Echo

Hump Day

As I continue my job search, I’ve decided that one of the requirements I have is that my next company be large enough to field a company softball team. And give out free sodas, though this isn’t a deal breaker. The bad side of working at a big company would be people who continually make jokes about “hump day” and who exuberantly adore casual Fridays. I also have a phobia of awkward lunchroom small talk. Especially if it’s about people’s cats. Even more especially if these cats wear hand-knitted sweaters.

I want some place where I can continually meet new people and get to know professional, intelligent people from different backgrounds who are active and into sports outside of work. Mostly I just want to meet new people. I’ve seen the same 8 people for the last 4 years 40 hours a week. Nice people, but I’m bored out of my mind.

Yet in the back of my mind, I also want to open my dessert shop, write in my free time and travel. It makes me sad to think of going from one “job” to another “job.” What keeps me back is risk. Sometimes I wonder if my need for financial security is pathological.

My parents are convinced that if I would move to a larger company, I’ll find my future husband, since everyone in my family who’s worked at their company has gotten married to a coworker. I’m not opposed to a hot but dorky engineer or accountant with an appreciation for quirky senses of humor. Hell, I’m all about mathematicians right now since I’ve been marathoning Numb3rs. But I don’t want to get my hopes up too high because I feel so far out of the game, I feel more comfortable roving the seedy underbelly and dark alleys of the city.

That may or may not be true.

But I am bored as hell with life right now. And very concerned about how I’ve cut myself off from writing. I’m hoping that having rescued my blog, this will slowly get me back on track. I’m in recovery from the whole stalker thing and how irritated it made me feel, so the more truthful details about what I’ve been up to I’m still keeping in notebooks until I figure out how what I want to do about access.

This blog still isn’t complete. I have a month and a half left to import from the old blog and then I’ll change the background color back to its normal color.

So what’s new.

Webber back with the Warriors. Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst.

Family is getting along exceptionally. I fear Michael has outgrown me and my antics. I feel spurned sometimes. I’m happy that he’s moving on though and so much more independent.

Am still open to moving back to the bay, but reluctant to move out of LA. It’s like I want to walk out the door, but I won’t let go of my stuff. And by stuff, I mean, all the restaurants that I love or those I have yet to try, and especially the places that are open late. Also, the thought of having to pack up my things and move them to a new place and hope they didn’t get lost or damaged in transit gives me anxiety.

I think deep down I also know that it’s not LA that makes me lonely, but I don’t want to face the fact that I’ll manage to feel lonely everywhere. The problem was never LA, even though it’s so easy to blame this city and then be done with it. It’s that I love and appreciate my friends and the people around me here, but I also really need and love spending a certain amount of time with myself. So what I’ve sacrificed for this space and detachment is that sometimes I feel lonely, but I feel like my freedom is worth it. Maybe a different environment or a new path in my life would change things. Change my needs and my priorities. I don’t know. I’m open to it though, as long as it feels right and not forced.

I found out that I’m hosting a Super Bowl party this Sunday. I thought it was funny that I found out via a group email and I wasn’t even one of the first to know. I want to try out making home made pizza rolls, either with pizza dough or eggroll wrappers. It depends if I have time to try it out first.

I’ve got a couple of free Southwest tickets so that means I have 2 sponteneous trips coming up. I’m actually glad I checked my email and found out that I’m hosting a party this weekend, because I was thinking about taking off to some place random that I’ve never been. Maybe St. Louis. Maybe Albuquerque. Maybe even the Super Bowl. Get down with the people. Find some inspiration.

I wanted to try an experiment. To go to the gym every day for a week with a t-shirt that says, “What’s that smell?” Then go one day with another shirt that says, “No seriously, what’s that smell?” To see if anyone notices. People around me just seem so stressed or preoccupied in general. I want to see someone smiling.

Maybe it’s the weather and the new year and the economy. Or maybe I’m just out of sync right now.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22857051

Hmmm.

I think the correct term would be: yippie ki yay.

I’m back.

The weirdest thing happened.

The writers went on strike. And I stopped writing.

It’s like a sychronicity took hold.

I thought it was because I had a stalker, but truthfully, it’s nice to have a more secret hiding place.

So here I am. In my new home.

It’s been raining this whole week and I’ve been equal parts miserable, equal parts enthralled. There’s something spiritual about the rain. My mom comments many times that I’ve inherited her love of rain. Maybe there are things passed down through generations, something more abstract than genetics. Maybe souls have families, too.

So what have I been up to?

Man, I don’t even know where to start.

I fell of the face of the earth. Went into super privacy mode, trying to be a ghost. When people forget that you participate in this drama we call life, they start letting you move through their world like shadows. So I’ve been watching people and understanding those little things about life that you take for granted.

The funny thing is that people have these immediate reactions to me. They’re convinced that who they’re seeing is a living, breathing person, when I’m giving them a mask. They believe that this person I’m projecting exists. And their conviction is so strong, that I’m able to watch them interact with my projection almost as a silent observer.

