Accidental Ambivalence

Boomerang*

I just dressed as a giant pig. I was Puddle, of Toot and Puddle fame, and it may be the cutest I've ever been. It seems like a great way to start the weekend.

Yesterday I mentioned that I am enjoying making my food look pretty. I am also enjoying photographing said food. Therefore, this weekend, I am going to take pictures of everything I eat. It'll be quirky, not weird, and I will be amused - that means it's worth it, kittens.

I saw Slumdog Millionaire last night, which was as excellent as I'd heard. I'm very happy that I spent $6.50 to do it. While there I drank a Cherry Coke (because this is the world's strangest theater and doesn't carry Dr. Pepper - the Cherry Coke was a nostalgia choice) and ate half of a movie-size box of Sweet Tarts. This meant that when I got home at 11:30, I was completely effing wired. I put away all of my clothes, tidied things up a bit, and attempted to vacuum.

They are calling for rain that turns into snow over night. I am excited at the prospect and will completely ignore anything that is said that is contrary to my excitement.

That's all. I'll make an effort to write something that is actually cohesive soon!

*If you understand the title, I will give you a cookie.

Labels: rambling

posted by nicalyse @ 11:08 AM 2 comments

Things I Love Thursday

Labels: TILT

posted by nicalyse @ 6:36 PM 4 comments

Role Models

You know about my action plan. The catalyst for the plan was Gala's iCiNG Transformation Challenge. Her site makes me unimaginably happy most days, and the idea of changing myself for the better over twenty-eight days of small steps was enticing. Since I started after she had actually begun the challenge, I've been reading the daily posts for the day that I am on - rather than the day that she is on - through the archives. The post for day ten advises thinking of a role model and then imagining that she is watching you as you go through your day and work towards your goal. So, I began to think about role models.

I have more than one person who I look at and think "I want to be her." Audrey Hepburn is my unparalleled style role model. I want to look that beautiful and elegant; I want people to look at me and see how put-together I look. I adore her intelligence and her charm. Marilyn Monroe is the woman that I think about when I think about seduction. So confident, so open, so willing to risk things for love. Yes, she married more than once, and yes, she was more than we saw. But what we did see was a confident, glittering, unapologetically sensual - and sexual - woman. Rory Gilmore, Oscar Wilde, Barack Obama, Kate Winslet, Philippa Gregory, Holly Golightly, Queen Elizabeth I - the list of people whom I admire and who have qualities that I emulate is long and varied.

But my role model, the woman who I wish to be like the most, is one of the easiest questions for me to answer: My grandmother. My great-grandmother loved me unconditionally, the kind of love that I am aware that not everyone gets to experience in their lives. She was 86 when she died three years ago, and I've always marveled at her strength and her ability to love her family and her friends so dearly.

She was born in 1919 as the middle child of thirteen in a Catholic family. Her father was an alcoholic who brought home the man that she married, a man that I don't know if she loved. She never talked about him except to say that, in the end at least, he was a "tight son-of-a-bitch." She had two children with him, and he constantly moved them around from house to house. He expected his son to be polite and his daughter to look perfect all the time. For her, the final straw came when the house he moved her to - in the beginning of 1960 - had dirt floors. She had met the man that I knew as my grandfather and, I can only assume (since she never talked about it), fallen in love with him not long before the move. Fed up, she asked him to take her to the courthouse one afternoon, where she had divorce papers drawn up and left her husband. She married my grandfather in September of the same year.

Her daughter, my mother's mother, hated her for it. She had loved her father, in spite of his flaws, and hated her mother for leaving him and taking her away. Their relationship was altered by that, and her daughter left as soon as she turned eighteen and immediately became pregnant with my mother at the end of 1966. While dealing with her daughter, my grandmother and her husband had purchased ten acres of land that was a perfect 2 1/4 miles from town and added on to the tiny house that had been there. For all of the strain in her relationship with her daughter, my Grandma knew her grandchildren - my mother and her sister - very well and had excellent relationships with them, particularly my mom. When my mom was thirteen and had the ultimate fight with her mother, she went to live with my Grandma. Grandma raised her for the next five years - really just a continuation of what she had been doing, for my mother is far more like my Grandma than her own mother - until my Mom got pregnant with me in the summer of 1985 and married my father. My grandfather died in 1990 when I was too young to really see the grief of those around me.

