I don't wanna time travel no more

I miss my Grandma tonight. I looked at the online guestbook from her obituary posting in the Buffalo News and came across my mom's post and it just about made me lose my breath. What a strange feeling it is to exist in this world, and what a strange feeling it is to see an existence that intertwined with your own come to an end. An existence is all we have...

I can't stop writing lately. It feels like I'm releasing all these oddities that were just sitting casually inside me, waiting for the moment when I finally realized I HAD to let go of them. I am a complete essay that is beginning to spell check. 

I want to dance all up on someone in a dark, smoky, sweaty club to this song. And I don't even like Robyn. SO. FUCKING. HOT.

feels like a midget is hangin' from my necklace

I've heard a lot of odd tactics to combat stress when you're sinking in it, but perhaps the best was a friend that told me to just focus on color. Maybe he does it differently, but I took that to mean ignoring the purpose, shape, and size of everything and only see the colors that exist, nothing else. It's tough to shut down like that and only focus on one thing at a time, but when I'm able to do it I can feel my mood lift almost instantly. Color always makes me happy anyway; I can look at the color of a lush, freshly cut deep green lawn in the summer and feel so happy that I can't even contain it- it's almost like I'm soaking up the health of the grass and getting all juiced up on it lol. I look at deep pinks and feel warm and content. I think color affects some people a little more than others, just like anything else in the world, but that little suggestion has completely changed some of my worst days.

Going home for the first time in over 6 months tomorrow night- I'll only have 3 days to spend with my family and that's NOT enough. What can I really do about it? Most of my friends in LA have been here their entire lives, so their families are here too. It's the one thing that bothers me regularly, and there's no way for me to fix it. I'm still excited! This has been the longest I've gone without being on a plane in about 2 and a half years. What a weird thought

(they didn't have you where i come from, never knew the best was yet to come)

Evi, who is one of the best people I know by the way, has been finding all these articles on being introverted and posting them online. She posted this one (read!) a few days ago. There are some sentences in this that are so scarily similar to things I've felt and written myself that I felt an overwhelming sense of relief after reading it. Everything is me; thriving on reflection and alone time, feeling depleted by too much social engagement, exercising not for the workout but for the time alone with my own thoughts, feeling inadequate in the workplace because the phrase "throw some ideas at me" isn't how I work through things in my head. These 2 sections in particular struck a chord:

"An introvert who is silent in a group may actually be quite engaged—taking in what is said, thinking about it, waiting for a turn to speak—but will be seen in the U.S. as a poor communicator."

"Hardest was feeling judged—and judging herself—for how she was wired. Others would nudge her: 'Just say what you think.' Being reflective was not appreciated or encouraged."

My boyfriend is like a puppy (An incredible, brilliant, generous, gorgeous puppy lol). He is always jumping around, being friendly, talking to everyone within 20 feet, trying to understand everything. This is the single major difference between us and it's very apparent. We're both 100% able to keep ourselves happy almost all the time, but the routes we take to get there are drastically different. I'm an active person, but I'd rather sit still and recharge. I'm a very friendly person, and around some people I'm REALLY outgoing, but I hate small talk and I usually only speak when I feel like what I'm going to say will be appreciated. I of course want to understand everything too, but instead of jumping in and asking questions, I learn more by sitting back and observing. I love him and I would not change a single hair on his head, but the differences in the way we act are hilarious to me.

I think the crazy side of me magically appears when I feel like I'm truly understood. And that feeling either pops up immediately after meeting someone (my coworker Justin for example, has witnessed it from day 1 because I sensed in our 1st meeting that we were very very similar) or it will take a long, LONG time to work up to. The guys in the machine room at CBS always see me at my craziest for some reason- prime example would be today when Jesse and I had a loud obnoxious dance party to Big & Chunky in front of people I've never met in my life. Being reassured that it's OK to "let loose" and being asked to be crazy are both automatic turnoffs. It's offensive to me because I AM silly and ridiculous and me not displaying that for someone by no means gives them the right to ask for it. It's difficult to explain properly but that's the best I can do. The trouble with feeling that way is that the rest of the world seems to think that I need to be coaxed into being extroverted and all that will ever do is make me retreat deeper. People can run circles around me and yell at me and beg me to get crazy, and I think to myself, "if you knew me at all you'd know that if you never prompted me for it, it would likely appear on its own one day." The people that I keep in my life are the ones that have picked up on that.

Have you heard Joan Osborne's (circa 1992 or something) cover of Dylan's "Man In The Long Black Coat?" If you haven't, do yourself the favor. That song is fucking amazing.

new york is like scranton on acid

Every morning I take two buses to work. The first one goes through downtown Culver City and the second heads north on Robertson through Beverly Hills. There is a man that gets on at the same place each day with his little backpack, always neatly dressed, always polite. He's not all there but it's only apparent when he starts talking to himself. He counts everybody in the same fashion each day; tallying everyone up when he sits down and counting each person as they step off of the bus. Sometimes when he's bored because no one is getting on or off he pretends he's a weatherman and tells no one in particular that it's going to be sixty-eight degrees along the coast. This morning he actually knew one of the women that got on after him, and when she said something that made him laugh I discovered that he has the most contagious, wonderful laugh I've ever heard. I wish he would laugh more often, but he's very programmed.

