Early Winter

I didn’t want to alter the original post by adding this as I thought it just wouldn’t be as relevant (but then again, nothing really is on my blog!).  So I just decided to create a separate post for it.

This is the song I talk about in said post, Early Winter as sung by Gwen Stefani but it is in fact written by Tim Rice-Oxley of Keane (he’s the pianist).  I love it when a song has good, solid lyrics, lyrics that read almost like prose and doesn’t make me cringe.  It’s a sad song overall but the beauty of the lyrics more than make up for the tone.

The Year of Magical Thinking: Happy New Year

I feel kind of bad for using that title for this post as I didn’t even read Joan Didion’s well-reviewed, best-seller (but now that I mention it, I just have to).  The phrase just came to me as I thinking about the year ending; I realize now this one was the best one as the other choice had more to do with look back rather than looking ahead.

My other choice for a post title was ‘Early Winter,’ from a Gwen Stefani song, as my winter came early as well, so to speak (the lyrics will explain it and they’re not even corny).  As much as I like that song, I wanted to be rid of this year so ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’ became much more attractive – it suggests hope and that a change for the better is possible. 

So now that I have a title, what’s this post about? I guess just my well-wish to everyone for an even better year.  I for one am determined to not find myself in the very same position as I am right now; I never imagined, as a child, to still be living at home, with my professional and personal life still floundering, if not in shambles.  I’m so sorry it took me this long to finally get off my ass and seize my right to the a life that doesn’t make me feel so horrible all of the time.  Whoever reads this, I hope you realize this as well: your life is worth living the way you’ve always wanted, regardless of what anyone thinks – start today.

Goodbye, 2007.

Hello, 2008.  Begin enjoying the New Year, NOW.

Spit hot-fire

• Topshop only charges a flat fee £10 for shipment to the U.S.!  I thought it would be more but I guess not….  When I found that out, I almost peed my pants.  Admitting now that I love clothes….
• Bing Crosby singing ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ with a slightly different arrangement and in a slightly different register…?  Not bad.  Now I’m just waiting for his duo with Bowie. Parrumpapumpum.
  
• In the insanity of just the past few weeks, it just dawned on me that I totally forgot to enjoy Christmas.  I was too busy feeling bad and just waiting for the day to end that all joy and happiness was sucked out.  And that makes me sad, but I’m resolved that from now on, I’m not going to allow that kind of thing to happen anymore.  I mean, I can’t change how other people think or behave but I should be able to manage things so that the bad don’t overshadow the good.  Yes, this month has sucked, big time, both professionally and personally, but that’s hardly any reason to let what should be a happy and sweet time to pass me by.  I’ve done that all my life so much so that I barely remember certain holidays and special occasions, so wrapped up was I in some family drama or some work-related stress.  I haven’t been living my life at all but I think it’s ok for me now to claim my share of it.  First up: Valentine’s Day, with or without (most likely) anyone, just so I can feel this isn’t all for nought.

  
Above: I didn’t even realize it was Christmas.

No shit, baby

God, I love the news section on Yahoo.  I’ve tried liking Google because they’re, I guess, supposed to be the the macher of information-providers, at least to my simple little mind, but their layout is just not as engaging as Yahoo’s News.  Yahoo’s breaks the news down based on the latest, breaking news, to Sports and Entertainment, all the way down to those pithy little op-eds.  In short little, hyperlinked bylines, Yahoo News offers bites of information, usually of the more tantalizing variety.

Today, I was drawn to a story in the ‘Most Popular‘ section titled ‘Online dating brings hope and frustration‘ – prompting me to laugh and say aloud ‘No shit.’  Anyone who’s even just innocently trolled social networking sites, not even necessarily dating sites, can attest to that, particularly the ‘frustration’ part.

One woman who claims to have spent two years on dating sites before marrying her husband expresses the universal annoyance all women can relate to: “‘At least when you’re in the bar, you know what they look like,’ she said, citing examples of meeting bald men whose profile pictures displayed a full head of hair.” 