I was the first great-grandchild, and the first grandchild that she'd had without dealing with a bad relationship. She was my only real babysitter, and I loved her. I have absolutely no doubt that she would have given me anything within her power, and all I would have had to do was ask.

The thing that strikes me when I think about her is how unimaginably strong she was. To have survived having so many sisters (I think there were nine girls and four boys), being married to someone who treated you like dirt, getting divorced and remarried in the Midwest in the 1960s, being hated by your own child, turning around and raising a teenager thirteen years after you'd finished raising your own, and then living without your husband for the final sixteen years of your life. I think that if I were to experience all of that, I would come out the other side a bitter, cynical, jaded human being. At twenty-two I'm already flirting with jaded, and that makes me sad, particularly having seen just how happy and loving my grandmother was after her long life. She still loved her daughter and my aunt, even when they didn't visit for the last three years of her life. She never treated anyone around her as if she was entitled to anything, the way some elderly people do. She was always, above all, a loving, happy, appreciative woman who was perfectly content - no, happy - with the people and the things that she had.

I want to be that strong, that loving, that happy, that content with what I have without coveting something else. I want the chance to make someone else feel as unconditionally loved as she did for me, as perfect and loved as I knew she saw me. She believed in providing for your family as the way to show them that you loved them. She also believed that if "you piss on me, I'll shit on you." She was perfect.

If at the end of my life I can see that I made someone feel about me the way that I feel about her, then I will feel as if I have been adequate. And, as for pretending that my role model is watching me, I don't have to; I have no doubt that she's watching me.

Labels: personal growth

posted by nicalyse @ 12:40 PM 4 comments

List: Because I Don't Want to Ramble

There is a cat - not one of my own - sleeping on top of my ancient computer monitor. She is snoring.

Brisket is very, very tasty stuff.

I adore period films when they are well done. I have recently watched Brideshead Revisited, The Duchess, and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. All well done, and all made me happy.

Checking the mail is more fun when you're expecting fun things. It's also better when the mailbox is on your porch instead of down the hall, up a flight of stairs, and requires a key.

I actually like Grease 2.

Apparently I am capable of making situations awkward when I'm not even trying - and I don't recognize it. I find this fascinating and wonder how awkward I could make a situation if I was trying.

I have no less than four advance proofs of various books in my bedroom that I want to read, but probably won't manage before the books appear in the store.

I was encouraged, repeatedly, to audition for a role in a small student film (yes, a legitimate one, not a naked one). I refused on the grounds that I am an excellent liar, but unconvinced of my acting abilities. This is true of scripted acting, but I know that I am excellent at deceiving those around me.

Happy Mardi Gras! I have a job where I am encouraged to wear sparkly plastic beads to celebrate the holiday. I find this fabulous on many levels, not the least of which is the fact that the string of blue beads complimented both my outfit and my eyes perfectly.

I really want a weekend at home. It includes cheeseburgers which I also enjoy.

I need a haircut. I want to get my hair colored again.

I am capable of rambling even when I write things in bullet points.

Labels: lists, rambling

posted by nicalyse @ 9:43 PM 3 comments

Off the Cuff

You know, if you've read much of what I write, that I am a fan of making Grand Plans. I always have an action plan for something in my life: cleaning, moving, organizing my closet, improving my attitude. I've been friends with those who are fans of making elaborate plans before going out for the night or the weekend. The last twenty-first birthday celebration I attended had been planned a full month in advance, all the way down to the shot book and the flashing tiara the birthday girl wore.

