Jingle Balls

Happy Holidays! I spent the day making cookies and preparing festive food with my mom. Mostly, she entertained a friend and decorated cookies. It was a good time anyway...for some reason I feel like I accomplished a lot today? I guess we did go grocery shopping at two grocery stores, rented movies, and bought a torch to make baked alaskas. I didn't write though. I didn't revise the piece I just wrote for Missbehave. Oh well. I think I'm just starting to get comfortable with this being home thing. Not seeing anyone at all but my mother seems to help. So my mom wanted to watch this movie called Far North because she heard it was good. It was about these cute eskimos who have to move around the tundra a bunch or some whiteys will kill them. Then they find a nearly dead whitey who they both fall in love with. The younger eskimo says they're going to run away together, so older eskimo cuts off her fucking face and wears it!!!! wtf! I totally didn't see it coming and there needs to be warnings on movies if that shit's going down! Right? So then we had to watch a whole 'nother movie to get the awful awful image unburned from our tender corneas. So we watched an Audrey Tautou movie called Priceless. It's adorable and kinda like Amelie, except she's a gold-digging fashion horse! The other night, my friend Alex and I went to every bar in Santa Fe for drinks. I don't really remember paying for them...but I'm sure I did. Kinda sure. I vaguely remember reading someone else's Playboy and then kissing Alex at the bar. It probably looked a lot like the kiss above only less hot, with more falling, and without facecutter watching from a distance. I need someone who's not my platonic best friend to make out with...I've got my eyes on the produce guy at this hippie grocery store but I'm pretty sure he has a wallet chain and a bowl cut. I bet he tastes like sixth grade. I also ran into a director/screenwriter I used to work with way back when I donned costumes and pretended to be anyone but myself...oh I guess I'm still doing that...anyway, he's going through a divorce and I'm wondering if it would be sketchy if I asked him to coffee. Not that I want to undress him with my teeth or anything. But it's kind of weird being of a more "adult" age and not knowing how to relate to those who've been adults for a bit longer. I have no idea how he envisions me now. Am I still a sixteen-year-old drama geek in his eyes? Or a 25-year-old straight-out geek? On an unrelated note, here's my bee tattoo!

Baby's Romance

Have you ever considered someone to be a friend for years and then, at some point in time, you're forced to spend a couple days with them and realize that you absolutely, positively hate them and can't figure out how you ever got along in the first place? Yeah, I'm there. My friend called upon me to assist him on a photoshoot. Even though he refused to pay me, I had nothing better to do and was open to seeing someone outside of my Santa Fe friends. We had a good time at the bar mitzvah and headed to a divey sports bar for drinks...where he proceeded to leave me alone for 40 minutes "going to the bathroom". Turns out he was on the phone with his girlfriend. Okay, this requires a back story, we had been seeing each other for a few months when our mutual friend confides in me that he is seeing another girl and just keeping me around as his dish on the side. Now, I don't have trouble finding men who want to date me. I'm generally the one not interested in anyone at all, so for some prick to be two-timing me, is fucked up. We stopped talking for a while, he occasionally solicits me for im sex. I decline. He sends me porn at work. Fast forward to now: he won't stop poking me, has a retort to anything I say, bitches about suitcases at thrift stores costing seven dollars, leaves his shit EVERYWHERE, tracks snow all around the house, and has not ONCE, not even once, asked me about my life, about my mom's cancer, about how I feel about anything. He refuses to watch any of the shows I like, insisting on watching football or the news. He grabs my boobs and puts his cold feet on my warm legs. He wears my father's robe wide open so that not only am I utterly repulsed by his hairy pregnant belly, but I will always feel a perversion to my father in his robe now. I don't know why I maintain friendships with utter losers who make me feel like shit. He's not the only one! Guys who have continually used me as a doormat, broken my heart, bruised my ego, etc. I want to be their best friends! Why is that? Why can't I just cut assholes out of my life? What is it about me that only attracts sexually deviant, manipulative babies? Am I asking for it? Am I deviant? How do you cut these guys out of your life? I feel like the more self confident I get, the more I'm able to say "no" and say "you're an ass, this is why..." but keeping these guys around at all is detrimental to a continuous growth of self-confidence. Yeah, they think I'm cute/funny/will buy them drinks maybe but none of them like me enough to actually treat me well! Fuck. Guys are fired from my life. (Except for Alex and Ryan...and my dad as long as he's not wearing that robe). I refuse to be any man's port in a storm. They've got to start appreciating the things I do to take care of them and then take care of me when I need them! Power to the peoples.

