useful. I'm also the kind of person who thrives in situations that are pressure-packed and somewhat stressful, so the busier times of the retail year really put me in my element.
- My parents I could never have enough words to express how lucky I am to have the parents that I do. They were young and had nearly nothing when I was born, but I have never been aware of the things that I might have been missing. I am a college graduate with no student loans, no credit card debt, and very few bills. My parents are able and willing to help me financially, and while I recognize how amazing that is, I am more thankful that they are more than just my parents. No matter what, I know they will be here for me, and I spent all of Monday night crying about how amazing that is.
- Spending time with new friends I adore some of the new people in my life, and being able to be with someone who is positive and fun instead of negative and draining is excellent.
- Knowing that I have the power Perhaps this isn't the most positive thing this week, but it still makes me feel pretty damn good. We'll see just how I wield this power - and how well it works for me - as this weekend progresses.
- Journaling I wrote in the journal a lot this last week - more than I have since this summer. I do the journal thing in phases, back and forth between writing almost constantly and forgetting where my journals even are. I have re-adopted the habit of writing down things for which I am grateful every time I write and I love the way it makes me feel to recognize those things.
- Nighttime kitty snuggles So cozy and warm and the purring is good for helping me relax. Plus, you know, I love them.
- Honorable mentions Parts of speech; bathroom wall-rainbows; "Godzilla"; being tipsy after one tequila shot; excellent fortune cookies; free boxes for packing; caring coworkers; the sound of sleet hitting the ground; random movies on tv; not being ignored; Christmas gatherings; dinosaurs; archived conversations with Bradshaw to giggle at; giant burritos; planning a full-series Gilmore Girls marathon for the new year; self-improvement; decorating plans; black tights; present wrapping plans; buying things for myself and having them gift wrapped.
Tell me what you love now!
1. Untitled, 2. Neuschwanstein's castle, 3. WonderlandLabels: TILT
Unstoppable
Today, I feel unstoppable.
I'm not one to place too much belief in a horoscope, but the one I listened to this morning was phenomenal. I definitely dropped a pound or two after not eating last week, and while that's not a good thing, I certainly feel okay about it when my skirt is a bit looser around my hips.
I'm going out right now, and I am a girl who feels beautiful, energetic, and interesting. No matter who is or isn't there, who I meet or don't meet, and how many drinks I do or don't have, I will be having a good time.
Today, I am unstoppable.
Labels: personal growth
Fortune Cookie
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to make myself a Chinese dinner, and I bought a box of fortune cookies to go with it. I don't love them (I give Marilyn about half of it each time I eat one, because she does love them), but they're still fun. I just pulled out the best fortune ever:
Every day in your life is a special occasion.
I think we'd all do well to remember that.
(And dude, aren't those magnets almost the weirdest thing you've ever seen? I love them!)
Changes
Sometimes, people do surprise you.
My parents were shockingly receptive - if hesitant - to my plan to and reasonings for moving in with a roommate. My lease is up at the end of the month (yes, two weeks) and I had to scramble to find alternate arrangements. I'm going to be moving in with a girl that I've been working with since starting at Giant Bookstore, although we don't know one another well. I have a really good feeling about it and I choose to hold on to that feeling for as long as possible.
Sometimes I fear that I'm so comfortable being alone that being with someone will be uncomfortable - and I don't want that for myself. I want to make myself a better, more well-rounded person, and I feel like the way to do that is to pull away from my comfort zone. Yes, I enjoy living alone. I like naked time and bath time and sing-whatever-I-want-really-loud time. But I'm willing to sacrifice some of that to be a better person.
I choose to see this change as a positive thing for myself. I am going to grow and be better for it. I'm so relieved that my parents are okay with this. I'm so relieved to have the plans almost finalized. I'm glad I can finally stop bugging everyone around me by talking about it!
Today, I am full of hope.
Labels: my insanity, updates
Not Gonna Write You a Love Song
What is love? To me, love is an emotion that has as many different incarnations as there are relationships in the world. Relationships that don't have to be between two people, but can be between a person and an animal or a person and an object or an idea. There is romantic love, obsessive love, family love, love between friends. I love coffee, my cats, Bradshaw, my parents, a dead boy, driving, some kinds of music. Are any of these types of love more important than the other?
Perhaps, as with Things I Love Thursday, the things we love are simply the things we are grateful for. Without these things, these people, these experiences, our lives would be less: less rich, less full, less satisfying. I think that when we think of love though, we think of the love between people: the love we have for family, friends, and romantic interests.
In a conversation with Bradshaw a couple of weeks ago, we realized that the two of us rarely verbalize the fact that we do love each other. I think my love and gratitude for her has been well documented through my blog, but in case you've forgotten, I would kill for this girl. We've known each other for just over four years, and in that four years, she's become an indispensable part of my life - even after she moved to a different city. We talk on the phone almost daily - usually at least three times a week - but rarely do we end our phone calls with the obligatory "love you."
