Both Seen and Heard Now

Back when I started this blog in December of 2008, I had no one to talk to, no one who wanted to listen to me, and the sneaking suspicion that I had no friends.

Then, eventually, I had one friend, the lovely Ms. Lockhart, who's now living her dream studying to be an even bigger bookworm on the East Coast.  Alas, one friend isn't really enough when you've spent the good part of a decade locking all of your feelings and opinions up inside of your little 5'5" body, so hanging out sometimes turned into my brain dump.

I've spent the past four years slowly gaining friends, some semblance of local family, and very recently, filmmaking colleagues.  Thinking recently about why I haven't written on this blog for so long, I realized that it's because I finally have several people that I can say these things to out loud.  I have people to talk about film with.  I have people to talk about writing with.  I have people to talk about feelings with, even though, sometimes,  "feelings is stupid" -- J. Baldwin.  I have a therapist.  I have people to talk about racism, sexism, and the variety of other isms with.  I ... am missing a dude friend, though.  I haven't had a good dude friend in years...

Anywho, I'm finally closing this blog down.  I'll wax political on my Tumblog.  I'll post about film and writing on denisejena.com.  I will tweet way too much.  Yes, I actually am an avid tweeter now.  And and and, I discovered that Facebook is considerably less sucky when you have friends that interact with you on it!  Imagine that...

If I ever have the need for another diary, which is what I've always considered this blog, I'll probably put it anonymously on Tumblr somewhere.  Maybe you'll stumble upon it one day.

Fixing Broken Things - Random Thoughts

A recent visit with my therapist helped me realize that I have a tendency towards trying to fix broken people - our conversation was specific to the men that I've dated, and a man who I'm currently attracted to.  She was asking me what my type is.  I answered "tall, lean, broad shouldered, but funny outweighs all of that...um, and I have tended to date guys who are messed up..."

Of course the therapist wants to dig deeper into that.  Why?  My first answer would be that the fucked up men who I tend to want are usually also creative, passionate, interesting, and talented.  But my therapist questioned whether I thought that fixing them would make them stay with me longer out of gratitude or loyalty.  Maybe?  But right now I'd rather have several casual relationships instead of one serious one.  I don't know how much time I want to invest in "fixing" anyone, since right now I'm trying to work on myself and make my dreams come true.

But this extends past men.  I'll probably exclusively own rescue animals, since I think it's silly to spend money on bred dogs when there are plenty of big cuddlies at the SPCA that need love, too.

And as I think about raising children more and more I realize that giving birth to a baby is something I'm curious about.  But the thing that will fulfill me as an adult, a parent, a person is the idea of fostering and adopting children, particularly the children who tend to languish in the system like older children, Black and Latino children, troubled children.  I want the kids that other people don't choose, and I want to make their lives better than they may have been if they grew to adulthood in the system, or stayed with their parents.

I think this is more related with my longtime interest in psychology.  The reason I thought about becoming a psychologist was because I wanted to help people deal with their issues and "cure" them.  But why?

On the flip side of this coin, though, unloved animals sometimes are put down.  Unloved children sometimes grow to adulthood in a system that never showed them love and become unhealthy people.  Unloved men?  Usually find love somewhere eventually, or at least satisfaction.

Hmm.  Now that I've said the word unloved, I realize that that was one of my major childhood problems - I wasn't sure that my mother loved me until I left for college and she started making me call her all of the time and would say it at the end of each conversation.  Maybe I'm trying to keep people and creatures from feeling the way that I felt?

I can't really complete this train of thought.  I don't know if I will ever know for sure why I like to "fix" things, but I don't think it's such a bad thing, especially with regards to animals and children.  Men are the danger zone, and I'm not really sure what to do about that, since I tend to be attracted to men who are just as lonely as I have been in the past.

Email Winking

I totally "Hey boy, heyyyyy"'d someone via email earlier this evening.  I was supposed to ask him out in person, I told my friends that I was going to do it, and then I chickened out.  But the good thing about telling my friends that I was going to do it was that it forced me to do it anyway BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.  I think that term must always be written in all caps, even when it refers to something as unimportant as my dating life and not the revolution.  Anyway, I don't expect a response until later tomorrow, but I'm obviously hoping for a yes, and eventual naked sexytimes.

Parting Clouds

After three days of torrential downpours and an upstairs neighbor who leaves her doors open in order for her barking rodent to roam about freely, a chunk of my wet ceiling collapsed into my bedroom at 5 this morning.  Not near the bed, so I went back to sleep.  Thank goodness my landlord is awesome and quick to respond to the issues that always pop up in old houses like the one I live in.

The sun is now shining, though, as I write this from my outdoor table at the Esplanade CCs, and I'm looking forward to a weekend full of sunshine and warm weather.  I mentioned in my previous post that I might have sunken into an even deeper depth of depression over the past year.  I finally started seeing a therapist regularly at the beginning of March, and I sucked it up and got prescribed an anti-depressant.  The idea of being on prescription drugs has always made me very nervous because I don't like the idea of chemicals causing reactions in my body that I can't see and/or control, but I realized that saying "well I'm not suicidal, so it's not that bad" wasn't going to cut it anymore, since I was also:  Not motivated to do anything to make my future happen the way I want it to; too socially anxious to develop or maintain friendships; not capable of concentrating on anything longer than a few minutes at a time; tired all of the time; not capable of remembering what being happy feels like.  That's not living, so I might as well have been suicidal.

It's been about four weeks so far but I started seeing a difference in week two; the full difference won't be felt until weeks five or six.  I feel like I'm quicker to smile, I'm more talkative in social situations, I don't put myself down as much, and I'm not as self-conscious as I used to be.  I also find myself jittery with energy sometimes, which I thought was weird unti I remembered that when I was a kid I was always fidgety and full of energy and movement.  Things like this are why I needed to finally get some help - I've been clinically depressed for over ten years, and it had gotten to the point that I couldn't remember the last time I had been genuinely happy, or what my actual personality was like.  I don't even know if this is my full personality - when I went through puberty I was depressed and most of the knowledge I've gained and the experiences that I've had have been seen through the gray filter of depression.

I'm hoping that the next month or so will shed light on who I am and where I'm going, and I think that I'm excited to see what's ahead.

Once Again...