Queen of Squash Blossoms

Something about being home is extremely isolating. It's so strange being surrounded by the same boy faces from high school, but now we're supposed to be adults. I slept in a bed last night in between two of my closest male friends, as if we were siblings. I like to imagine myself as 'one of the boys' because I'm at least as crude and can generally follow a conversation about comic books or video games. But I miss my girls! I miss consuming whole pizzas with Sarah Morrison, trying new pork products at fancy New York restaurants with Mary HK Choi, sake and sushi night with Demetra...even just sitting in the office, laughing at ridiculous emails and instant messaging from two feet away. I don't know how much I can organize my life from my parent's guest house...I'm already antsy to leave. The sky gets dark so early, my drinks get drunken so quickly, and I wake up hurting in one way or another every day. Today, I spent about 3 hours researching apprenticeships at goat cheese farms. Turns out, you can work at a farm, live for free, get fed, and in some cases, get paid while learning how to create a sustainable environment for yourself. God, I'm totally turning into a hippie.
For dinner, I made a pear and avocado salad with crumbled goat cheese, lemon olive oil, and aged balsamic. It was kinda gross unless you ate the avocados first. I've done that a few times...made awful salads that I could barely eat. I'm usually pretty awesome with my food intuition...it's hard when you really want two things that are utterly incompatible. Huh. I think I accidentally just made a giant metaphor for my life. Crap. I'll assume that metaphor has something to do with wanting to do exactly what I want to do while sacrificing everything necessary for basic survival...but come from insanely motivated parents who won't call something a real job unless you are compensated fairly, in which case, I've never had a real job. I don't even know how to do a job hunt. I did make a website, which shut up my parents for a couple hours in the hassling department. Everything up to this point has flowed into the rest. Now I have to figure out if I have anything valuable and convince everyone else of it. So far, the only jobs of interest have been back in New York and I really don't want to go back unless I have enough money to live comfortably! Job searching is depressing though, I kind of assumed that New York was the one place where companies could get away with not paying their employees minimum wage because they're getting experience they couldn't get anywhere else but it looks like LA is just as bad, just in different fields. Am I ready to jump back into the lion's mouth of city life? I know I can't stay here and I'm not sure whether taking a month off to learn how to make goat cheese would benefit me...I kinda just want to exist for a while though! It seems that might be much harder than diving in deep and letting your life go over your head.

You Can't Go Home Again

Today was slightly better. I need to accept that I am kinda homeless now in some purgatory until I move to Los Angeles and find a new life for myself of some sort. I watched two of my closest friends get tattooed at Four Star today, Alex got a red umbrella to finish the bottom half of his sleeve and Ryan got a tiny ghost and "boo!" on the inside of his lip. It looked painful...thinking about getting "scrappy" inside mine, but am afraid I may have stolen that from someone else. Weetzie Bat is sleeping on my butt and I'm in for the night at 10pm which is miraculous. So, um, I'm going to Albuquerque with my ex tomorrow while he auditions and I sell 60% of my closet. I know it's really stupid of me to spend time with him now that I got over him well...yesterday? But I'm hoping it won't be awful and if I'm real lucky, he'll look like shit and I'll remember that there has got to be someone out there who'll love me for reals.

I watched Superbad last night, I forgot how fucking funny it is! (Still really awkward swearer). I'm going to interview Jonah Hill some point in the next few months...pretty excited. Must seduce him into friendship. I've got like 3 friends in LA now. It sucks starting over from scratch when a lot of people are probably settling into adulthood friendships. Wait, do people do that? I don't know. I'm sure everything will be peachy keen. Clark Duke simply has to hang out with me now that we're in love and all. Even though I haven't heard from him since I texted him during Sex Drive to let him know that I was watching him get a blow job...and that it was awkward. Hope I didn't give him the impression that the movie sucked. Zack and Miri Make a Porno was probably worse...even though I adore everyone involved and would probably see both movies again. Crap. No gumption.

I got a package Sarah Morrison sent me that contained a gift and thank you note from Betsey Johnson...she sent a Vosges chocolate Dias de los Muertos skull and $300 gift certificate. It is probably the best thing that's ever happened to me, second only to the time she hugged me. I fucking love that woman. She must be the nicest person to ever live. I'm trying to figure out what I can send her...I'm thinking pinon brittle and maybe one of those little Mexican skeletons in a tutu or something? With a letter maybe begging for her to hire me. Nylon is hiring an assistant to the editor in chief...I wonder how mad Missbehave would be if I moved back for that job? JK. I can't come back to New York until I get rich...and even then I think I might prefer sunshine, good produce, and medical marijuana. It's really weird watching shows set in New York now though...I don't necessarily feel remorseful but it's kinda like watching your ex make out with a hot chick.

We Hurt the Same Black and Blue

I've been drinking too much. This is not an unique realization, but the fact that I've given myself alcohol poisoning more times in the past month than the rest of my life disturbs me. Generally, I only drink too much before a nervous life venture or when something awful has happened. It's a combo now. I'm home in Santa Fe for two months, looking at jobs and apartments in LA and letting my Missbehave responsibilities fall by the way side a bit while I wallow in a half sleep half depressive state. Kicking sand and staring into half-empty coffee mugs.