My mother always makes a point of reminding me that she loves me when we talk on the phone. I talk to my dad less often, and therefore it feels like we should say that we love each other (and of course we do). But when speaking to friends, I find myself more likely to use "I love you" as a response when they say something that I find particularly amusing or astute - the sort of thing that does, in fact, remind me of why they are a part of my life and why they are so important. She and I finally decided that we don't need to say the words; it is an unspoken understanding, the love that she and I share, and it doesn't require the sort of reinforcement of the message that I think a lot of us expect from our families.
Since that conversation, I've been hyper-aware any time I tell someone that I love them for any reason. I'm starting to wonder if our generation hasn't come up with a substitute for the word "love," simply because saying that particular word is scary. Many of us are inclined to use the phrase "I heart you." This, to me at least, means essentially the same thing as telling someone that I love them, but doesn't have all those scary connotation that go along with it. It's a safe way of telling someone how much they mean to you.
But really, is that fair? To trivialize such an important emotion with a word that means less simply because we're afraid that someone might misconstrue what we really feel? Telling someone that we love them makes us vulnerable. Isn't that worth it if we really love the person though?
Why are we all so afraid of love?
Labels: everyday musings
Things I Love Thursday
- Hot beverages Hot cocoa (with and without peppermint schnapps), morning coffee, spiced cider, gingerbread lattes, and peppermint tea - all rocking my world and keeping me warm and cozy lately. It makes me glad that I have so many lovely little mugs.
- Christmas shopping I love choosing gifts for other people, cheesy and serious and perfect and even the ones I'm not so sure about. Doing things that make other people happy makes me happy.
- Cashmere sweaters This weekend I bought my first; a black, v-neck sweater that is so soft and cozy that I wore it for about two hours when I got home from work yesterday. Now, this doesn't sound like a big deal, but when I'm at home, I am almost exclusively a pajama girl. I take off all of my work clothes as soon as I walk in the door and put on something cozy - but the sweater is totally awesome.
- Astrology I go through phases with astrology. Sometimes I think it's interesting and somewhat accurate, but mostly a bunch of nonsense. Sometimes I think it's interesting and somewhat accurate, and that it is accurate enough that I should read my horoscope every day and re-discover everything there is to know about being an Aries. Right now, I like astrology.
- Gratitude In the spite of some of the less-than-awesome developments lately, I have a lot of things to be grateful for - and I intend to keep remembering that. I've even gone back to writing down things I'm grateful for in my journal. I did it in high school, and I can't remember why I stopped, but I'm excited to start up again. We all need something to look forward to, and how great is it to look forward to writing down all of the fabulous things you love?
- My work husband Having someone who realizes when you aren't in the best of spirits and does things to try to make you feel better is fantastic. It's the kind of banter and physical contact that helps you relax without you even realizing it's happening.
- Puck and Marilyn I love my kitties. Amusing habits and strange things - like Puck just chasing his tail by jumping in circles - aside, they make me feel fantastic. No matter what I've done or what's going on outside (or even inside), they love me. They purr and snuggle and play and I cannot imagine loving another pair of animals more. They're my babies.
- Honorable mentions Holiday music; great episodes of Scrubs; working out to burn excess energy; working towards a goal; finally biting the bullet; my nearly-always deep sleep; eyeliner; my leather gloves; amusing spelling errors (on a sign at work: Reading is Fudamental); that there is always an end to the hard things in life; telephones; being positive.
Tell me what rocks your world these days!
Labels: TILT
Holding On
At this moment, I am hopeful that it will work out. I have a positive feeling, and I'm going to hold on to that. I have hope, and I refuse to let go.
Labels: personal growth
This is Me...
I am in the process of trying to be a happier person. I am focusing on being positive rather than negative, controlling my short temper, increasing my patience, reducing my complaining, and doing things that make me smile - or that make other people smile.
It took almost three years, but I think I might be getting to a point where I'm no longer mourning Iris. I miss him. I love him. I wonder, still, what would have happened if things had been different. I also feel like I'm at a point where I can accept that I'll never know. He's gone and there is no way to know whether the two of us could have been happy - if we even could have been together - or if it always would have been the "relationship that might have been."
In turn, I feel like a cloud has been lifted. My life is far from perfect; I am far from perfect. But I'm realizing that I can be content with what I have, and that I can not only make the most of that, but I can make it more, make it richer. By relaxing and enjoying what I have and the people who are around me, my life feels far more full than it does when I'm lamenting the lack of a snuggle partner or how much customers can suck.
All along, I've known, intellectually, that my life could certainly be worse. Of course, knowing something and feeling something are very different things. Now, I'm beginning to feel like I have enough, even if I don't have it all. I would like to have a big fluffy bed (or any bed) and some curtains and a double in pay and a big soup pot and great sex whenever I want it and a bigger tv and more books and a housekeeper.
