Echo

julia laughing.
julia crying.

what a wonderful and beautiful day.

Mercury you FUCKFACE. You have me entered in the screenwriting contest under the name of my BONG.

You’re a dick, you know that?

Fine.

I will write under the pseudonym, BC Chillum.

You’re a real comedian.

Challenge #1 assignment

GENRE – Romance

LOCATION – A wax museum

OBJECT – A bag of potato chips

90’s Flashback

She thinks, we look at each other
Wondering what the other is thinking
But we never say a thing
These crimes between us grow deeper.

-Dave Matthews Band, Ants Marching

My Bright Fuse profile that I’m using to represent myself on the job front. The more I think about it, the more I want a company that can really utilize my unique skillset, instead of me trying to fit my unique skillset into an existing structure. As my dad always says, I’m a competitor and a winner. As my coworkers used to say, I seem to make the most improbable things happen by way of magic. I want to be able to have a good situation to exercise everything I’m capable of doing. Otherwise, I’ll just take a whatever job that allows me to observe life (my God, how badly I want to be a cook or a bartender), or just start up something else on my own again.

Judging By Appearances

If you know me, then you know that one of the most traumatic things that happened to me in my life was that I had a perm. For like 6 years.

Yes, I had a giant, curly triangle on my head that my mother imposed on me from the ages of 11-17. Luckily, she wasn’t a hypocrite as she had one as well, so at least I have that excuse–I didn’t choose the perm, the perm (by way of the will of the Jean) chose me.

On top of that, I was overweight. My friends from high school say they don’t remember me as being overweight, just really stocky and athletic, but Virgo runs in the family on my mom’s side, so I was always being told that I was fat and needed to lose weight. It totally gave me a complex so I spent most of my life on a diet, self-imposed or mother-imposed.

By the time I hit senior year of high school, I’d had enough and cut most of my hair off, growing it out again straight. My mom told me, your face is too big…you’ll never look good with straight hair, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t deal with another year of having a perm. And I’ve never looked back.

This is what I mean when I say my childhood had been character-building. Because my mom and I are so alike, she often had trouble recognizing me as an autonomous being, and to this day, even though we are close like sisters, our biggest conflicts arise out of my needing her to recognize that she doesn’t determine my life. But needless to say, when you have a perm and are overweight, you struggle with confidence, and when you struggle with confidence, you don’t exactly welcome the center stage. So I spent the first stages of my life observing people and life from the sidelines, learning the importance of being a good, kind person, and dreaming of the day when I could have a steamy clandestine affair with a hot Hollywood actor, because I no longer looked like me.

Last month when I saw Rie, we were driving to dinner and she was asking me about my childhood. The fact I had a perm has always been a running joke because I’d cut it off by the time I got to college so she’s never seen me in a perm, but she and Eric had once made a joke that my head looked like an eggplant and I never let them live it down. I told her that because I wasn’t attractive, because I had a lot of upsetting things going on at home (my parents were always fighting because of stress from running a company together and my brother’s issues), and because I had issues at school (I seemed to always have conflict with groups of girls who liked to gang up on me and give me trouble), I wasn’t trusting of people or the world. I saw the world from a very negative and angry place, one that always seemed to sabotage me just as I found a way to feel okay about myself. When I realized I was good at sports, a girl who was jealous of me (a girl, in fact, I had taken a slap for by a girl on another team when I came to defend her) told the varsity softball team that I was telling people that I was the best player ever to come out of the school, so one day they surrounded me outside the locker room to beat me up. My basketball coach saw but pretended she didn’t because she didn’t want to get involved. This guy, Robert, who will always be an angel to me because of this, broke it up and I remember crying in his bear arms as he held me. Later, my dad went to talk to the coach who said he couldn’t let me on the varsity team because I “didn’t seem to get along with the other girls.” Here I was, being scouted by college teams, and he wouldn’t even let me onto the varsity team which had come in last place in the league, because he couldn’t deal with teenage girl drama. So I was relegated to the junior varsity team where at least I won the Most Valuable Player award to salvage the humiliation, and despite my dreams of the Olympics, I quit the sport after that season.