It's funny to think that he will never ever know that I wrote this blog, or that I am so fascinated by him. Most people will never know when I am fascinated with them. Which is sort of sad, cause I'm fascinated a lot.

Something about Dwight Schrute's head fascinates me. lol

HOORAYYY

three hours, thirteen days

That picture is interesting. I'm generally a loner and I've definitely been disappointed, but I don't think any of my disappointments have been life-changing (well maybe one, but it ended up changing my life for the better, so suck it). I would never say I am the way I am because I've been disappointed, I would blame it on the fact that I was a sheltered only child that lived on a dirt road with no neighbors lol. And for the record, I love who I am. But I won't deny that the majority of the loners I know have been very, very disappointed. But haven't we all?

I really am starting to love the people I work with. They're fun to be around and they're hilarious and they're helpful. I always seem to be drowning in numbers on my to-do list but once I finish this application I'm building I should have a precious few days of organization that will tie up all my loose ends. I don't have many really, but I'd rather have none. Also, I spent 3 hours cleaning the kitchen on Saturday afternoon, and proceeded to have a dream last night that Uncle Mike spilled some mysterious brown liquid all over the place and made a complete mess. This is how neurotic I am...

It's official- I'm taking my old bedroom back on August 1st. I need to somehow pay for a flight home for the beginning of August for just a weekend, pay for Bella to have a vet checkup and get a mild sedative for the flight, pay for an airline approved pet carrier, and pay the airline's fee to take her on the plane back to LA with me. And I also need a bed. Who wants to give me a quick, thousand dollar freelance design project?! I promise I'll do an amazing job, because I really want a bed. And I REALLY miss my kitty.

Back to the loner picture. It has occurred to me lately how hard it must be for most people to get to know me. I'm not closed off because I've been hurt too much, I'm just closed off because it's comforting and quiet. Sometimes I worry that I'm too quiet for the people in my life. I don't want to bore them or make them think something's wrong with me when I'm very much alright. I noticed it when I was at dinner with Brady and 2 others last Thursday and felt like I wasn't talking enough to keep up with everyone. It's always been that way, and I'm not sure why my brain stops generating thoughts at random times but I can't help it. Even when I'm alone with people I'm comfortable with, conversation sometimes has to be forced out of me. Sometimes when I'm talking to someone else I'll pretend I'm talking to Amanda or my Mom because they're practically the only 2 people in my entire life that I've never EVER had that problem with and it makes conversation flow easier. Who honestly has to do this at 23 years old? lol

It's almost like I'm thinking about so much that it gets jumbled and ends up making a knot in my brain. How come I can ALWAYS write it, but can rarely say it? Something about the path between my brain and my mouth. It's probably why I can't gargle or chug a beer either =)

Bottom line, I am not a boring person whatsoever and I don't want to give people the wrong idea.

Please don't leave

when you feel your heart overflow

Oh, the state of elation that this unison of hearts achieved
I had seen, I had touched, I had tasted and I truly believed
that the light of my life
would tear a hole right through each cloud that scudded by
just to beam on you and I

I feel like life opened up last night! Had a conversation with the bossmen that I had wanted to have for over a month but just couldn't bring myself to do because I kept thinking "I just need to get past this week and then I'll feel better and won't want to bring it up anymore." WRONG!

wrong wrong wrong Hanna!

I was wrong. I relied on the arrogant assumption that I was unbreakable for the first 21 years of my life, and then met my match. I am most certainly NOT invincible. For me, it took a ballsy and hasty move 3,000 miles away to realize I was being an idiot. And I must say, I hope you don't ever have to feel the way I've felt throughout my realization of it. I know it has been incredibly hard to listen to me, but you all did (over and over) and I am saying THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. Especially Franklinvillies/Fredonians that stayed up late with me, bought plane tickets to come see me, texted me every day to make sure I was doing fine, and mailed me totally pointless cards once I had an actual address. I will never meet another group of people like you.

No more beating-around-the-bush, I'm MOVING HOME IN MARCH! I celebrated last night and felt totally giddy. And met a man at the bar from Buffalo (I was introduced to him as, "a bigger bills fan than him" which is so untrue, but whatever haha) that hugged me and kissed me and said, "I've never met anyone here that was as awesome as the people I know from Buffalo." There is some sort of weird alliance that Western NY forms. Haha we get picked on for being poor and ugly and cold and WE LIKE IT. And you know why? Because we have Mighty Taco.

My mother is so excited she can't even handle it.

Possibilities on where to go and what to do are very wide open right now and it feels great! Buffalo is not the plan forever, but will be the immediate solution. Laura and I are going to move in together, we already started looking at apartments. Did you know that for half of what I pay now, I could rent a 3 bedroom house on a residential street? How AWESOME IS THAT. Especially cause I'll probably be flipping burgers to make a living for the next year cause Buffalooove has a terrible job market HAHAHAHA. Not really. I'll just live in a box on the street.


Life is back to being p e r f e c t =)

MP3 [Spin Doctors - Jimmy Olsen's Blues]