Yikes!  I have been a terrible blogger this past year.  I'm not sure why - I've had many thoughts that I wanted to write down over the past year, but I could never get myself to do it.  Perhaps I sunk into an even deeper level of hell/depression?  It's always easier for me to see it in hindsight.

But I find myself having a lot of free time coming up - my last day at my job was on Friday.  I should have severance coming so I can't really get into the specifics, but I'm not exactly upset about it and I'm looking at this year to be the start of my future, wherever it takes me.  My goal is to get a part-time job while I work on writing - I started my first script a couple of weeks ago!  I also want to leave my schedule open for any acting opportunities that pop up, and eventually go from working part-time for someone else to doing web design on my own for clients, so I can completely have control over my available time.

I can safely say that I am much happier unemployed than I would be if I were still at that job, and that means everything to me right now.  I think that this might have then shove that I needed - gotta take risks to succeed in writing and acting.

Until tomorrow,

D

Oh, hi there!

So...it's been a while.  About two in a half months, in fact.  My posting had been waning for a while, but I don't think it's for lack of interest, but rather lack of time and motivation.  I think about stuff to post here all of the time, but instead of writing these ideas down I let them rotate in my head over and over again until I'm tired of them and push them out of my head, still unresolved.  I've also been experiencing varying levels of depression over the past few months, which is sort of an annoying situation.  I find my mood happier when I write regularly, but being depressed keeps me from writing.

I've also been distracted by other social media formats.  I joined Tumblr a few months ago, and like the microblogging format, although I do a lot more reblogging then I do original posting.  I also joined Twitter maybe a month ago (see left sidebar), and I'm G+ing (also see left sidebar.  I don't know why it says that no one is following me - I have more people following me on G+ then I do friends on Facebook!).  I've been trying to figure out how to juggle all of these social media outlets, and doing a shitty job at all of them.  I've decided that I'm going to break it down like this:

Blogger - this baby.  I've disconnected the feed to my Facebook wall.  I want this blog to go back to being my personal blog, like a public diary, a place for me to spill all of the random debates and conversations that float through my brain with no outlet (because I only have a couple of friends).  I found myself more cautious about what I wrote once my posts were going to Facebook, and I still think I had a few unfriends because of it (oh well).  My longer posts are going to go here, the stuff that involves forming my thoughts and future beliefs on complicated subjects.  And stuff about New Orleans that doesn't fit into 140 characters, because I'm not impressed with the New Orleans showing on Tumblr.  I like that both friends and people who I've never met in person read this, but I really like that the readers I haven't met in person are actually people who I would like to meet someday, and I hope to keep it that way.

Tumblr & Twitter - My tumblog feeds into my Twitter account, so both will be about the short spurts from my brain - "Movies I'm Looking Forward To" will move to Tumblr, anything about music, entertainment, etc.  Basically, stuff meant for random people to discover via hashtags, retweets/reblogs, etc.  I guess these will contain the parts of me that I'm willing to share with a broad group of people, many of whom I may never want to meet outside of the internets.

Google + - I think a lot of people are trying to figure out what to do with google plus.  I think it's a little more ... grown up than Facebook, but that could be because most of my Facebook friends are people who I know from college and elementary/middle/high school classmates who hunted me down.  I wasn't grown then, and I know I'm a lot different then I was even 4.5 years ago in college, so I'm moving a lot of the political/racial/social issue comments to G+, especially since most of my G+ people are listeners of Blacking It Up!, which is all about those topics and the best podcast EVER IN LIFE.

Facebook - Fuck Facebook.  But seriously, I only use Facebook to interact with people who only interact via Facebook.  It's so unimportant to me that I'm not even going to link to it (but feel free to friend me!).  If there is ever a time when most of my friends are connected to me through some other (any other?) social media outlet, I WILL SHUT THAT SHIT DOWN.  No seriously, fuck Facebook.  I do like their events mechanism, though.  My tweets are going there so people know I'm still alive.

So, there's that.  I find that I'm better at doing things when I organize them into very neat piles.

Another thing that I'm doing?  Re-arranging my body clock.

So, for as long as I can remember whenever I have had the opportunity to go to bed and wake up at whatever time I wanted, I have gone to bed between 4 - 6am, and woken up between 12 - 2pm.  Obviously, I've had to force that inclination to fit my job, which means that I wake up at 7am and go to bed ... well, that's the problem.  I should go to bed at 10 or 11pm, but it' really really hard because my body wants to stay up until at least 2am.  As I write these words, it's 4:54am.  I'm tired of this.  But I can't really do what my body wants, which is to rule the night, so I'm going to try to force a compromise.

I'm going to sleep from between 7 - 9pm to 2 - 4am.  The time that I have between wakey wakey and 5:30am will be for reading, writing, and catching up on my DVR.  At 5:30am, I'll go jogging for about an hour and a half, then come back home to shower and get ready for work.  Work is from 8am to 4pm.  At 4, I'll go straight from work to the gym three times a week (the non-gym days will be for errands, or social stuff).  I'll be done by 5 or 5:30pm on gym days, and then I'll do whatever the hell I want until bedtime, which will vary depending on if there is some sort of event that I want to go to.  I don't do a lot of night events, though that may change since I'm getting a scooter very soon (Guys!  I'm not posting about it until it's in the driveway!).

I do have to consider my stomach issues.  I've managed, over the past year, to gain control over IBS by eating very small dinners (either a snack like peanut butter and honey at home, or an appetizer or soup at restaurants).  My main big meal is lunch now.  The only time I have an upset stomach is occasionally when I'm on my period, but my body is haywire anyway for those five days.  I'm thinking my eating schedule will be like this:

Breakfast = about an hour after waking up.  Toast + tea is the easiest thing for a sensitive stomach.
After the morning jog = fruit
work snack (around 9am) = oatmeal, quiche, bagel, something like that that I can make or heat up quick at work.
lunch (around 11am) = smaller.  This is forcing me to give up big meals, which I should have already done anyway.  I'm going to start making recipes again, so lunch will vary, but the portions will be much smaller.
work snack (around 2pm) = I've fallen in love with trail mix.  or more fruit.
dinner (around 4:30ish or 5:30ish pm) = something safe on the tummy, like peanut butter and honey, pumpkin bread, etc.

I'm doing it like this because not only does this fit my 8 - 4 job better, but also if I'm successful at breaking into acting this coming year, I'm going to have to deal with a weird schedule like this anyway.  Nothing that I want to do with my future involves working these 9 to 5-like jobs anymore past the next 8 months, so I need to get my body used to this now.  I'll see how the trial period (the next two weeks) goes, and take it from there.