My parents were having major problems. There were explosive arguments. Once, literally over spilled milk, my dad went into a rampage, throwing things at me. By then, I had my driver’s license so I left, sleeping in my car outside of motels, showering at the gym in the morning but still going to school. I was a good kid; I didn’t have the guts to cut class. I guess because my parents thought I’d run away, they contacted the school and found out I was still showing up for class. I remember the day I got pulled out of class and led into a small office. This police officer came in and rather than asking if I had trouble at home, he yelled at me about what I planned to do with my life, if I knew what happens to “kids like me,” if I planned to throw away my life by being irresponsible and disrespectful, that he knew kids like me that thought life was a joke, but he was here to tell me I better shape up or else. It sounded like a canned speech, one he probably gave to every trouble student that came through, but the fact was, I was an honor student, I’d never been in trouble before, I’d already been accepted into the honors college of a top school so I clearly wasn’t throwing my life away, and again, nobody ASKED why I left home. I remember crying through that whole speech, and having to sit through the rest of my day in classes forcing myself not to cry when really, I just wanted to disappear.

The summer before senior year, after I’d cut off that god-forsaken perm, I worked at the local gym. I wanted to work in the cafe (one of my favorite joys in life–feeding people), but they assigned me to work in the locker room. Apparently, it’s notorious for being the worst job that only recent immigrants take it, but because I didn’t know better and was just happy to work at the gym, I accepted it.

My job was to keep the locker room clean. The first week on the job, there was someone who kept shitting in the showers. I mean, I don’t know if they were giving themselves enemas or what, but it was explosive…it was all over the walls. And I had to clean it up because it was my job, so I did. I remember telling my parents about it and they were really upset and told me to quit. But I figured, this is the kind of thing that keeps me humble and I was happy to be making money, so I stayed on even though it was awful (to this day, I still think the shitting was someone who worked for my parents and was getting back at them by fucking with me). I met this guy who worked at the gym and he was a really nice guy. He started leaving me really sweet notes and we went out a few times. I was really shy…I was 17 and never had a boyfriend. He was my first kiss.

Then one day, a month later, this other girl who worked at the gym said she wanted to talk to me and pulled me out to the parking lot. She told me that the guy was an asshole and was never going to tell me, so she had to. He had a girlfriend…someone he’d been dating for years. He was just messing around with me.

That was devastating. And because I’m kind of timid in confronting people sometimes, I never told him I knew. I just stopped hanging out with him. But I remember being really depressed for a while, quitting to work at a restaurant. I think it must have had a really deep effect on me, because I went through college without dating, not having my first real boyfriend until after I’d graduated. There’s an urban legend at Michigan that if a virgin were to ever graduate from our school, these two stone pumas outside our library would roar. When I graduated, I remember specifically going by the library to check out the pumas to see if they had come to life.

So many of these incidences made me not feel very connected with people or the world. I kept myself self-contained, and didn’t really trust people to have good intentions unless they proved themselves. I felt like I was really angry and bitter, all through college, at least that was my memory of it, but that night in the car with Rie when I told her some of this, she was surprised.

“Didn’t you think I was an angry person?” I asked her.< br />
“I had no idea,” she said. “I’ve always thought really highly of you, Julia.”

I remember turning my head to look out the window, tears stinging my eyes. I’m so lucky to have a friend like Rie. It’s so much about perception…I must have been in a lot of pain growing up, and it clouded my perception of the world, but I was probably still a nice person because that’s who I am inherently. But I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t feel it. I remember when my 2nd year college roommate Michele got married, I went to her wedding and her sister (whom I’ve never met) came rushing up to me.

“So you’re Julia!” she said. She gave me a big warm hug like I’d been a family friend for a lifetime. “We’re so thankful to you. Michele had a really rough time her first years of college, and if it hadn’t been for you, she probably would have dropped out. You mean so much to her.” I was shocked. I remember late night conversations with Michele. But I didn’t remember being any kind of guiding light or rock of support. Just feeling lost myself, and Michele listening to me. I guess that’s perception. I guess I was feeling so bad about myself, I never saw that I was important to people.