Drinking half bottles of Bourbon and spending time with my best friend Alex. I feel like I've been imprisoning him a bit. There are only a couple people here that I can stand at all. I've had a breakthrough in my quest to fall out of love with my ex-boyfriend Matt. We had one awkward sleeping-not-touching thing (where he insinuated that lovestruck me couldn't control myself around him) followed by him texting me after snorting some pills asking for help. I went to rescue him. Him, blacked out on a gallery couch. After an hour of coaxing, I managed to get him awake and angry enough to storm out where he stared at me with such drunken hatred that I told him to hit me. He didn't. BUT, and here's where my moral dilemma stems, the next day I told him he did. I told him my nose wouldn't stop bleeding for half an hour to see if it was broken. I told him next time he gets drunk and snorts painkillers to lay in his own puke and think about how awful he's been to people that love him. He had no issue believing this and told me he felt awful and loved me. Now he loves me. Only when he thinks he's beaten me, he loves me. He loves me but not in that way. It was a breakthrough on so many levels. He doesn't love me. He believes he is capable of hitting someone he "loves". I think I'm finally free! But now I think it's the loneliest place I've been in years and years. No one to love. Not even unrequited. Useless.

Now my mother is at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. She found a lump in her breast, they found another. She refuses to label herself a cancer survivor. She's already past it and she still has lumps and radiation and scalpels in her future. I'm scared. I don't know what I would do if I lost my mother. I always imagined that I would move in with the remaining parent and take care of them if anything happened. I always imagined that happening far into the future. I cry spontaneously at bars and in grocery shops. I might not make it to LA until February if I go to Minnesota with her for her radiation. I don't even know what I'm doing. At all. I'm faking it now. The drunk keeps me in charge but irresponsible, uncontrolled. I feel like I'm falling.

We Don't Try

When I'm holed up in my self-absorbed bubbledom, it's really easy to forget how important friends are and how accessible happiness can be. It's hard when your life isn't following the path you've carved out for it to flow into...when it seeps into awkward cracks in the sooted sidewalk. I've been packing for weeks. Things keep appearing...heavy pointy things mostly. Meanwhile, I've cut off two knuckles, managed to burn my thumb white with a lit match, and wisely decided to get a wrist tattoo a week before leaving New York. I do love New York though. This week, I went to Sylvia's in Harlem...where I've wanted to go since I read Francesca Lia Block in middle school. I think it was Witch Baby, maybe? I ate chicken and waffles. Then my friends (Saskia and Joe and Joe's cousin) and I went to Korea Town...which is actually just two blocks. Apparently people are eating panda in New York...as unlikely as that seems. Some of the swankier clubs didn't readily welcome whiteys but we managed drunkeness and ate Korean barbeque and kimchee. It was fun to visit parts of New York most people don't bother to visit I guess. I have no regrets of leaving...but I suppose regrets are one of those things that hit you after the fact. I don't know. I have no idea how I'm going to manage a cross-country trip in a week. I have so many tidbits, Weetzie might go nuts, and it might take four days. So...obviously, my mind is all over the place. I'm kinda really excited to get to Santa Fe though! And erm, not just because I'm still in love with my ex boyfriend and may or may not want to trick/convince him to move to Los Angeles with me. It's also cause my best friend Alex is there now and if my ex won't have me, I won't be left to my drunken self! So, back to packing the knives.

Finding My Way...Away

"One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am-a reluctant enthusiast... a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to your body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards."—Edward Abbey

I've got little more than a week left in New York...and I'm already happier knowing there's a light at the end of my tunnel. Looking back at my old blogs and journals, it's apparent that I've been depressed more than I've been happy here. I've met a couple people who've made a huge impact in me in a short time. I've worked my ass off, sometimes in 3 jobs at a time, and I finally kinda feel proud of myself. At a Women's Writer's Conference in June, I had an epiphany; I can write anywhere! While I've been killing myself to be where the action is...I've kinda stopped caring about the action itself. I don't really know what's in store for me, but my priorities have changed and I'm looking forward to wide blue skies, close friends, and new adventures. I know—pure cheez. It's my first lapse of optimism ever, give me a break! In honor of my new found freedom, a quote from a little over a year ago, when the depression was nearly swallowed the both of us whole...is it troublesome that my writing is rubbish when I'm not an utter mess?

"Ah, the summer's hand lays heavy on this land and what is left of it suffocates the heavy-headed who can afford it. What is there to be excited about at this age? It's just like every other day but with excess sweat behind the knee caps and brow. Working the same jobs, holding out before the inevitable collapse. But for what? It's as if my body is going without me, pouring itself into everyday tasks without my mind...without that heart which remains tangled. So it appears that I will continue going ahead without it because I've been given no choice. My hand held out, you chose to push it away. So these days I carry on, somehow managing to push through sunrise day by day. For only just my arms are dancing marionettes. Surprised to wake up every morning...dumbfounded by some persistence I didn't know I had.

It's been 20 days since my last day off...only 3 more until the next. Editing for hours until I can leave to bartend at a restaurant of the unhinged...arriving home in the wee hours. Standing idly in a white sunlit store, writing for no extra money...pulling by bloody fingernails to the next job. Still left with barely enough money for rent. What for? So that I can afford to do what I love. To do it alone...because I've sacrificed something in pursuit of my only dream. I wanted this so badly. Here it is and it will take everything in me to keep it up. I will keep on wondering if I could have had the other life, if you would have let me stay. But in the meantime, I am here. Here in the humid, as vulnerable as always, perhaps more so. Imagining that one day I will pull out of this city, feeling that I've conquered something, move to the west coast...slowly through these states."