Most importantly, this same woman tells the truth that most men are afraid to admit, that “[a]  lot more successful, attractive women are using these tools,” adding that she doesn’t “…think the men match up.”  Translation: hot, or at least good-looking, clean, successful women far out-number such men online.

I’m glad she noted that because it’s funny how women are always beating themselves up for not being enough of something, even if they’re already beautiful, hard working, and smart, while guys just sit back, let their asses grow fatter and hairier, and proclaim proudly that you can just  ’Take it or leave it, baby.’ 

Look on any social site – guys are always playing their ‘features’ or ‘qualities’ up when any woman can see that they’re hiding something or just blowing smoke out their ass.  Women are much more modest, almost to a fault, as I always see many, many cute, smart, funny girls on Facebook who list their status as ’single.’ 

Holy shit, man, women need to assert their rights more often.  If you’re a woman who works out, frets about eating well, spends hours and hours on grooming to look just the way you want, you should be able to demand the same of a guy.  If I’m going to fucking flat iron my hair, you can at least clip your gnarly toe nails or change those skidmarked shorts; otherwise, don’t bitch if I don’t feel like looking like a supermodel today. 

Moral of this post: never believe what a guy writes on his social networking or dating site profile.

Get busy living, or get busy dying

Aha!  What a great title to a post about getting shit done!  And what about those two New Jersey jailbirds?  They must have seen Shawshank Redemption one too many times at prison movie night… 

As I mentioned, I’m auctioning off a bunch of stuff, mostly clothes, on eBay and I am now done with 99% of it, at least, the more annoying, tedious bits of the process.  I’ll be going back over the individual item pages just for additional spellchecks and such but they’re all online now and on the clock.  At final count, I have 20 items currently to go(!)  I probably have more but I just got over this first set so I’m not even going to think about all that right now.

     
Above: Back issues of nest Magazine

And while we’re on the topic of eBay, I’d like to say that I’m no dummy and that I’m totally realistic here - I don’t expect my stuff to rake in thousands of dollars.  I’d just like to get rid of clothes that remind me that I still need to lose 30 pounds and that my strength in the face of working in the straight world (working in the straight world, that is – I’m talking about living an average life, not about sexuality) is waning.  At any rate, I hope whatever I make from these auctions will at least pay for my cell phone bill for one extra month.

I have a lot of cool jeans, some from Topshop (UK), all from their insanely wonderful Oxford Circus location in London, for auction, but  they’re cut in the European style so they’re super skinny and super tight.  The clothing is, for the most part, for women, but I have a couple of official, Radiohead shirts straight outta their official W.A.S.T.E., online site that might fit the more slight males out there (if I had to size it in ‘men’s sizing,’ I’d say they were extra small to small - check my eBay auctions page as I’ve including the flat measurements for reference). 

      
Above: T-shirts I’m getting rid of on eBay, including two Radiohead t-shirts from the W.A.S.T.E. store.

Oh, and ignore the weird-ass user name – that’s a holdover from high school when my friends and I were caught up in making up totally weird, mashed-up names… I just hang on to it because I have so much good feedback, it would be crazy to start from scratch at this point. 

Selling shit on eBay is surprisingly exhausting

Ugh.  Here am, all happy and proud of myself for having completed all of my descriptions for the stuff I want to sell on eBay when I log on and find that not only have things changed, but they’ve gotten even more complicated… Shit.  I want to sell off like 15 items!  I got the orderly, Excel spreadsheet down for my descriptions, even created folders for the images, originals and images altered for size on Photoshop, but I forgot two of the biggest factors to listing stuff on eBay: image hosting (if you don’t want to have to pay for it on eBay), and making sure your PayPal account is active and working.  The PayPal stuff was a little annoying but I managed it and I’m ready to receive payments.   The image hosting, though, was a bitch.  With an average of 5 images per item, you can image my problem.  After posting just two items, I let out a sigh and called it a night.  I guess I’m going to have to stagger these listings because I just never, ever got used to all the shit that goes into posting an item on eBay.