Whelp, I'm done for now.  This is going to be a long day, since I haven't slept since 1pm on Sunday, but it'll make it very easy for me to go to sleep at 7pm today.

Thandie Newton Just Blew My Mind...

I'll probably love her forever for this talk at TED.  This is ... everything I've been struggling with lately.

Family History: The Moores (Levels 0, 1, & 2)

Over the past couple of years I've been doing research off and on about my ancestry, trying to fill in the many blanks in my family tree.  Right now, I only know my mother's side of the family, but that's proving to be a puzzle all on it's own.  I plan to restart my search full blown later this summer when things quiet down at work, and I thought that writing about what I learn as I go might help me process everything.  Unfortunately, that means that this story will be told backwards.

What I hope to learn

Most of this comes from curiosity, as it probably does with most people who research their family history.  I'm curious about the struggles and successes of my ancestors.  Did anyone invent anything?  Fought in a war?  Kill anyone?  What parts of the country did they live in?  What part of Africa did we descend from?  By way of where?  Mental and physical illnesses (especially the genetic ones).  Ethnicities, especially involving any lies that may have been told or "passing" that may have been done.

Maybe I'll write a television series about it, like "Roots" for today's generation.

Rules

• For the sake of ease and lack of confusion, the women will be attributed to the family that they were born into, instead of married into (meaning, they are keeping their maiden names).
• I'm going to have to be patriarchal (boo) and attribute the children to their father's name, because those names don't change depending on divorce.  The only exception to that rule is me, because I don't know what my father's name is - I'm level 0 of the Moores.  My mother is level 1 of the Moores, and her father is level 2, and so on.  Her mother is level 1 of the McCrary's, because she and her siblings are the first level of the McCrary's when I look backwards from my line.
• I'm going to try to post minimal information about the people who are still alive.  

With no further ado...

Denise Moore : 1985 - present

Hello, I am level 0 of the Moore family.  If you regularly read this blog, you already know much about me, but feel free to browse through the archives if you don't.  Unmarried, no siblings, no munchkins.  Moving on...

V. Moore : 1953 - present

Level 1 is my mom, V.  Her parents are Louis Moore and Beulah McCrary.  She is an only child.  She was born and raised in DC, but I think she spent a couple of her high school years living in Masseville, Ohio.  I think this because I remember her mentioning that she used to get into fights with the white girls at her school (she was one of the only black students there).  She had me just before she turned 32 years old.

Louis Moore : March 5th, 1930 - January 22nd, 2005


Factual:

• Level 2, my mother's father.
• Born in Durham, North Carolina.
• I found him listed as Louis Fikes on a 1930 census as 0 years old, as the grandson of the head of household, Hattie Fikes.
• Looking through old census records, I'm confused as to where the name Moore came from, since according to the census his mother, Ida, was one of Hattie's daughters, who was unmarried and living at home.  For now I'll assume that it's a stepfather's name, which would mean that my mom and I are Fikeses by blood, not Moores.  This also means that technically he is a level 1 Fikes.
• I discovered one of his obituaries, and learned that he was not only a veteran of the Army, but was an officer in the Metropolitan Police Department (my mom clarified that he was security guard for the Supreme Court).
• Also, I didn't know that my mother has step brothers.  After he and my mother's mother got divorced, he married a woman named Louise.  Yes, they were Louis and Louise.  She had adult children who currently live in Connecticut, as did her ex-husband before he died.
• He died of colon cancer in Southern Pines, North Carolina.

Anecdotal:

• One of the public records that I found listed him as living in DC the year that I was conceived.  I don't understand how he could have watched his daughter be pregnant with me, but not really seem to want anything to do with me as a granddaughter.  I can count the number of times that I saw him on one hand, and I was 20 when he died.  I guess I could have reached out once I was old enough to travel to North Carolina by myself, but it seemed like it should have been the other way around.
• I talked to my Mom a little bit about him last night.  He married her mother in 1953 or 1954, and they divorced 10 years later.  More than likely they met in DC, where her mom was a waitress.
• Mom never met his father, and can't remember his name.

Looking Forward:

• I'm going to keep searching high and low for information about where the Moore name came from.  I know that one of the counties in NC is Moore County, presumably named after a prominent family from centuries ago.
• I've only got information on his mother's side of the family, and I'd like to know about his father and stepfather (if he had one).

I'll update this if any information changes or new information pops up.  Next up:  Extensive information on the Fikes branch of the tree.

Blogging Challenge Day 9: My Beliefs

I assume that this question is about religious beliefs.  I don't have a simple answer to this question.

Most of my religious experience is with Christianity.  I was raised a Baptist.  I still have my Precious Moments Bible that was given to me by the Pastor at Floral Baptist Church in 1991 when I was six years old.  I've had an embarrassing phobia since I was a small child that led me to, when I was a teenager, read the Bible from Genesis to Psalms, as penance for any transgressions that I may have done that may have caused God to bring about the event that I feared.  This lasted for a summer before I realized that it was not only childish, but hypocritical.  I thought real Christians shouldn't just run to God when they're scared - they should always be devoted.  I decided that if I wasn't ready to be a devoted church-going Christian, then I shouldn't bullshit otherwise (like my mother, who only goes to church when she's broke and depressed) and that I would just live my life until I figured it out.

In college I had a lot of friends who were active Christians, and while I admired them and felt that they embodied all of the goodness in that religion (kindness, patience, way less judgement then the average person of any religion or non-religion, etc.), I myself kept Christianity at a distance from myself.  I don't want to go into a long diatribe of all of the evil that has been done in the name of Christianity, but I'll say this:  There's a difference between a sect of religious fanatics doing something horrible in the name of their religion, and a religion becoming conflated into various political institutions that have been used as a tool to cause suffering, death, and oppression to nations of people for centuries.  I can see the beauty of spiritual Christianity in my college friends and other good people that I've meant since then; but I cannot reconcile my newfound racial, social, feminist, and political beliefs with a religion that, as a very strong political force, is against everything that I'm for, and vice versa.