The thing that I’m most awed by is how complexly simple humans are. There’s almost a beauty about their naivete, about their straightforward earnestness. You see their challenges, you see their fears, but at the end of the day, there’s this need to move forward and find a positive light to it all. Then there are people who want to take these things away from people, to take away that simplicity, to destroy that innocence. The more I watch of human interaction, the more I feel protective of people, and the more I appreciate individuality and uniqueness.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my past, my accumulated experiences, and trying to find the meaning to it all. If I were to write the movie of my life, what genre would it be and what kind of themes would it have. What is the dominant storyline? Is it one girl’s struggle in a hostile environment, all the while trying to protect her vulnerable brother. Or is it the wanderer who explores life like an anthropologist, always reluctant to get involved? Is it about an alien trapped in a host body, struggling to find its way home. Or is it a quirky romantic piece about the introspective loner who finds love in the most unexpected of places? Is it a dark comedy, as I once thought it was, or is it an independent drama full of hope and angst. Will there be car explosions? Or stuntmen needed to fall through glass windows. Will there be a leading man, or a tragic love triangle? Maybe it will be passionately explosive, or maybe it will be repressive, cold and brimming with repressed lust, where just the passing touch of skin on skin makes your entire body shudder. Maybe it will be more bitter than sweet, or maybe in an improbable twist, it turns out more sweet than bitter. Maybe everything wraps up nicely in a neat little box, or maybe there’s room left for a sequel. But no matter what, just adhere to three act structure, and only the necessary, significant characters should have lines of dialogue. Watch the plants to be paid off later, and make sure your characters have distinct voices so you can explore them all. Do lots of scenes where you’re looking pensively into a mirror, and maybe throw in a gun or two. But no matter what, make the movie truthful. Because at the end of the day, an audience can always sniff out bullshit.

Plaid

Go see them live. They’ve got this show that pairs electronic soundscapes with visual art that’s pretty mindblowing. Go see them if only so you can tell me if their shows are really just covert mass brainwashing sessions.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=81698925

And if you’re in LA, make sure you check out a show at the Disney Concert Hall. Just saw Plaid there and it was one of the best nights of my life that I’ll never be able to adequately describe to anyone. That place is a temple of worship.

changes

So when I get stressed out, my Gemini brain will hide it from me, so I can cruise along day by day without realizing anything is bothering me. It never occurs to me that my sudden shoulder stiffness and onset of insomnia may have anything to do with stress. I never factor in that the worst of it tends to occur on Sunday nights, as I prepare to tackle another week at work. I just think, that’s weird…are these things related? And then become fixated on the nearest thing that’s shiny.

But now I’m realizing I’ve been pretty stressed out.

So this is how it started.

Last year I was flying so high. I ejected from a relationship that drove me crazy, not because my partner wasn’t a nice, kind individual, but because it wasn’t It. I realized how easy it could have been to commit to something that’s “not that bad” for the rest of my life, but instead, I left so I could leave myself open to something awesome. I started living like someone with a new lease on life…traveling, standing up to my erratic boss, trying new things (surfing, cliff jumping, Toastmasters). It was electric. Turning 29, I decided, this is the year I make sure that I build my life right for the rest of my life, so I started shedding things and people in my life that weren’t good for me, and welcoming in things that felt more positive and empowering. By the time 30 rolled around, I figured I’d be set. I’d have taught myself superpowers by then. I’d have hired a celebrity fashion designer to design me a cape, because that’s the kind of person I would be at 30. Someone who wears a cape every day.

But then I guess after new year’s, it dawned on me that I’m turning 30 this year and what the hell was I doing turning goddam 30. I started getting some minor anxieties, like why I’m still at the spec level with my writing because I’ve got this perfectionist streak in me of wanting to accrue writing samples like pirate booty before I go out with it, yet I never feel like I have enough to go out. I thought about how I’ve spent 4 and half years at a job I didn’t think I’d last more than two months at back in 2003, because the place is a neverending season of The Office but with more porn and more dirty, dirty sexual innuendos from coworkers than the average professional could possibly tolerate if I weren’t so detached by personality and in love with the witty comeback. Plus, I like that it pays me a lot of money, which in turn, makes me feel like a money slut. I thought about my love of stuff, and if I’ll ever read those user manuals so I can learn how to use my stuff, or if I’ll finally date someone smart enough to program my gadgets for me. And then I thought about my dear attachment to being single.

I think I have a preference for being single because my number one priority is protecting my personal freedom and not getting into any restricting, unfulfilling situations I can’t get out of. I enjoy spending time alone (is any Gemini really ever alone?) and I would rather be my own company than be with bad or even worse, boring company. But I’m open to a good relationship and am willing to settle down if something feels right. And I’m always open to friends. Not small talk friends. But interesting conversation and we-get-each-other friends. But then I look around at this city I’ve spent 9 years in, and I’m so aware of how hard it is to meet people I can relate to, how hard it is to find people you can just be yourself with, even at a platonic level. A part of me longs for the bay area, where strangers are much more approachable and there’s always interesting conversations and ideas buzzing around. I started going up north for the weekends, and as soon as my family caught wind that I’m open to the idea of moving back, it’s been like college scouts recruiting a high school prospect–I’ve got family and friends calling and telling me about the wonderful benefits of living in the bay area, and people giving me ideas of where to search for a job. I feel like I’ve been a big cocktease now if I don’t move back. But I’m not sure that’s the solution.