I told Rie that I would have never dreamed that I would one day be in the place I am today. I could have never imagined that someday I would have the confidence to navigate this world the way I do now, to go after the things I wanted. Most of all, I would have never, ever, ever, ever, ever imagined that I could be good-looking.

“Really?” she said. “I can’t believe that.”

“Never,” I said. “I don’t really like to look at myself in the mirror. Sometimes I look at myself and I can’t believe this person I’m looking at. But I don’t put too much attention into it, because any day now, it could change again. So I just keep focusing on what I know, that I’m a good person who wants to do good in this world.”

Today, as I was walking home, I saw a red-haired guy with glasses and a laptop bag hurrying down the stairs towards me. When he looked up at me, he stopped in his tracks.

“Wow,” he said. “You look really fantastic today.”

I laughed and thanked him, and he smiled, sincerely. It was a really nice thing for him to say, and I really appreciated it.

I think this is why I don’t understand this pervasive feeling in Seattle. It doesn’t happen all of the time, like the interaction today was a nice one. But I also have these experiences where people are kind of rude to me without getting to know me because they assume I’m a bitch. And they seem surprised when I’m not, and they’ll mention, “You’re nicer than I thought you would be. Most girls like you are usually bitchy.”

“Like you” ?

What does that mean?

I hate people who think that I must take things for granted, because of the things I have now, because of how easy life seems to come to me.

What they don’t know is, everything I have, I’ve earned. For years, I was judged for being ugly. Now I’m being judged for not being ugly. For years I was disregarded for what I didn’t have. Now I’m being disrespected for what I do have. Sometimes, I feel like with small-minded people, you can’t win. All it shows is how judgmental they are, how insecure they feel about themselves, and it reminds me why it doesn’t matter what other people think. I want to surround myself with people who appreciate me for the core of what I am–a good person with a kind heart. I don’t give a shit what smaller people try to project onto me. Because that’s their garbage, not mine.

oooh, screenwriting competition starts at 11:59PM tonight! wish me luck! wait, i don’t need luck. wish me inspiration!

Conversation with Michael the last night he was here

Me: Have you seen any ghosts lately?
Michael: Not really.
Me: Do you ever get the feeling that there are aliens here?
Michael: Yes.
Me: How so?
Michael: Just that when someone’s not telling the truth, I wonder if they’re from outer space.

(Michael and I aren’t so different after all…)

Me: Do you like this place?
Michael: Yes, because you can hear everything.
Me: Do you feel like I made the right choice with this place?
Michael: You should have gotten it sooner.
Me: I don’t think this city was available to me sooner.

We talked about our mom. He tells me that I sing better than her because I sing “loud and high” and she can’t.

Michael: She doesn’t like to show her emotions.
Me: Mom’s hard to train, isn’t she?
Michael: Yes, she is.
Me: Does dad show his emotions?
Michael: Yes, he knows how.
Me: Can you?
Michael: I can sing loud and high.
Me: No you don’t. You rarely sing. Do you mean you sing loud inside, even though we can’t hear you?
Michael: Yes.
Me: So inside, your singing is loud and full of emotion, but you just look quiet to us.
Michael: Yes.
Me: And that’s just the way it is?
Michael: That’s just the way it is.

We talked about our dad. Michael said that Dad is a lot calmer and takes things easy now. He told me that our dad used to spank him with a belt. What? I didn’t know this. He said, just once. The way he described it, it sounded like my dad might have been drunk.

Michael: Dad came into my room one night and spanked me with a belt. He came in, he could barely talk or walk. He got mad because I was being defiant and he spanked me. But it’s over now. He regrets and he knows it’s not okay.
Me: Have you talked about it?
Michael: I told him, I didn’t like what he did then, but I forgive him.
Me: Did you really say this to him.
Michael: I thought about saying it.
Me: Promise me you will.
Michael: Okay.
Me: Promise me you won’t forget. It will be important for him.
Michael: Okay.