Other religions?  I don't know much about them, and while I want to do research and learn more about them (I'm very curious about pagan religions), I don't see myself being able to (or needing to) commit to them anytime soon.  As far as "sinning" or following the rules of the "right" religion, I'm not big on rules that seem to go outside of the realm of simply being a decent human being.  I am a decent human being, so I'm not concerned about rules that are meant to control sexuality, or what we eat, or what hand I wipe my butt with, or whether I agree with what the people who I love believe in or worship.

Now that I've said what I do not believe in, I should say what I do believe in.

I believe that, at 25 years old, I'm too young to really know one way or another if there is a higher power.  I simply have not had enough life experience to know¹.

I think that there is.  Rather, maybe, I feel that there is.  But I can't call it God, or Allah, or any of the other named major gods, because those names carry the beliefs of all of their associated religions.  I don't know what it is, but I think that no human knows what it is.  I feel that the major decisions that I've made in my life were almost unconscious - almost like they had already been decided, and I just waited for somewhere deep inside of myself to go "this is the way, child.  Go.  You might fall off of a cliff, but you will be caught before you land".  And I go.  And in the end, I've never regretted any of those decisions, because the experiences that they led to, whether good or bad, seemed necessary.  I feel like something pushes me, and it's bigger then myself.

So, in simpler terms, for now:

I do not believe in any organized or structured religion.

I'm also not an atheist.

I think that I fall under the term agnostic.  That works for me.  Writing this post is actually the most that I've thought about my religious beliefs at once, and the first time that I've defined myself as agnostic.

¹ I am sometimes disturbed by people who are my age or younger, or equivalently sheltered, who seem to vehemently believe in or don't believe in ___.  Who told them that they had to choose so soon?  What is the point in choosing so soon?  I don't want my future children making decisions about anything like that at such a young age.  But aside from the random experience of a young stranger trying to convert me to Christianity on the Tulane Ave. bus by telling me I was a bad person because I lie (rarely), most of the young Christians that I've met or known are not judgmental or pushy they way they are often depicted in the media - that's the political Christianity that you're seeing there.


More often, I find that some of the young (and not-so-young) atheists that I've met are extremely judgmental and are offended by the mere presence of any level of spirituality, even if it's not being pushed on them.  It's okay to not believe, but I'm talking Bill Maher level of nastiness with regard to religion, which makes me want to start punching people.  I can understand the viewpoint of atheists, but I am disgusted when I hear anyone talk about religious people like they're just plain stupid people who have no worth, which I hear and read more and more in majority liberal settings.  I'm glad that in your vast 20-30 years of life experience you've definitively proven to yourself that a God doesn't exist, but yourbeliefisnomorefactthantheirsI'msorryyourparentsmadeyougotoSundaySchoolbutgetoverityourarroganceisjustasignorantpleasegofuckyourself*punch*!  No matter how I feel about religion, I can't support anyone being so goddamn judgmental.

Blogging Challenge Day 8: A Moment (or Two)

Two animal related moments.

On Sunday I decided to wash Biko, who hasn't had a decent bath since it became cold (so, before late November).  It's so funny reading a dog's body language and trying to guess what he's thinking.  Biko is afraid of water when it's spraying out of the hose, so whenever he's not on a leash and he sees me reach for the hose, he runs off to a safe distance and watches me with what I suspect is suspicion in his eyes.  When I give him a bath, I alleviate the problem by tying his leash to the fencepost and tricking him into coming close enough for me to attach it to his collar, which is what I did on Sunday.

He looks at me confused.  I climb over the fence and reach for the hose, turning it on.

He sits, shoulder's hunched, head slowly sinking while looking up at me.  He knows what this means.  I kind of love the moments when I know exactly what he's thinking.  I felt a little bad for him, but clean dogs get longer belly rubs, and he looks so pretty when he's clean.

The second moment was last Saturday, when I realized that a lizard that was hanging out in front of my door was in fact stuck via fresh paint.  My landlord's son painted my porch in the morning while I was asleep.  By the time I was leaving the house for the first time around noon, it was dry enough to walk on, but the lizard apparently didn't wait long enough and was effectively glued to the spot right in front of my door.  I didn't want to use my fingers in case it got scared and bit me, so I grabbed a piece of the dead banana tree leaves that had blown into the courtyard and poked at each of the lizard's little feet until they were free.  It still didn't move.  I realized that it's little belly was stuck, too, and poked at that until the lizard finally slowly waddled off, surely in pain (it didn't lose any major body parts, but it was impossible to get it loose without taking off a couple of wee toes).  I wonder how long it had been there...

Blogging Challenge Day 7: My Best Friend

Yes, it's been like, 3 months.  Shut up.  I had stuff to do.  Important stuff.  Anyway, I'm back on the challenge and attempting to complete it before my birthday in May.

Best friends.  I've always preferred to have a small group of really close friends to a large group of "acquaintances", and the best friends usually lasted at least until I was at a different school.

3yrs - 6yrs - My best friend was a girl named Sarah, who lived next door to the house where my grandmother and great grandmother lived in Ohio.  I visited every summer until I was 12.  She was a couple years older than me, so by my last summer in Ohio we'd grown apart.

3yrs - 12th grade - My longest friendship is probably my most troubled.  She was ... difficult, to say the least, and the older and more mature I get I realize that I'd rather have no friends than ones who treat me like shit.

1st grade - 5th grade - Her initials were KM.  We share the same last name, which I think was what initiated our friendship.  We ended up going to different middle schools.

6th grade - 7th grade - His initials were YH.  He was a troublemaker who goofed off in class.  He amused me, my "goodness" charmed him, and we were fast friends.  It was middle school so everyone assumed that we were fucking (yes, in middle school!), but our friendship was completely innocent.  His mother moved him out of the district, so he ended up leaving my school at the end of 7th grade.

7th grade - 12th grade/kind of present - Initials BU.  Another guy.  I totally thought he was my first love ... for about 2 months.  Man, those crushes were intense.  We became brother-sister close, which makes sense, since we're both only children.  Once again, people thought something was going on between us, including his girlfriend.  We went to separate high schools, but would get home and spend about 5 hours on the phone every. damn. day.  I never thought I'd be one of those teenage girls who was on the phone all of the time, until I was.  But with a guy!  But with a gay guy.  Once I went to college we became more distant, but when I'm able to see him when I'm in Maryland, it feels like old times.

College Years - I had two best friends.  NSK and FA.  If one of us was at an event, you could probably find at least another one nearby standing in the food line.  These two were probably the least dramatic friendships that I've ever had, which probably means I should try to keep them forever.  We try to keep in touch but FA is in med school and NSK is heading there soon, and I'm terrible at calling people.