Clearly, I enjoy planning things. But I'm learning, whether it's as I get older or as I grow or as I find more interesting people to spend time with, that often the best evenings come with the least plans. Last night, I had tentative plans to spend time with Spark, her boyfriend, and her friend from out of town. When I learned that the plan was pizza and hard cider and playing Wii in their enormous living room, I was more than pleased. I got to wear comfortable clothes (jeans and a thermal), I didn't have to try hard to be pretty (because the only boy present lives in Spark's bed), I didn't have to be nice to people that I don't actually like, and I got to play with a Wii!

That last bit is funnier if you read it aloud.

It was honestly a fabulous night, and it makes me think that making plans is highly overrated and often ends in disappointment. Since my only expectation was a chance to hang out with Spark and friends - which I did - my expectations were exceeded by the fun that we had.

I think that's what some would call "gaining perspective." Good for me.

Labels: everyday musings, personal growth

posted by nicalyse @ 1:18 PM 4 comments

Confessional: Redux

See the original here.

Believing that there is someone else out there who is experiencing what I am makes it easier.

You didn't want to tell me about it then. I do not want to hear about it now. I wish you would stop expecting me to care when you didn't want me to in the first place.

I had a dream about you last night. You kissed me and it was perfect. I think I used you; I think I probably missed out.

It's even better than I expected.

I hate that you make me feel this way. I hate that I can't make myself stop. I hate that I have another "what might have been" scenario, though I appreciate that this time its failure isn't my fault.

You make me question my morals.

Your self-absorption rivals my own. Your professor was probably right.

I adore you to pieces. You are certainly the best thing to happen to me in years.

posted by nicalyse @ 3:01 PM 1 comments

Things I Love Thursday

Another banner week for me! Here we go!

• Netflix I resisted for quite some time, the allure of Netflix. I always said that I just wouldn't watch enough movies to justify spending the money each month. This was when I had cable, and clearly, I was misguided. I'm already very pleased with this decision.

• Valentine's dates Mine was fabulous! Spark - there's your pseudonym - and I had Mexican, saw Confessions of a Shopaholic, did a bit of shopping of our own, and ended the evening with cheesecake. It was perfect and the only way it could have been better is if I'd gotten laid. I'm only half-kidding.

• Compliments In the midst of a conversation today, one of my favorite co-workers - a male - looked at me and said, "I like it when you do that thing with your eyelashes." Confused, I asked for clarification. Had I been fluttering them interestingly or something? He was referring to the cat's eye liner I've been doing off and on since November, which made me smile. This is the same co-worker who has mentioned that he prefers my hair straight, he likes me perfume, and fixed my neck when I slept on it so weird that it hurt for a week. I adore him.

• An empty house I really do like my roommate; she's fabulous and we don't seem to drive each other crazy. However, recall how long I lived alone and just how happy I was with it. She's been out of town since Sunday afternoon and I've been relishing the chance to listen to music very loudly when getting ready in the morning, traipse around half-naked (the neighbors must love me), and watch movies very loudly with the bedroom door wide open.

• My action plan Granted, I'm only three days in and day one was hideous, but I'm enjoying my attempts to cultivate a better attitude, even though I'm not perfect. Perhaps I enjoy it in spite of its imperfections.

• Perspective I still haven't been able to bring myself to actually write out the latest development in the Hershey saga (partially since those of you who know me already know what happened), but suffice it to say that I will not be in his bed again. I haven't actually seen him since my triumph in December, and while that makes me a bit wistful, I have the proper perspective to appreciate that someone out there in the universe is trying to save me from myself and my own poor decisions. I'm still completely frustrated by my inability to figure him out, but that has nothing to do with sex, simply my own desire to figure out everyone, coupled with the fact that I nearly always get my way. I'll get my way this time or drive everyone crazy trying, mark my words.

• This song
  

• And the snippets new makeup; cocktail rings; leather gloves worn with a jacket with bracelet-length sleeves - if Isla Fisher can do it, so can I; beautiful photos; lovely and entertaining blogs/websites (see the updates in the sidebar, kittens); Twitter; the inspiration that has come from reading a piece of nonfiction;this is too cute ; reading cookbooks; baths with space heaters; customers who tell me I'm awesome; exceeding expectations; the upcoming empty weekend; teensy cans of Dr. Pepper; animal affection; great hugs; self-control.