A happy Michael and a Sun Dial

what is it they say about japanese men?

faithless but not disloyal.

yeah, i don’t want that.

now listening to portishead live by candlelight
drawing bigger and bigger circles in the sky

i am in an unprecedented space lately. i know how the story should be written, a surprise twist with interesting potential within the unknown, but i also know that’s not necessarily how it will be written. but i won’t influence it. for it to have meaning, it will unfold.

I’m having trouble finishing Tale of the Rose. It reminds me of all of those times when my good friends were in terrible relationships, and they would call me crying because of how their boyfriends, these terrible little boys, were breaking their hearts, and all I wanted to do was get on a plane, pick them up and bring them home. And after a while of the same calls and the same conversations, but the friend won’t do anything about the cycle, you just don’t want to hear about it anymore. I’m good at compartmentalizing the art from the artist. All I know is I would never have stayed in that relationship.

And when she says she wants somebody else
I hope you know, she doesn’t mean you
And when she breaks down and makes a sound
You never hear her, the way that I do
And when she says she wants someone to love
I hope you know she doesn’t mean you
And when she breaks down and lets you down
I hope you know, she doesn’t mean you…

-one of the few songs i used to play (She Says, Howie Day, Australia)

Oh wow, I got such a sweet email from Amber. I had written her to thank her again for letting us stay with them, and that Michael had raved to my parents when he got home about his friends Amber and Jason. Her email makes me very grateful for people like her in the world, and her insight into Michael and I was incredible. It was something unexpected that helped me understand something new. And she is such an amazing person.

Thank you, universe.

Hi!

I get super excited thinking about your adventure in Seattle. I think it is going to suit you well, allow you to get deep into your head (and other’s heads!), and really grow as a person and as a writer. I can’t wait to observe the outcome over the next 3 (to 12!) months. I hope it blows your expectations out of the water.

On the note on Michael, that makes me smile to hear. He is such a kind-hearted person. Jason just adored him, and really loved hearing what he had to say. They had so many side conversations I had no idea were even going on! After you left, Jason and I kept talking about how wonderful you are with him. It’s obvious that you two bring out the best in one another and probably are who you are largely because of your relationship. You both have a deep empathy for people, and I don’t think I’ve ever been around anyone who listens as intensely as you do. Such a gift you have.

Do take care, and stay in touch.

Hugs,
Amber

Julia doesn’t respect it when people say no with their eyes closed. She respects people who say, “There’s gotta be a way to figure this out.”

You’re a Bastard, Mercury Retrograde
(and I take your challenge.)

So Mercury is out of Retrograde by the end of the month, and this one has been a particularly bad one. Any time the retrograde occurs in a sign ruled by Mercury (Virgo or Gemini), it’s exponentially worse. I’ve documented some of the things that have broken down for me. Right now, my car has been in the shop for 4 days and all they can tell me is that it’s a very unusual but complicated problem. Yesterday, my Xbox wouldn’t play DVDs, displaying a giant black box over the images in the bottom-center of the screen. Today, my phone froze. My wifi is still MIA.

Retrogrades are terrible for affecting technology and electronics, but communication as well. I had a pretty upsetting incident happen on Saturday morning, while I was at the bar watching the Michigan game with the Michigan crowd.

First though, the positive.

Had an interesting conversation with a couple who went to school at U-M. The guy and I talked about his experience of skydiving. I asked him if it was hard to decide to jump, and he said he was definitely scared. When he stood at that door, he apparently gripped the instructor’s gear really hard without realizing, and the guy had to help him pry his fingers off. But he said once you’re in the air, it was such an amazing rush. You just give in to it. A thought occurred to me, and I asked him, after having this experience, if it carried through in other aspects of his life, this ability to let go and face things head-on. He thought about it. His girlfriend chimed in that it had. That even though he had always been able to take on challenges, it seemed easier. I said, “Maybe once we go through our own personal test to learn how to let go, once we prove to ourselves we can do it and we realize how good it feels on the other side, it makes it easier for us to let go of other things so we can move forward.”

He said, “I can see that. It was like, once you decide that you are ready to let go because you are the one who has decided when you’re going to let go, it was the best feeling.”