... And now? - I don't know if at my age it's possible to really have "Best friends" the way I had when I was younger, especially since I've only been in New Orleans 3.5 yrs and I'm shy at meeting new people.  My closest friends here are an almost septuagenarian and my friend Kristy, whom I have a lot in common with.  I think I'm overdue for having a male best friend again, but if he's not gay he would be in danger of me turning him into a sex buddy (because I need that, too).

New Year's Resolutions: 2011 Edition

I'm late.  I actually wrote most of these in late December, but ... kind of forgot to post them.  I've got so many ideas in my head about how this year should go, it's hard for me to focus on the present!  Last year I predicted good things for 2010, and while at the time I was thinking more about things actually happening, looking back I see that 2010 was about getting myself into the right mindset to bust out in 2011 and become the person that I want to be. Resolutions?

1.  By May (my birthday month), I will be down to my ideal weight (120-130lbs, depending on how I look - I don't think that super skinny is attractive.  If 130lbs looks great, then that's what I'm sticking with.)

2.  More traveling.  I want to go to Chicago sometime in the spring, and Toronto in September for the film festival.

3.  Working for myself.  While I like my job, I’m tired of having a boss, and would really like to work for myself (partly because I’ll have no one to blame but myself if I don’t listen to me).  By the end of summer, I’d like to have myself set up to go down to working part time at my current job.

4. Gotdamnit, I need my license!  By the end of April, but hopefully sooner.  Then I can start saving up to get a cute little scooter.

Might be the best picture I've ever taken.

5. I won free headshots recently, and had them taken last week.  After the headshots, come the acting classes.  Durin/after the acting classes, comes the agent.  And that opens up a whole new world for me in film.  I want to have an agent by the end of summer.

6. Once I get a vehicle, I want to start going out at least once a week.  And by going out I don’t mean going to a market or festival, I mean like looking cute and going somewhere at night and flirting with the men folk.

7. I’ve got to post more here.  I’ve got to get all of the fiction in my head into a Word Doc.  I’ve got to write more in general.

This is the year that’s supposed to change my life, but I’ve got to make it happen.  This year feels like the beginning of an adventure!

Home for the Holidays: 2010

Much of this was written about two weeks ago, while I was still in MD.


Day 1:  Christmas Eve

I arrived at Union Station around 10:30am.  Dug out my SmartTrip card and headed to Olney.  My Mom was off for the day, so once I showered and rested for a couple of hours, we headed to run errands in the local shopping center.  I bought Now® brand pure peppermint oil at the GNC.  It’ll be used, along with some other oils, as a hot oil treatment for my hair.  I also may drip a couple of drops into my tea every now and then if my stomach needs soothing.

Then we went to the TJ Maxx, where I bought a couple of baby gifts for a baby that I would be meeting tomorrow.  We then ate at a local Chinese restaurant, which made me realize just how uninterested I am in Chinese food nowadays.  I only ate about 1/3^rd of it, and I didn’t get a doggy bag.  Afterwards, a trip to Shopper’s, where my Mom had to get the ingredients for the dishes that she was making (Beef roast and potato salad), and I got a couple of things to eat a home when we weren’t going to be eating out.

The WMATA has a mobile website, so once we were finished I looked up when the next bus was coming and discovered that we had just missed one…so it’d be about 25 minutes.  Did I mention that it’s cold in Maryland right now?  And I don’t mean New Orleans “it’s 50° in the shade” cold, I mean “it’s 30° in the sun” cold.  And now it was dark.  I told my Mother, as I shivered violently, that from now on she was going to have to come down to NOLA to visit me for Christmas.  I guess after 3 years in New Orleans, my body has finally forgotten the tolerance to cold that I built up during my four years in Ithaca.  Later at home, I finished the 2^nd book, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, which I started the previous day on the train.  More on that later.

Day 2:  Christmas Day

“Dinner”, which actually is scheduled for 3pm, will occur, as usual, at my Mom’s best friend’s house in Cheverly, so we head out on the Y9 bus around 1:30 and make it to the Fort Totten station around 2:30.  I meet a pretty baby who is now my…play 2^nd cousin?  Food is eaten.  I don’t overindulge.  Gifts are exchanged.  The baby immediately starts clinging to the super fluffy blanket that I got her.  Success!  I got some much-needed socks, some pretty jewelry, some tights, and a scarf.  The Town, directed by and starring Ben Affleck, is watched for the 2^nd time by me, the first time for everyone else.  I’m not as awed by it as I was the first time that I watched it, but I still think it’s a great movie, and that Affleck has really come into his own as an actor and budding director.  A slice of the most sinful cake ever is devoured, and my Mom had the nerve to pack some up and bring it home.  We get home around 9:30 or 10.  I think I fell asleep on the couch, then woke up at 3am and went to bed.

Day 3:  Sunday Shopping

The plan was to go to Eastern Market, which I’ve never been to before, then Pentagon City Mall to see if there are any after Christmas deals going on.  It’s snowing, though, and when we get to Eastern Market, both the indoor and outdoor market areas are closed.  Boo.  We stopped at a little café near the Eastern Market Metro Station called Le Pain Quotidien (The Daily Bread) which serves organic French(ish) dishes.  I got what was basically an open-faced ham and cheese sandwich with apples, sage, and cranberries on it.  It was yummy.

We headed to the mall, which was busy, but not as packed as I thought it would be.  I realized as we were looking around that my new eating and shopping habits might actually be a benefit to my wallet in the long run.  Healthy food and handmade accessories might cost more, but they’re so hard to find in places like a mall that I don’t spend nearly as much money as I used to.  I got:  new reeds and diffuser oil for the glass diffuser in my bedroom at the Yankee Candle store; linen spray and a small thing of body butter for my hands at The Body Shop; and … my Mom bought me a tea set from Teavana!  I’m so excited, I can’t wait to use it.  I have about 100 tea bags of various flavors right now, but once I use those up, I can’t wait to start buying tealeaves.

After shopping, we braved the snow to walk over to the next block and eat at the California Pizza Kitchen, where I got the Fish Tacos made with fried Mahi Mahi.  I was shocked at how good that dish was, I’ll definitely have to eat it again the next time I go to CPK.