 
Above: Behold – the mess.

Mry Chrsms

“It’s not what you get – it’s what you give.”

Who said that?  I searched on Google and no one-person can lay claim to that phrase or to its cousin-idea of “It’s the thought that counts,” but I wanted to open my post with it because it totally sums up my holiday experience this year.   I was particularly feeling it as I wrapped my brother’s and my sister-in-law’s Christmas gifts this morning (they live in Brooklyn and since I’m shipping the gifts, it’s accepted that the gifts will arrive late). 

For my sister-in-law, Lizzie, I got her all of the philosophy skin care items she listed on her Amazon.com Wishlist.  She listed about 5 products, but technically it was 4 as one of them was a two-piece kit called “the oil man.”  In total, that one set me back about $160, but shipping and tax was free.  And since they came loose in your standard, corrugated shipping box, I wanted to put them all together, just to make it look more gift-y.  I rummaged around my hallway closet and found an unused candy box and some old tissue paper and put them together like gift box; to fill it out a bit, I included the original styrofoam peanuts along with the products. 

     

There was a water stain on the outside of the box so I decided to cover it up with those regular dot stickers you find at the office supply store.  I thought since I was already decorating it, I might as well use the stickers to make an interesting closure as well, but unfortunately, they’re very low-tack and required additional glue stick to keep them from popping straight up from the cardboard.  So pleased I was with the results that I took pictures of it in the event that another, cool idea may come from it. 

I referenced my brother, John’s,  Amazon.com Wishlist for his gift as well: a limited, gold-edition bundle of the Nintendo DS Lite, including  Legend of Zelda.  OK, I didn’t even know what a DS Lite was (I’m told though it’s a descendant of the Gameboy), and I didn’t even know my brother liked playing Zelda as I grew up watching him play sports-type videogames like Madden NFL and other stuff like that.  Most places online sell it for about $200+, but search and search I did, and I was able to get it from fye for $168 and change.  I don’t think he’s expecting anything like that from me this year, but I just looked at his list right now and now that he knows more people are looking at his list, he’s since added such items as the Xbox and the Playstation 3 – oh, John, you greedy little bastard. 

This Christmas, as in many past, my brother cheaped out on his immediate family, getting me two t-shirts from Threadless.com during their recent $10 sale (all t-shirts were only $10).  These two t-shirts are supposed to be from both Lizzie and John.  The shirts are ok, depicting designs that I wasn’t too fond of when I bought t-shirts for myself there also during the $10 sale, but I guess he was trying.  Besides always seeming to be slightly off in his understanding of my personal style, John’s always been kind of cheap as well, as he and Lizzie, combined, make almost $100,000 a year from their respective careers.  They make almost five times I do, especially now as I’m currently between jobs, yet I’m the one shelling out for gifts…  What can I say?  I think that my brother secretly hates me, Lizzie a little less so, but together, I think they hold a shared suspicion or at least discomfort for me. 

I can’t blame them, especially my brother – I don’t get along with anyone and my history is extremely difficult to shake off or just forget.  And I guess confronting them wouldn’t matter anyway as I’m not too worried about being hated, even by my only brother; this year has been a year of revelations and harsh truths so I’m not in the least shocked.   I’m more bothered by the uneven distribution of wealth here, with regard to how little thought and money he spent on my gift.  If we’re going to keep up the pretense of being caring and loving to one another, at least try to be convincing – if you’re going to be that cheap and lazy, you  should have just given me the twenty you spent on the t-shirts.  I could have used that twenty to fill my car up with gas…

Regardless, I’m still shipping their gifts, complete with just a slightly faux cheerful greeting card.  So it isn’t The Truth?  Sometimes it’s better to just shut up and keep up the lie, or at least that’s what I learned just recently from work. People in general like to remain entertained or pacified, turning away from the things that could really destroy their world.  And I find nothing wrong with that at all: whatever you need to make it through life.

Aptera’s Super-MPG Electric Typ-1 e

Above: Photo from PopularMechanics.com.