I looked at him like a wise man making a realization about life and death. That sometimes all these life experiences build into the final decision–when to walk into the light and darkness in peace when it’s time to leave this world.

At the end of the game, they gave me their phone number and said to call them and hang out. To be honest, I find hanging out with couples a little awkward unless I know them really well. There are always weird dynamics. But they were really nice, and while I did feel put on the spot to give them my phone number (so that’s the only time I have so far), I don’t feel like it’s going to be weird.

So I was feeling good off of that and took their table when they left. The crowd for the next game was coming in, but the place wasn’t full so I took out my notebook and started doing my free-write.

This is when the retrograde bullshit started.

A big bull of a guy in an Oregon hat gets my attention and asks me, “Are you planning on staying, or are you leaving anytime soon?” I look around. The place is half empty, but I don’t know if his alumni association has rented out the section, so they want me to move, if they’re trying to put tables together, or what. So I ask him, “Why?” so I can know what he wants/needs, and I can see how I can accommodate.

He says, “No reason. Just keep hanging out. That’s great.”

I’m a little confused because he seems really pissed off at me. So I say, “Do you guys need the table? Because I don’t mind moving to the counter.”

“Would you do that? Game’s over, Michigan,” he says, still looking at me like he fucking hates my guts. I look at his Oregon hat and go through my mental files to see if there’s any bad blood between Michigan and Oregon. Some people take college football rivalries seriously. But I couldn’t think of any connection. I look at his friends for help, trying to read them to understand the situation.

His lanky friend in glasses says, “Ignore him, he’s being a dick. You stay, have great time.” His voices is dripping sarcasm. They’re fucking with me. Why? I’m completely lost.

I look at the girl ol’ glasses is with, and she’s this mousy quiet thing with long straight hair. I look at her imploringly and she just shakes her head like, ignore these guys.

Glasses yells to the Bull, “Hey, stop being a dick. Leave her alone! Can’t you see she’s writing poetry?”

What? I’m not writing poetry. But even if I was, what the fuck was their problem.

But I was pissed off and decided, fuck ’em. Even if they’re just being dicks because they want my table and I would have been happy to move, fuck ’em. So I put my head down and remind myself that this is a lesson to be a bigger person, and let go. I felt the bad feelings seeping out of me, and I outputted it by writing out a record of what was happening. I made myself flow those feelings into words.

Later, some girls came and I overheard the guy talking to them about their “seating situation.” Like I was this monster bitch that just wouldn’t move so everyone could sit together. The girls said they would just sit in the restaurant area at the other side of the place, and I’d had enough. I asked the girl if they would like to sit at my table. They were really surprised but happy, asking if I didn’t mind sharing.

“NO!” I said, exasperated. I told them that I didn’t know what the bull guy wanted because he seemed pissed at me, but had never actually asked me anything that defined what he wanted. They gave him a really hard time, telling me that he’s notoriously socially-inept, and he was embarrassed saying he didn’t realize the situation. He said he thought he did ask me but that I was rude. I said, “I wasn’t rude. I’m the nicest person,” and he said, “Well, you just have this wall of unapproachability. But it’s all behind us now, right?” And he gave me a hug.

I think what happened was, he wanted my table, and he psyched himself out about talking to me, that it resulted in him assuming that I would be a total bitch anyway, and because of that, he started acting towards me like we’d already had a conversation and I’d told him to fuck off. And since this conversation never happened so I was completely unaware of where he was coming from, I was really offended and my feelings hurt.

So we laughed it off. They offered to buy me a drink but I didn’t want one. I stayed long enough to be friendly, but I left as soon as I could. To be honest, people in Seattle are polite but they are not friendly. That’s the reason why I say I would never settle down here. The people are polite but cold (a “jelly covered golf ball” as someone described to me today.). Seattle is a beautiful place that is conducive for me getting my work done. But as a place to join a community and lay down a home base, I really need to be around people who are inherently warmer.

*****

So those are the retrograde happenings so far. So charming. But the coup de grace was today.

We can call this one, “Julia vs The Bridesmaid Dress.”