"Your happiness, abundance, health, and friendships are no dependent on how other behave." - Notes from the Universe (A reminder that I certainly need. I copied it on a dry-erase board to read every time I glance at my desk.)

Labels: TILT

posted by nicalyse @ 12:37 AM 7 comments

I Want to Be...

"Like peacocks wandering the walkways of the zoo who have twice the autonomy the giraffes and the tigers do saying, “No one can stop me! No one can stop me! No one clips my claws…” -Aaron Weiss

Labels: everyday musings, personal growth, quotation

posted by nicalyse @ 12:31 AM 5 comments

This Makes Me Smile

Labels: everyday amusements

posted by nicalyse @ 8:37 PM 3 comments

Bright Young People and Plans of Action

First, this photograph makes me smile at its absurdity. Go ahead and judge me, I'm feeling sassy today.

Today is one of those days when it feels appropriate to tell you what I spent my day doing rather than making myself write something of substance. I'm not a big fan of reading blogs like that, so why would I write one? Because, my friends, I am an egocentric little girl. You will read about my day and you will find some sort of amusement in it, damn it!

It's probably a good thing that I'm cute.

Following a conversation earlier this week with a co-worker*, I woke up and decided that the best way to start my Sunday afternoon (because I slept till 11:30) was to sit in Panera with a bagel and my new book until the fact that my feet don't touch the floor in their chairs started making me uncomfortable. A blueberry bagel, a cup of coffee, and half a dozen fabulous party recaps later, I headed home, my brain buzzing with ideas for characters and scenarios. This book, Bright Young People is discussing the lives of those in that group from 1920s England. While the book is striving to prove this notion untrue, the general belief is that it was a group of men and women in their mid- to late-twenties who did nothing but throw lavish parties and enjoy lives of leisure. I adore the idea of writing about such a group of people, a cross between the Bright Young People and the kids on Gossip Girl with the tiniest hint of Sebastian from Cruel Intentions. Modernized. I adore this idea already.

I also signed up for a Netflix free trial this afternoon since I have a certain address for the moment. I can already see how this is going to go, after spending hours rating and browsing through movies and television shows, rediscovering things I haven't thought about in years that I will inevitably add to my queue and forget about completely until one day they appear in my mailbox. I'm wonderfully okay with that.

Finally, I decided that it is time for a change in my life. Experts have decided that it takes four weeks to cultivate a change in your life: to form new habits, particularly. Gala began a Transformation Challenge over at iCiNG a couple of weeks ago, while I was still sans-internet, or else I would have started with her, I'm sure. As it stands, I am going to start tomorrow, and my big goal is to cultivate in myself a better attitude. I will strive to complain less, attempt to see the bright side of negative situations, be grateful every day for the things that I do have, and to manifest my attitude outwardly by behaving in a charming manner. It feels big, but in the lovliest way possible. My action plan is as follows:

• to begin each day by reading any one of the dozens of positive and uplifting things that I look at on a regular basis. The Awe-Manac or Notes from the Universe on my nightstand, Daily Om, Notes from the Universe in my e-mail, or somewhere else. It doesn't matter as long as what I'm reading is positive.
  
• to take ten seconds to stand still, breathe, and think carefully if at any time I become wildly impatient, frustrated, offended, dejected, or simply begin to feel nasty.
• to remind myself at every single opportunity that I cannot change the people around me, but I can change the way I react to those people.
• to write, on paper, each day, the things that I am grateful for, ideally first thing in the morning or right before bed.

I like action plans, and I'm going to keep posting about how I'm doing here because, well, it's my blog and I can do as I please.

Really, it's very lucky that I'm cute.

*I may recount that for you later this week, if anyone chooses to question it.