I normally don’t go ape for new technology simply because I don’t understand it enough but this I can: an electric car that’s affordable and available to the general public very soon (it only costs $30,000, the average price of most cars anyway).  I want this!  I don’t need a shitload of trunk space so this is great.  Since the company marketing this is based out of California, they’ll only be selling this out of CA initially, and even luckier for me, there’s a dealership nearby in Menlo Park!  …Now I don’t have to waste $90+ a month filling up my shitty, Toyota Camry.

New Year’s Resolutions: Worth the thought or fucking dumb?

Wow.  2007 is just days from ending; it went by so quickly.  I remember when I was a kid, thinking a year was like this huge amount of time.  Now, I’m struggling to catch up, time goes by exponentially as I get older. 

I started making resolutions when I was precocious and pretentious, pre-teen snot.  Back then, my yearly goals included get straight As (never managed it), and, tellingly enough, losing weight (I developed a bubble butt by the time I was 10 years old and I was teased mercilessly for being  fat).  This coming new year’s, though, is what I believe to be the most realistic, the most practical, and the most important.  I’m still young but the fact that I’m half-way to 30 and still living a pretty mediocre existence sucks more and more as the days, weeks, months, and years go by; I don’t want to find myself, still friendless, at 40, still living at home, still working shitty, part-time jobs.  

Like I said, time goes by exponentially the older you get, and I wanted to add that the necessity for risks become all the more vital.  When you’re younger, you take ‘baby steps,’ ‘little jumps’ from here to there and on-ward.  But if, you’re like me, you somehow found yourself stranded or waylaid along the way, you’ll find that when you do get your shit together later on as an adult, you can no longer afford to take just ‘baby steps;’ the clock is ticking and you’re forced to make colossal leaps, lest you get trapped in one place, this time, forever.  I’m at that point now and 2008 will just become a continuation of the leaps I made in 2007. 

I don’t have the luxury anymore to just relax and ‘go with the flow’ (I fucking hate that phrase – it’s so dismissive and condescending).  I don’t have my Mommy or Daddy to fix things when they go wrong, or a boyfriend to share the load with when it gets heavy.  I really am on my own now, a daunting enough prospect to keep most people my age from trying anything new or different, but I’m encouraged by the fact that here, I have the opportunity create the life I want; I can do anything.

Jsmn’s 2008 New Year’s Resolutions

1. Get in shape – finally. Notice how I didn’t put ‘lose weight.’  I think that’s implied.  Alternately, I could put ‘not be a lazy fat ass.’
2. Move to the City (San Francisco). 
3. Go out more.  My ex-boyfriend once said I was too much of a ’shut-in’ and he was right.  If I can get my ass to the City within the first half of the year, I’m going to do what I did in London last year: if I don’t have anything to do or any plans in particular, I’m just going to wander around town and drop in to clubs and bars for fun.  All this, by myself (Ms. Toughgirl!).
4. Write more. 
5. See the major cities of America.  There’s so much to see and do in Cali that most people here don’t ever bother to leave the state, if they can afford it.  My first destination: New York City (at the very least to go shopping).
6. Get a cute, nice, and faithful boyfriend.  Hmm, this is probably the most difficult one to acheive.  I’d like to feel liked again, to feel like a girl again.  And the expected nookie is totally welcomed, too . 

No need to be afraid

Bahhh, during the previews for Juno, in-between was a long commercial for, of all companies, JCPenney.

It portrayed a little girl who gets made fun of by the neighborhood kids, only to win them over by building a make-shift ship/rocket destined for the North Pole (I think she was getting made fun of because she was writing a letter to Santa). Throughout, a really sweet song is played, with only piano and voice, and at the end, besides finding out it was a JCPenney ad (weird enough), it turned out the song was Real Love by John Lennon.

So, of course, when I got home, before I downloaded the song off of iTunes, I made sure I didn’t already have it in my cd collection, which I didn’t.  Now, I want to get the sheet music so I can play this on the piano.  It sounds pretty simple.

I am getting chick-ier and chick-ier as I get older…