First of all, let me tell you how much I love my cousin, Daisy. I am going to put on a strapless lavender chiffon dress for her. I actually love the color lavender. I also like wearing dresses when the occasion calls. But the fact that I think I’ve got a karma zing coming for my antics at my cousin Miranda’s wedding (the aforementioned drunkenness and hitting on), I’m convinced this dress will spell doom.

So I finally tried it on. Unbelievable. The size is wrong.

My upper body is pretty broad. Most people mistake me for a swimmer. The truth is, when you’ve had as many knee surgeries as I had
as a growing adolescent, you spend a lot of your frame-building years on crutches. I was so good on crutches, I remember racing people in the parking lot; that’s how fast I could go. So my shoulders are the product of serving as secondary legs for a few years. So while it’s not because I have a big rack (though I personally enjoy mine), I tend to have to go up in dress sizes to accommodate my upper chest. The dress I got in the mail needs 2 more inches at the top to be able to zip up. This is a major problem.

So I spent the day running around to tailors to find someone who could help me with this problem. It’s too late to reorder the dress and have it sent to me, and it’s impossible to let out a strapless dress. The last tailor I went to was a little Korean lady. When I showed her the problem she said, “Oh no no no, this is impossible.” She said it couldn’t be done. I told her I heard she’s a miracle worker and she said that this was too hard.

I took the dress off and left a message for Daisy. I figured she was going to kill me. Then I examined the dress and had an idea. I was originally told by Daisy that the dress would need the hem altered because it was too long. I asked the woman if she could use the fabric she trims to create some sort of flap to cover the back. Because from the front it looked fine, just that at the very top in the back, it doesn’t fasten. So if she can create an elongated fastener to hold the top, she can sew in a flap to cover up the fact that my zipper is not zipped all the way.

She understood what I was saying and examined the dress. She asked me to pull it as tight as I could, and she measured that I would need about 2 inches, but the most she could give me was 1 and 3/4ths. Could I breath with that. She pulled it. I realized I would need to take very little breaths. And NOT laugh too hard. I imagined my seams ripping with the wrong movements. I figured, I only need to get through the ceremony and pictures. Then who the hell’s gonna care if I rip my dress and flash my boobs all over the place. It’s karma. Miranda’s been trying to get me back for years. Plus, my family is a happy party family. I heard through the grapevine that when my cousin Albert asked my dad when they were going to go out drinking next, my dad said, “Daisy’s wedding. What’s the point of going to a wedding unless you’re gonna get drunk?” Here come the Shih’s. Represent! I think if I flashed boobs, it would just become another family legend.

So I realize, right now the two sides need 2 inches to be able to fasten at all, but she can only put one on that gives me 1 and 3/4. This means, I have to change my body composition.

This is what I mean about Mercury really fucking with me. It’s one thing if I’m too fat and I need to lose weight to get into a small dress. But the problem isn’t the waist or an overall ability to fit, but strickly related to my upper torso where I am the most muscular but leanest.

I’m going to have to lose weight and in particular, lean muscle. I basically need to tighten my frame. This is going to take a lot of discipline.

Daisy called me back and I told her not to worry, that I would problem solve it. And that I was probably going to show up at her wedding really cut. When I was working on my film projects, this is where I always excelled–once you’re on the set, under the gun, the weirdest shit always goes wrong. And you have no choice but to deal with it then and there. I told her that I got the woman to agree to find a way to cover the back, and that I would lose weight to try to make my boobs smaller. “Oh my God, this is crazy,” she said.

“Don’t say I wouldn’t do anything for you!” I told her. I told her not to worry and promised that it would all work out. And if they popped out, they popped out.

I will do my best to make it all work out. I’m usually good about leaning my body down when I have to. But you are a real bastard, Mercury.

“If you spell something wrong, do you really deserve surgery? I don’t think so.”

you tell me things i already know. now surprise me with something i don’t know.

blue man with olive skin. who are you.
blue man with olive skin. who are you.
blue man with olive skin. who are you.
blue man with olive skin. who are you.
blue man with olive skin. who are you.
blue man with olive skin. who are you.
blue man with olive skin. who are you.
blue man with olive skin. who are you.
blue man with olive skin. who are you.