Day 4:  Monday

Monday was more of a low-key day, the day before my Mom went back to work.  We went to Silver Spring, deposited what was left of my Christmas money, and ate at Red Lobster.  I usually get the Cajun Chicken Alfredo Pasta, but decided to go with the Seafood Stuffing in between two filets of what I think was tilapia.  It didn’t knock my socks off like the fish tacos, but it was good enough for me to take the leftovers home.  Then we stopped at the Whole Foods so I could get some food for my days at home, and headed home.

Day 5:  Tuesday

Laid around the house for most of the day, watching old Top Model reruns.  Why is it that every six months when I get access to cable, all of the repeats that are on are the same ones that I’ve seen before?  I’ve missed two or three “cycles” of Top Model, but of course the one that was on was the last one that I watched.

Day 6:  “Black Swan” Wednesday

I finally got a chance to go to the nearby Starbucks to use the internet.  I had to clear out some stuff in my email, and do a little stuff for work as well.  Afterwards, I caught the bus to Silver Spring to meet a friend and catch Black Swan, which I saw at the New Orleans Film Festival in October, but had no problem shelling out money to see it again.  I’ll need to wait for it to come out on DVD before I can really examine that movie in detail, but I luvs it.

Day 7:  “Goin’ to New Orleans”

Woke up early so I could go up to Home Goods and see if they had a set of plates that would match my dark yellow and Caribbean blue themed kitchen.  The plates that I’m currently using, I’ve had since my 3^rd month in New Orleans back in 2007.  I found them for free on Freecycle, and was quick enough with my BlackBerry to get them left on a porch for me somewhere in Mid-City just below Carrollton Ave.  I like them, but they don’t match what I’m trying to do with that kitchen at all, and since Home Goods is so delightfully cheap, I think it’s time for a change.  I found a nice set, gave my mom a check for it, and she’s going to buy them and ship them to me.

My stomach is always upset on my last day in Maryland.  I’m sure that my therapist would have something to say about that.  Through that, I had to pack and head out to Union Station to meet my Mom for an early dinner at UNO’s while I waited for my train.  The train was supposed to leave at 6:30pm.  It left at 8pm.  Boo.  I was given an aisle seat.  Double boo.  Next to a lady who appears to be in a constant state of moaning, groaning, and complaining, when she’s not passed out snoring next to me.  Triple boo.  I escape to the lounge around 10pm, hoping that a rum and coke will make sleep come a little easier ; ).  It does, though it’s a fitful sleep, since I’m pretty uncomfortable.

On New Year’s Eve, we arrive at Union Passenger Terminal around 9:30, about two hours later then scheduled.  It has the nerve to be warm and actually kind of muggy in New Orleans.  I’m glad to be home.

Depression Pt. 1: Work

It was just 2 months ago that I was really excited for this new year at work, and thinking about maybe staying longer then that, but now I'm not even sure if I can even complete this year.  I think that the bases of my complaints are correct, but I'm probably not handling them well.  I came home during lunch to cry today.  Not cool.  I think that the last time I was this depressed was when d and I had our final argument, but I didn't bring that to work with me.  I feel like I was the only one who stuck by my boss when he was having a really difficult time with other employees, because it seemed like the right thing to do.  Staying late.  Helping him out when I could have been at home.  And I didn't mind, because I like my job and I like him and it felt good to be able to help.

But now, as hard as I try (harder then anybody) to be a great employee, there always seems to be some complaint, or some general disrespect for the fact that I know what I'm doing and I've been doing it for a year and I haven't fucked up nearly as much as anyone else who's done the same job, including him recently.  Earlier this year I was hearing that I should be more independent, and not ask him so many questions about the things that I'm responsible for.  Now, I'm being told that I have to pay such and such bills because he DEMANDS it, which of course puts us in overdraft, and then he tells me that I need to be better about telling him no.  When the fuck have I ever felt like I could tell him no?  Does he want me to handle shit, or does he want to micromanage it, and then complain about everything that he doesn't have time to do?  It’s constantly, "I'm the boss, so do this".  And I do it, more than everyone else does, and all I get is shit piled higher and higher, more stress, more work that other people are supposed to be doing.  I get moody and snippy when I feel like no one is listening to me, and I know it's been coming out lately.  Sigh.

Last April - July I was this frustrated.  Everyone else was doing whatever they wanted to, except for me.  But any mistake that I made would get pointed out and I'd have to hear the snotty tone that he gets when he's annoyed.  Meanwhile, all of these people who aren't doing half of the work that I was doing (and talking shit about him behind his back) get jokes, and laughs, and general lightheartedness and camaraderie, and absolutely no questions about what they were or weren't doing.  It feels like it's going to be the same this year.  He takes it easy on everybody, and I'm the workhorse.  Maybe because his expectations are lower for everyone else?  Maybe he just likes them better than me.  It got a lot easier once they were gone.  The new crew aren't necessarily not working hard, but he always stressed that he didn't want to answer questions that could easily be looked up, and that seems to have flown out the window this year...except for with me.

I'm one of those people who, when I like my job, I always want to do the best that I can.  Even when it's not appreciated.  But I understand why so many people slack off at their jobs.  If you don't like what you're doing or who you're working with, it's hard to motivate yourself to care.  Last year it felt like everyone had checked out by March.  I feel like checking out.  I wouldn't be so upset if I didn't care.  But ... I still can't do it.  If I start slacking off, I might as well quit.  I don't like not working at work.  But we're helping people rebuild their houses.  I can't slack off or quit knowing that it could have a negative effect on people who are already going through the worst few years of their lives already.  That’s why I moved here in the first place.  And I like this organization.  But the more and more depressed that I get, the more ineffective I find myself being, like my brain is subconsciously slacking off for me.

I almost always end up feeling under-appreciated at every job that I have.  I should probably start working on being self-employed...

Some Updates on Me

I've been a bad blogger.  In 6 short months (man, this year is going by fast), I've gone from posting more than once a day to posting once every couple of weeks.  Boo.  And it's not that I'm not interested in blogging, I come up with ideas for posts all of the time...I just never write them, for many of the same reasons that caused me to start this blog in the first place.  Fear.  "Not having enough time", although I'm sure that the time that I spend at 1am playing my Monopoly app when I can't go to sleep would be better spent blogging.  Depression.  I've been, more than likely, clinically depressed since I was 14, but it tends to be very mild, with occasional dips, which I think is what I'm experiencing now.  I've excused the mildness as a reason to not get treatment, but now that I'm in the position to afford to do so (more on that later), I'm going to.  The depression makes my head feel very cloudy - I can't concentrate on doing any one thing well, not at work or in my personal life, which makes me frustrated and even more depressed.  Anyway, I'm going to try to jump back in the saddle and blog more often.