In spite of all those things that I want, I have a lot. I have a handful of amazing friends that I love, parents who care about me more than anything (the perks of this only child stuff), a steady job, two wonderful fluffy snuggle buddies, the means to buy gifts for those people I love, pretty eyes, decent health, a caffeine addiction, and lots of lovely time to myself. To take all of that for granted for as long as I have...well, that sucks. So now I'm going to take more time to reflect and be grateful and take a deep breath and exercise my patience.
This is me trying to grow, take it or leave it.
Labels: personal growth
Thought
Isn't the phrase "positive affirmation" redundant?
Labels: everyday musings
Things I Love Thursday
This week I am loving:
- Spending time at home in Small Town It's quiet and there isn't anything to do and the fact that my parents don't drink coffee means that a decent cup is harder to find, but just being there and feeling that quiet is nice sometimes.
- Cooking for myself For the fourth night this week, I came home and actually cooked my dinner, and for the fourth time this week, it was lovely and delicious. Vegetarian white bean soup, fresh green beans, crisp salads, and warm chicken with pasta: all so lovely and tasty.
- Baths That feeling when you first sink down into the hot (too hot for my skin, but I don't even care), fragrant water is one of the best in the world, and it's not something that I could describe. Taking the time to sit there in the quiet, reading or just being with my thoughts, is something that I wouldn't want to live without. There isn't a lot that can stress me out when I'm soaking in the tub.
- Showing people books I love And not only books I love, but books that I truly believe in. That's right, I sold Phillipa Gregory to a brand new customer. If I can get someone to buy my other new favorite tomorrow, I will feel that this week was truly an accomplished one.
- Being in a good mood all week I haven't flown off the handle - even mentally - all week. Perhaps being conscious of my actions is truly being helpful.
- Snow! It snowed on Saturday night and Sunday when I was back home, and it was beautiful and cold and wet and I love it. I beyond love snow, and all of those "Snow Grinches" aren't going to make me feel bad about it at all. I will continue to love snow until I have a much better reason to dislike it than someone else's distaste for it. In fact, my proposal fantasy takes place in the snow.*
- Employee appreciation days They start tomorrow, and I have every intention of buying things all week, both for myself and for other people. If you want a gift related to my job, now is the time to let me know!
- Honorable mentions my leather gloves, warm sweaters, tangerines, dozing off on the couch, grocery shopping, dark nail polish (and having it complimented by men), a well-mixed tequila sunrise, being called a "miracle worker," text messages, Twitter, enlightening news from those around you, saying thank you, talking about writing, tights, going out again, new toothpaste, Flickr.
What do you love this week?
*Don't even pretend like you don't have one, I know better.Labels: TILT
What I Want
Last night, I reemerged from my self-imposed semi-isolation. That is, I went back to P Bar for the first time since October. I realized two things: One, I really do enjoy being at this particular bar. At a lot of places I find myself really uncomfortable and claustrophobic, and whether it's all in my head or not, I don't feel that way when I'm there. Two, the people you don't expect to notice you - or the lack of your presence - are always the ones who do notice.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to be more aware of myself and my actions. A not-so-gentle reminder of how my father's emotional and attitudinal issues (caused by a rare disease that I also carry) affect the people around him brought my own behavior to the forefront. I never want someone I love to be so frustrated with me that they would consider being away from me, even though they love me. I don't want the me that I am to become the me that people miss when I'm constantly a super bitch. I am the ultimate self-saboteur, and not only is it unhealthy, I'm beginning to be tired of it.
I use my ability to read the majority of people as a means to keep those people away. But what if I'm wrong? What if there is, at some point, more to a person than I see? What if that person is radically different than what I think they are? I don't want to take something that I feel I have been gifted with and twist it so that it makes me life more difficult. There has to be a balance between assuming that I can read everyone all the time and ignoring what my instincts tell me.
I want to be the girl who isn't so guarded that she can't give someone she actually cares about a real hug. I'm working on that one. I started on that one last night, and I figured who better to give a real hug to than the guy who has already seen me naked?
I want to work on listening to what people are actually saying and not immediately assuming that they have sinister intentions, or that they're not being honest or genuine. I want to get to know someone well enough to know how much they lie before assuming that they're always lying.
I want to learn to be more patient, but not in the traditional sense. I want to learn how to be just annoyed or just irritated without flying immediately to fucking pissed off. I want to go more than a few hours without being so angry.
I want to remember what it's like to spend time with people who actually care about me on a regular basis, and how to let my guard down just enough to find those people again. I refuse to believe that I've met everyone in my life who is worth their salt before I'm twenty-three.
I want to remember what it's like not to take so many things personally, because honestly, it isn't about me nearly as often as I seem to think it is. I want to learn how to take a deep breath and roll with it and smile through it.
I want the courage to give someone a gift that I sincerely believe they will appreciate without worrying that they will read something into it that isn't there. I want to be able to be generous and thoughtful without worrying that someone will believe I have ulterior motives.
I want to be the girl that I used to be.
Labels: personal growth
