wear your love like heaven

Home feels like HEAVEN. I wish that I was here under better circumstances, but I think I've learned/remembered more about myself these past few days- precious things that I desperately needed to discover- than I have in years.

I've had a serious problem being "myself" for a while now. Even when I'm out having fun, surrounded by wonderful caring people, doing things that I love, it still feels like something is missing or I'm doing it wrong. I've been trying so hard to figure out what that is so it doesn't continue to destroy important relationships in my life- most notably the one I have with myself. I know it's been working, and today I feel AMAZING and like I have complete clarity. I even have this thirst for doing new things. Most notably: the desire to start cooking? Which is amazing if you know me at all. Who knows if I'll stick with it or not. Maybe it's just because I'm home and it's fall and it makes me feel all housewifey. We shall see little grasshoppa, we shall see.

Ian, my social media intern at EFG, is on my work computer while I'm out of the office and is pretty much the best for taking on my entire workload in addition to all the other stuff he has going on. He signed on to AIM but iChat automatically connects me to google talk as well, and Brady IMed me thinking it was me. HILARITY ENSUES... I got bored in the middle of typing that story so I'm not going to finish, just know that it cracked me up and frankly I like being cracked up.

It's been a difficult week so far. I know that anyone reading this probably already knows what happened, but I need to write about it a little for my own peace of mind. My grandma was a beautiful, generous person with an amazing sense of humor. She was quick as hell when it came to conversation, and she probably had a sharper mind than anyone else I've ever met for her age. She had a difficult life but I never heard her complain. She was a cashier at Quality for the longest time, and she rode her bike to work before her knee started to bother her. When my Aunt Vicki contacted me Monday morning and told me she needed me to call my parents at work, I was truthfully thinking "I need to get to NY to be with my mom" more than anything else. I knew what was happening with my Grandma was the end so I had to then focus on the things that I could control.

It wasn't scary to look at her in her bed, and it wasn't uncomfortable to be in the room. I just wanted to keep holding her hand and putting my hands through her hair. There were so many of us staying with her that we had to take shifts, but there were usually at least 4 of us around her bed. Abby slept right in her bed with her every night. She was taken off of life support as soon as I got to the hospital because she didn't want to be on it- she was only put on it to give us all the chance to get to the hospital. We honestly didn't think she'd make it very long after she was on her own. But she did...she breathed all on her own for almost 24 full hours. She had an amazingly strong heart. They told us she could hear though she had no brain activity. I truly think that she held on so long because she was so happy that her whole family was with her- she always told my mom she was scared she'd die alone. My mom wouldn't sleep. I watched her sit at my Grandma's bed the entire night, holding her hand and whispering to her. They changed her position around 3am on Wednesday morning and she made a moaning sound as they were rolling her over. After that we could hear the fluid in her lungs when she breathed- it sounded a bit like blowing into a straw in a glass of water. She smelled like milk. I was finally able to catch a couple hours of sleep on Wednesday morning, and when I woke up my family had eaten breakfast and my Grandma's breathing had just begun to slow down. It really was beautiful; we all stood around the bed and held her while her heartbeat fluctuated a bit, and eventually she took one last breath. I can't even express the amount of love and gratitude I have for the staff at Kenmore Mercy. They were so kind and accomodating, and so gentle with my Grandma. They let us sleep in her room and brought us all food and drinks. Someone came in and prayed with us, the doctor was wonderful, and all of the nurses were so helpful.

I feel at ease; my whole family does. Thank you to everyone for being so supportive.

is this shag? it's just gorgeous

Amy Poehler on American Apparel ads:

"They're fucking gross, man. Look, I love beautiful girls too. I think everyone should be free to have their knee socks and their sweaty shorts, but I'm over it. I'm over this weird, exhausted girl. I'm over the girl that's tired and freezing and hungry. I like bossy girls, I always have. I like people filled with life. I'm over this weird media thing with all this, like, hollow-eyed, empty, party crap."

Somehow I ended up with a headcold? It's alright, everything I wanted to do this weekend that required physical activity (runningdrinkingfuckingcleaningshopping) is already taken care of, so the remaining things can be done from this couch with a very large bowl of soup and some Emergen-C and (don't you judge me) a Sabrina the Teenage Witch marathon.

