two's a perfect number, but one, well...

I've never seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind until tonight. It's normally so difficult to get me to sit through a movie, but I found myself putting down my computer, closing the door on my brain, and ignoring the little red blinking light on my phone because it's one of those movies that makes you think a whole fuck of a lot more about what's really important and what human beings are doing to themselves.

Tonight I heard someone describe their reasons for marrying someone and it scared me. Why are we getting married just because there's pressure and we think it's "the natural next step" and then telling the world that perfection doesn't exist? It will never exist if you never give it a chance. We're all so impatient...we can't wait to find someone, can't wait to be sure we love them before we say it, can't wait to get married because of generic "norms" in the world, and as soon as we get hurt, we will do anything to remove that hurt from our hearts.

How many of us would take full advantage of a memory-removing system if it existed? I am so very confident that I would be the person taking it upon myself to save those discarded memories of beautiful people and deliver them right back to the people that were cowardly enough to try and throw an entire existence in the garbage.

I've outgrown any sort of tolerance for volatile and selfish people. Overexposure just did me in; it's like a song you hate that gets overplayed on every radio station. I try so hard to find something to like in everyone I meet, and that is something that has taken me a very long time to want to do. Sometimes though, it's so easy to feel satisfaction when someone gets what's coming to them, and so easy to ignore the people that just don't seem to get it.

My dad sent me 2 links in an email yesterday (here and here). I identify more with the first, but the second holds a lot of truth. We're always running around like chickens with our heads cut off, doing things that don't really matter.

There is a popular quote that I've always liked that says "if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten." I always found it extra useful, both for realizing which things need to change and which can stay just as sweet as they are. I love change, so if I witness an area of my life that needs it, I don't need to be told. I know. And (especially lately) making me feel like my own decisions/things/space/time are even a little threatened is a dangerous road to walk down because I have so little that is my own.

memory tests

there are no stars out in the LA sky and there's

a growling sound yawning high above the city from planes

and No Quarter came through the wall and

is now coming through my computer, here on this bal

cony

with the night breeze making me

wish I had a warmer hoodie

Los Angeles is silent tonight, except for the Zeppelin

playing on my computer and the sound of my h e a r t beating

days falling backward into velvet night

That is the view from outside my bedroom facing North-ish. Not bad when you can see the mountains from your room, right? It doesn't even really look like Los Angeles, it looks like some little ski village in the summer with random palm trees thrown in. I like that view...I never really noticed it until this past weekend. I think knowing I can see something that's not the city makes me feel better.

Maybe it was the convo in the 99 cent store parking lot a few nights ago. Maybe I whined and cried and got angry and finally got it all out of my system. Or maybe I'm just at a high point, but I'm able to forget what was bothering me for the last week and it couldn't have come at a better time.

I have to start focusing on the good or else I'm going to get trapped in this sprawling mess of the southwest and never be able to climb out and onto something even better. I figured the only way to do that is to split up the task into 2 parts: bringing home here and exploring this place. So I bought a Buffalo Sabres shirt and a plant (momma likes gardening). And explored all day Saturday and part of Sunday, and I truly feel better about my life already. Not completely, but it's a start, and a start is what I need.

There are days when I feel like I could accomplish anything. Adam told me the other night that I'm someone to get nervous about because I'm known for doing anything I set my mind to. I look at that as more of a lucky situation, but maybe I should start thinking otherwise because as much as it may be luck and things fall into place for me easily, I have to be willing to take huge risks for that to happen by following my gut. I really have followed it everywhere its taken me thus far and it's never failed me. And that includes Los Angeles...so why am I assuming I would lead myself wrong when I'm smarter than that and always have been? There is something here for me, I just have to find it. The problem is that I stupidly thought that I found it the first night I moved here, got comfortable with that feeling very fast, and got knocked on my ass. I open up a lot more than I give myself credit for.

The truth is--I'm pretty much an open book, but I expect everyone here to care as much as small town people always have and will continue to, and sometimes they just don't. And as much as you want to argue that, it's the truth. That's OK, because I'll find what I'm looking for eventually.

A song that reminds me of Los Angeles: [Luna - Broken Chair]
A song that reminds me of Buffalo: [Grace Potter and the Nocturnals @ Thursday at the Square 7/5/07 - Apologies]