Labels: everyday musings, personal growth, rambling

posted by nicalyse @ 6:49 PM 2 comments

Self-Love Day 2009

Happy Valentine's Day! Traditionally, this is the over-commercialized, over-merchandised holiday that couples are expected to celebrate. Men dread it, women build up huge expectations around it, and single people loathe it to the point of building up huge long rants about it.

I fall into none of these categories. As I've said, I use Valentine's Day as an excuse to wear pink (because I need an excuse?) and hearts, to ingest an excess of chocolate, to give people I love tokens of that love, and to buy candy on clearance the next day. That's all. No drama, no excess. I just enjoy the day.

This year, however, I am going to participate in self-love day, as was proposed to me by the lovely Ms. Sizzle. If you would also like to participate, snag the badge and discuss one thing about yourself that you really, truly love. Even if you don't have a blog - or aren't going to post - I would encourage you to consider what you love about yourself; it tends to put all of the diamonds-and-flowers business in perspective.

I love my self-sufficiency. I lived alone for over two years, and the decision to have a roommate was financial, not because I was lacking in company. Despite my small stature, I am not afraid to speak up for myself, to make sure that everyone in the room knows that I'm there. I am not physically intimidated by anyone; it is extremely rare that I am intimidated in any way by another person.

I enjoy being alone. I like having nights at home to read books and watch episodes of television shows that no one else enjoys as much as I do. I like going to the movies by myself, where there's no pressure from either side about getting snacks and I can sit exactly where I want without compromise. I can eat by myself in a restaurant without feeling self-conscious, and those are often the most satisfying mealtimes I have.

There are, of course, moments when I find myself wanting someone else for more than just physical companionship. There are times when I think it might be nice to have someone to drag downtown to see Slumdog Millionaire, to badger into taking me to a bar on Sunday night, to carry the table out to the storage shed. But therein lies the key: I sometimes want someone. I do not need someone. I am perfectly content by myself. I recognize how different that is from many of my peers, and I'm proud of it. I love myself for being self-sufficient.

Labels: holidays, personal growth

posted by nicalyse @ 1:30 PM 3 comments

Meditations and Conversation Hearts

How do we learn to let ourselves be loved instead of fearing it and running from it? Any expression of so-called "romantic" love has scared me senseless and sent me running - and into hiding. So, it made me think about our generation and how we seem to be feeling about love and relationships and even just saying the word.

It isn't a lack of experiencing love that created my fear. My family may be small - very small - but I am loved and always have been. I know that I went through a phase of doubting whether my parents actually liked the person that I was, but I was always certain of their love. I experienced unconditional love from my grandmother, something that I don't believe everyone has the gift of experiencing, something that I'm grateful for every day. This fear also isn't born from a disinterest in receiving attention or a belief that I don't deserve it - of course I do. Then again, I love having the attention of the room, so I suppose this isn't a shock to anyone who knows me.

I'm often surprised by the affection people around me seem to feel for me - and the level of protectiveness that they display. Surprised, yes, and honored and truly flattered. Something about me is memorable and endearing, I suppose, though I'm certainly not able to pick it out.

But the idea of love - Love. It appeals...and I'm disconcerted by it. It's perhaps that I don't know how to behave. I understand affection and protectiveness and respect and even admiration, and exactly how one expresses each of those emotions - whether it's deserved or not - but love is foreign. How do you let go and let yourself be loved?

I'm not sure what the answer is. I don't know where the question came from, but I do think that it is an appropriate one to consider in lieu of the impending holiday. And while I loathe all of those "Anti-Valentine's" people - you don't have to celebrate, but do you have to make it unhappy for everyone else? - I have every intention of enjoying my day and telling the people that I love how important they are to me. I will wear underoos with hearts on them and go to a girly movie with a dear friend and take the excuse to eat more chocolate than I would any other day. Any I will try to figure out why I am afraid to look at someone that I love and say the words, why I find it necessary to use the phrase "I heart you," and just how it would feel to have someone else's presence in my bed on a regular basis.

Because, really, I don't think snuggling with felines counts.