I’m open to moving up there, but I’m also reluctant to give up on LA. If I move now, I’ll feel like I wasted 9 years searching for something/someone that I never found. I’ll feel like I gave up just as I was on the verge of finding it. But am I just being stubborn, refusing to cut my losses?

This desire to move also comes on the heels of issues at work that have me despondent. I just hit a point of frustration where I don’t care anymore. It’s like drowning. You struggle and you struggle, but at some point, if you just give in, everything goes silent and you find a sort of ironic peace. I’ve decided it’s time to leave, but I don’t know where I want to go yet, because I feel like the next step is a very important one.

Ideally, I want to take time off and travel. I want to do what I like to do, which is meet new people in new places and write about it. Learn about life. About different perspectives. Explore different aspects of myself. Be whoever I want to be at any given moment. Reopen my blog without fear of crazy stalkers. Develop creative business partnerships. Get involved in something I believe in that engages both my business/logical side and my creative side.

So this struggle has been going on…do I stay put, do I move to the bay area, do I find another job in LA, or do I give myself up to my creative, adventurous impulses and go gather the inspiration for my writing by getting myself out and about within life and make money worries secondary. Our am I at an age where it’s too late, because I’m too old for this shit?

I had insomnia all week for the first time in about 5 years. I started having nightmares which is so, so rare. In one of them, I got a call that my grandmother who lives in San Francisco had died (I don’t have a grandmother who lives in San Francisco). In my dream, I’m her only living relative, so I go up north to make arrangements. I spend a night in her small apartment in the city, in this really old building. In the middle of the night, the phone rings and it’s a little boy. He talks to me like he knows me, and I feel like I should know who he is. Then he tells me he’s scared, there’s a ghost with him, another little boy. Then he puts the ghost on and I could hear electrical buzzing as he spoke, the equivalent of chilling the noise frequencies the way ghosts will chill the air. The little boy told me he needed help, and that he was faxing me a picture of himself. I stayed on the line and checked my fax machine, and a picture of a little boy with brown hair came through. Then as another page came through, he told me he was sending me a picture of the ghost. I glanced down at the paper coming through but I looked away quickly because it scared me. All I saw was something blurry, a dark mass, ominous. I started getting really scared in my dream, and had to will myself out of it by telling myself it’s not that scary and that I was in my home in Los Angeles. But it was. Maybe I’ll write something about it. I get a lot of my story ideas from dreams. But I’ve been trying not to think about it. All I know was it made me not want to move into an old building in San Francisco.

I think it’s time for me to get moving again. Wherever I’m going, whatever happens, I think there are some things in my life that need to change, starting with work, involving less Minesweeper, and ending with “pimping harder.”

displaced

My thoughts have been displaced while I move my blog from one location to another. My creative side feels like it’s living out of a self-storage unit. Thus my blogging here now while I wait.

How’ve I been? Bored. Really bored. I get a lot of thought done though. I’ve come to an understanding about human evolution and our next step if our physical environments aren’t sustainable. I’ve examined how we are moving towards human psychological sub-species and how it affects the social trajectory. I practice a math exercise with license plate numbers in traffic so I can train my mind to recognize gestalt patterns before calculating the sum of the parts. I spend a ridiculous amount of time at the gym seemingly watching dvds on the cardio machines, but where I’m simultaneously watching storylines develop between strangers.

Maybe I’m in a period of download. I’m definitely seeing and learning new things about what it means to be human for other people, having new understandings every day. I’m trying to let myself relax to reveal more of myself to others, yet when I do, it reveals more confusing and inconsistent facets. But the difference is, I’m having more fun exploring them and giving myself permission to commit to it.

So it’s raining and I love the rain. I think the feeling of inspiration is so electrical that when it rains, it conducts more of that electricity so I feel stronger. I know I start getting really despondent if I go too long without there being rain. I’m happy that I have absolutely nothing to do this weekend, that I’m not under any projects or forcing myself to stress about unfinished projects. All I’ve done today is set the alarm for early am so I could fall asleep again to the sound of the rain, go to the gym, watch DVDs on the couch, read a random book at Barnes & Noble for an hour, then buy a small popcorn at a movie theater and head home to explore the net. It’s just the little things, being able to slow down, being able to have yourself to yourself for a period of time and savor the freedom of that…that destines a day as one of your favorite memories

Electro-cum
Current mood: electric

Happy new year.

I celebrated in San Francisco at a club that featured various dance floors, including one in the basement decked out in chilly blue light and white furniture with a dj spinning techno. It looked like either the set of a commercial for some premium russian vodka or an uber-postmodern vampire lair where getting bit gets slutty. This was playing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClI8PX1gMyE

I’ve decided. The name of my hypothetical future-band-should-i-ever-learn-to-play-an-instrument-well has been changed from Lesbian Toolbox to Electro Cum. Which might be good because outside of thigh-high leather spiked boots and whips, I don’t see any instruments actually being mandatory.