I've joined a gym.  The St. Charles Ave. Athletic Club, in fact.  A friend of mine and her husband go there, and for the past month I've been going 4 times a week for about 30 - 45 minutes.  Once I get a license and a scooter, I'd like to go for at least an hour, but for now, I have a bus to catch home.  More and more often I'm frustrated with the limitations to my access to transportation.  Even if I had a bike, I wouldn't want to ride it from the gym home, not with the drivers in the city.  I'm kind of afraid to weigh myself - I don't think that I've lost any weight, and my goal was 5 pounds per month until I'm down to 125lbs, which makes more sense for my small frame.  I'm eating healthier than I ever have, except for my weakness for sugar and chocolate.  I have some sort of chocolate snack at least once a day, and even though it's not processed junk, I'm thinking that I'd do better to limit things like that to once a week and substitute my chocolate pastry cravings for something better, like an ounce of semi-sweet chocolate, which I recently discovered that I like better than milk chocolate.

It's those eyes...

The New Orleans Film Festival is going on for the next week, and they're showing a lot of great movies.  One of them is Night Catches Us, starring Kerry Washington and Anthony Mackie.  Anthony Mackie is from here, and will be at the opening of his movie tomorrow night.  I've had such a crush on him since She Hate Me, which featured many scenes of him nekkid and screwing...if I was feeling prettier, I'd totally go for it, although Google won't tell me if he's single.  He's very talented, I hope he gets all of the kudos and work that he deserves in the future.  I've also developed a girl-crush on Kerry Washington, she reminds me very much of Angelina Jolie, super sexy (not just sexy looking, like most young actresses) and capable of playing cool and calm or completely unhinged with amazing ease...maybe someone needs to cast her in an action film for her to get recognition that she deserves, although I've noticed her bagging more and more movies lately.



I'm not an AmeriCorps member any more.  I wasn't aware that I wasn't eligible for the education award this year - remaining with them would have meant loosing 1/3 of what isn't actually considered "income".  So I'm now a full on employee of PNOLA, which works out better for me.  I have a great health care plan now, and can afford the aforementioned treatment for the depression that's plagued me for so long.  I think 2011 is going to be the year that my life improves drastically, and I start achieving goals left and right.  It's been a slow build since 2007 - things are much better then they were then, or even just last year - but I can see things improving exponentially over the next year.  I can't wait.

Blogging Challenge Day 6: My Day

Instead of covering one calendar date, I'm going to cover a 24hr period, from the afternoon of September 17th to the afternoon of September 18th.

Biko, grinning at me.

1:00 pm:  Started setting everything out for the PNOLA Staff BBQ, everyone starts bustling around putting food into cars and heading to Bayou St. John to set up.  The boss and I head to my house to borrow my landlord's grill and pick up Biko - pretty dogs are always invited to the BBQ.

1:27 pm:  Biko decides to dive headfirst into the Bayou.  I walk along the edge to make sure that he doesn't get tangled in his leash, which is still attached to his collar.  He doesn't, but tries to get out several times when he's tired, to no avail.  He's in the middle section between two bridges, and he'd have to climb up the concrete ridge to get out.  I try to get him to swim over to the area next to the bridge where he could just walk out, but he's stubborn, and a coworker and I end up pulling him out, soaking both of us (and almost spilling my wine cooler!).  He's a skinny dog, once you get past the fur.

1:45 pm:  Mmmmmm, someone made potato salad for us, and it's the best I've ever had, topped with bacon, chives, cheddar, and onions.  I have 3 helpings.  Errr, small ones.

2:13 pm:  He's also a brilliant dog.  He's been staring at a plate of hamburgers for 10 minutes, and I've been watching him to make sure that he doesn't mess with them.  Once they get down to 2, I turn my back for a second and he bumps the plate with his nose and runs off as it falls to the ground.  Totally accidental, right?  And no choice left but to give them to the dog, who happily eats them whole.

2:30 pm:  Man, I drowned this soy burger with ketchup and it still tastes like ick.  BBQs make me rue the day that I quit beef.  I'm just going to have to buy some turkey or chicken patties and save them for these occasions.

4:00 pm:  BBQ over and I'm back home.  I ride with my landlord to run errands, ending with a trip to Whole Foods where I buy some Shrimp Jambalaya, which is not jambalaya (jambalaya is not soupy, Whole Foods!), but gumbo.  It is, however, yummy.

6:00 pm:  My package has arrived!  I ordered a "magazine table" to help organize my living room a little better.  The bottom shelf will be used for shoes - there's no way I can keep the floor clean if I let people keep their shoes on when they come inside.  The middle shelf is where I'll move all of my books, which are currently sitting on top of my mantle, which may be sloooooowly falling towards my gas wall mounted heater.  And the top shelf is where I'll put my keys and little decorative items.  I haul it inside, debating whether I want to put it together now or tomorrow.  Tomorrow.

7:30 pm:  My head hurts.  Why?  I did twist my neck some kind of funny way at the BBQ, when I was trying to hold on to Biko's leash while pulling my booze out of my bag.  I'm going to lay down and play on the internet.

9:00 pm:  My head hurts so bad that I couldn't even finish a brownie, and these are really good brownies.  The Aleve doesn't seem to be helping.  I think I need to just go to bed.

9:30 pm:  Out like a light.

5:30 am:  Annnnnnd I'm awake.  Headache gone, thank goodness.  I try to see if I can go back to sleep, at least until the sun is up, but no dice.  I listen to my podcasts for a while, download and play a Monopoly app on my iPhone (which I rock at), and read some blogs until about 9:00 am.

9:30 am:  I'm hungry.  I should probably shower first, or no one will want to have breakfast with me.

10:15 am:  Showered, dressed, and pretty cute.  I knock on my landlords door.  Still asleep.  In 40 minutes, he and his son will be ready to go to breakfast.  I decide to put in a load of laundry, then I can't help but get started on putting together my bookshelf.

11:30 am:  That was longer than 40 minutes.