Labels: everyday musings, holidays

posted by nicalyse @ 11:32 AM 3 comments

Things I Love Thursday

Holy lord, Nic is back for TILT! And back in the twenty-first century with internet in her house! Since I've missed weeks and weeks of TILTs, I think this one should be extra big, no?

• The internet I knew that I spent a lot of time out here in internet-land. I knew that there were people that I kept up with exclusively through my computer, that it was how I pay most of my bills, that it was an excellent means of wasting time. What I hadn't realized was just how much it enriched my life beyond those things. A lot of those random things that I read help to shape who I am, and over the years I've found websites and people and tidbits of information that have changed me in incredible ways. I'm grateful to have that opportunity back at my fingertips.

• Books In January, likely because I wasn't reading anything on the computer, I read thirteen books. They ranged from The Gentle Art of Domesticity - which prompted me to take up embroidery again - to My Little Red Book - a proof filled with stories of girls' first periods - to Graceling - a teen fantasy-adventure story.

• DVDs The second season of The Tudors was phenomenal, I'm officially addicted to Gossip Girl, The Godfather is as great as everyone says, and I'm still obsessed with Breakfast at Tiffany's. I don't have cable either, and I'm not a girl who does well with lots of quiet. I filled my time with DVDs. I'm currently on a Gilmore Girls complete series marathon, just starting season five. My coffee intake and speech patterns have increased accordingly.

• Being content I'm working really hard on being happy. I've opened myself up to things that I had always ridiculed and, as I had been talking about before I pulled my disappearing act, I've been trying to change. I don't want to look back at my twenties and see depression and missed opportunities. What I've also learned is that being content with my every day life is almost as good as being happy. Of course, I would prefer to be deliriously happy all of the time, but I think contentment is a good place to start. And it's working.

• Space heaters Living in an apartment where I didn't pay utilities meant that I kept the temperature perfect all the time. Living in a less-than energy efficient house means turning the thermostat down and the space heaters on. I adore the space heaters.

• Embroidering It makes me feel close to Grandma again, and there's something relaxing about the repetitive motions of the stitches. Changing colors and using different stitches keeps it interesting, and I like the way it feels to finish a project, however imperfect and trivial it may be. It makes me happy, and that's all that matters.

• Excellent coworkers I have some coworkers that I cannot stand; there are even a couple that I barely tolerate. But compared with the exceptional people I have the pleasure of knowing and calling friends, those who suck are meaningless. Two in particular make my days better, and while I would like to think that I have a similar effect on them, I am fairly certain that neither of them is aware of exactly what kind of impact they have on me.

• The dishwasher I hate washing dishes. Now I have a dishwasher. It is glorious.

• Snow Two weeks ago, we got a slew of ice and sleet and snow, and while everyone else was bitching and moaning, I was reveling. I adore the way the world looks when it's all frosted over, the way the air feels in your lungs and the way moonlight sparkles. Yes, there are drawbacks to winter weather, but if people would just take half a minute to breathe and look and feel, maybe they would see what I see. And if they don't, then it's their loss, because I'm going to continue to wish for it and celebrate it when it comes.

• Honorable mentions Nickle Creek; Coffee with... ; having a washer and dryer in my house; touch lamps; borrowing boots; a fabulous roommate; coloring mandalas; Notes from the Universe; accessorizing; overstuffed bookshelves; the March issue of Vanity Fair; buying used DVDs; driving alone; the generosity of the people I adore; kitty birthdays - Puck and Marilyn are two!; potential for great things; having my girls back; thunderstorms; Gala Darling; many tabs of fabulous things to catch up on; twitterpated; fenced-in yards; customers who make me smile; journaling; eating my weight in Starbursts; losing weight without trying; English muffins with imported raspberry jam; having time for breakfast; browsing bookstores; reading about astrology; continuing series; my Valentine's date; the prospect of all the blog posts to come!

I now demand that you tell me what's been popping your cork this week - or this month, if you like. We all need a dose of things we love!

Labels: TILT

posted by nicalyse @ 3:02 AM 4 comments