Every spare minute that I have in which I have any sort of clarity has been spent figuring out how to create the life I want to live here. It's something I didn't really do the first time I was here but I like planning it out. I like spending too much time on craigslist, looking at bed frames and desks and Nintendo NES systems with Super Mario Bros 3. I like looking at interior design blogs (sweethomestyle gives me so much inspiration, I get LOST in this blog, there are just hundreds of thousands of pictures) and deciding what I want my bedroom to look like. I like the fact that I'm slowly branching out in this eclectic group of friends that I have here, getting closer to new people and further from others.

I find myself extra surrounded by limits lately. Too much, too soon, too little, too quiet, too loud, too long, too recent, too costly... I can't tell if this is just the way things are or if it's something about how I'm living right now. I know I'm not living the way I need to, but most of it's out of my control for now. I'm making every possible change that I can make, and some of them are probably going to require a whole heck of a lot of effort. All I want is a happy heart, and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get that. There is already so much happiness in my life, I just need to dust it off =)

Every time I see a dog on the street I wish I was a professional dogwalker. Does everyone have that secret small-town career, the one that would never get you anywhere but you'd still love doing it forever? Anything working with animals would make me super happy. All I really want to do for work is play with kitties all day. I still want to design, so maybe I'll make each kitty a website and post pictures and videos every day. That steps over some normal/bizarre line, doesn't it? Again, with the limits.....lol

For some reason I just thought about an episode of Letterman that aired years ago where he made fun of George W Bush, saying he didn't know what to call a Christmas wreath so he called it a "tree hole".

I want to write but can't seem to formulate an intelligent paragraph to save my life, so instead I'm just going to make a list, since I am so excellent at making lists.

Things That NEVER Fail to Make Me Smile:

1. Ryan Stiles impersonating Carol Channing
   
2. Phone calls with my Dad when he actually wants to chat about nothing in particular (and after 15-20 minutes, always ends it with "well...my ear hurts so i'm going to go now")
3. Markel's Auto on Robertson that blows bubbles out into the street all day long
4. Venti Green Tea Lemonade (GTL, ha)...sweetened of course
5. Thinking about Bella curling up on my chest and purring herself to sleep
6. Nick Drake's voice
7. Kisses on my shoulder in the morning
8. Karin swerving down the 3rd floor hallway of Ten Broeck Academy on our way to chemistry
9. Unexpected nights with new people

Carry on.

free flowing like water over your fingers

I came to a somewhat disturbing conclusion today; since moving here I Do Not Know Myself At All.

I used to be able to take a step back and know what people would think. I would take note of it but I wouldn't care. There was not a single person's opinion of me that could make me give a hoot about the things I did and people I associated with and the way I lived my life other than my mom and dad. I could breathe deeper and sleep better. I had this sense of clarity and an overwhelming ability to pick out the best and keep it in my pocket. I was sunlit and warm and more alive than I can ever explain.

I have gone from being EXACTLY who I aspired to be when I was little...to some random girl that came here and changed immediately. I started caring. And not the kind of caring that deserves merit from anyone or makes the world a better place. The kind of caring that I dislike in others. One comment from the right person can leave me feeling offended, broken, useless, and even more empty than I felt before the words had left their lips. I am indifferent about myself 100% of the time because I've removed the warmth from myself and tried throwing it into everything around me to make it somewhere worth being. I tiptoe around people, hoping I don't say or do something that they'll talk about to their friends later. I gave in and apologized to someone that deep down I am CERTAIN I don't feel the least bit sorry about, just because he made me feel like I was 2 inches tall. I cannot believe I did that. That is the lowest of the low for me. I have never given in like that in my entire life.

Honestly...I am dangerously close to buying a one way ticket back to NY and leaving all the furniture and things I bought on the curb for whoever wants it. I don't even want to touch any of it, it's tainted with southern California smog and almost 5 months worth of total bullshit.

And by all means, if you read this and think you're associated with it, you probably are and you probably suck. And out of all honesty, YOU probably owe ME a fucking apology.