Noon:  We decide to go to Ruby Slipper, because I get their newsletter and am craving their crab cake breakfast.

12:30 pm:  Nom-nom-nom-nom-nom.

1:20 pm:  Back to the bookshelf.

1:45 pm:  Finished!  Ooooh, it's so pretty!  My books look great on there, don't they?  

Blogging Challenge Day 5: My Definition of Love

I was going to write a poem, but then I found the following, here:

After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul, and you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t mean security, and you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises, and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child, and you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans. After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really can endure… that you really are strong, and you really do have worth.

I think that sums it up perfectly.

Blogging Challenge Day 4: What I Ate Today

Well, this is significantly easier than my last topic.

Breakfast:  Cereal (Honey Bunches of Oats in Silk's Vanilla Soy Milk)

Lunch:  Eaten at The Country Club (Bacon, Scrambled Eggs, Grits, Grapes, and Toast.  And 2.5(!) Mimosas.  And a dessert of Vanilla Ice Cream sandwiched between homemade ginger-molasses cookies.)

Dinner:  Cereal again.

Dessert:  One brownie, of a batch that was homemade by me.  I've been told that they're the best brownies ever, and I've got to agree, I'm glad I found it.  Here's the recipe.  You're welcome.

Blogging Challenge Day 3: My Parents

Blogger's Note:  This post took me two weeks to write, much of which was spent...not writing it.  If I had a therapist, he/she would say that I have unresolved issues with my parents.  I would reply that the two years that I spent as a psychology major clued me in to that, maybe I should pay myself to tell me shit I already know.

My Mom was born and raised in Southeast DC, but also spent some time living in Chillicothe, OH, where her mother's family lives.  From what I know, she wasn't very good in school and after graduating at twenty, she tried numerous paths (such as fashion school) and gave up on every one of them.  I think maybe she didn't have the confidence to believe that she could be successful - I see some of that in me, too.

I'm not sure of the circumstances of her pregnancy.  I've never heard a word about my father, so I always figured it was a one night stand that occurred around her birthday (I was born a day shy of ten months after her 31st birthday).  I'm working up the nerve to ask her about him, because I'd like to know if I have any brothers or sisters, and what my father's cultural background is.  I've always gotten a lot of "You look like you're from Nigeria/Ghana/Guyana/Africa (the entire continent?)" from other Black people, some from those countries, and have always responded with a deadpan, "I'm from DC".   I wouldn't be embarrassed if my father isn't Black American, but I hate it when people assume things about me, especially since when I was young I thought that they were only suggesting that I was from somewhere else because I'm very dark-skinned.  The weird thing is, I look so much like my mother (everyone comments on it), except for when you compare the dominent features of our faces:  I have a completely different nose, my lips are way fuller, and my eyes are bigger, with an almond shape.  I'd really like to see if I got these features from him.

My Mom spent much of her motherhood doing the single parent thing.  Low-paying jobs that she hated, sometimes more than one.  Occasional boxes of food from churches, several periods of living on unemployment checks.  Crappy cockroach-infested apartment in an increasingly bad neighborhood that she traded in when I was fourteen for a nice-looking low-income apartment surrounded by McMansions.  I wasn't able to go to the state-of-the-art performing arts high school that I had enrolled in because of the move and her unwillingness to let me ride the Metro bus, and I hated her for it for my entire high school run.  I just made myself suffer, though, unwilling to socialize in any sort of normal high school fashion, I was a loner who was so perpetually depressed that I spent months searching for the perfect prom dress to show my classmates how pretty I really was, only to decide two weeks before the night that I wasn't going to go.  I understand it now, though.  I'm her only child, she's invested all of her time and happiness in me, so she overprotects me.  We'd moved into a much safer area, but she was still not going to take the risk of something happening to me during a 15 minute commute to school.

She says that she had to be both parents, but I would actually say that she was more the traditional father (disciplinarian and breadwinner) than the mother. I spent most of my childhood thinking that I was an unloved burden because she rarely hugged, kissed, comforted, or said that she loved me.  I get now that it's hard to be vulnerable and loving with your child when there's no one else to fall back on to do the disciplining, but I rarely needed to be disciplined anyway.  My blog is titled what it is because I was that kind of little girl, and am still struggling to shirk that label today.  But a lot of single mothers, I think, are forced to be "hard" with their children, and I hope that I never know what that's like.

I didn't realize that she had affection for me until I went away to college and she demanded that I call her twice a week.  That was when the "I love you's" started, the hugging whenever she sees me in person, the passive aggressive questioning of why I chose to move a thousand miles away from her after graduating.  I still have to call her twice a week, at 25 years old, and boy do I get a guilt trip when I get too busy or forget.

I think that because I didn't receive much affection from her when I was growing up, I don't know how to show her affection now.  This has translated to me either being overly clingy or now, overly cautious (which reads as distant) in nearly every friendship that I've had with a girl.  My interactions with her are usually filled with me being annoyed with her for something stupid that she said that I could have easily ignored, her being patient with me for my bratty tone, me being mad at myself for not being able to raise my low threshold for annoying things, and finally, me wondering if spending time with my Mom would be easier if I were slightly drunk for the whole week.  She'd worry that New Orleans has made me an alcoholic, but she may accept that if I'm easier to get along with.

She hates her job, doesn't have any hobbies, no boyfriend, and few friends.  I'm all that she has, which leaves me feeling boxed in.  Like I've got stop figuring out what I want to do with my life and just get a good paying job, because in 10 years she'll be too old to work and has no savings for retirement, so I need to be ready to take care of her.  Like if she ends up having some sort of medical crisis, I'll have to let my life be absorbed back into hers and move back to Maryland and become another person who's buried all of their dreams.  Like if I don't open myself up to men that I don't think I want to date, I'll end up alone, investing all of my time into a kid that I never wanted to have without a husband, like her.

Like she thinks that I don't love her because I moved so far a way, and seem even more distant when we talk on the phone.  Then I realize that I don't really know how to love her, so why would she think that I do?  All of the ways that would show her that I love her involve me not living a life of my own, and I can't do that.  I have a great fear of death, and so I decided that if I had to die, I would make sure that my life was as happy as possible, and as nasty as it sounds, the idea of living anywhere near my Mom right now feels like death, like the rest of my life would be pointless.

I'm trying to convince her to go back to school, to move, to enter in to a career, to do anything that gives her something more than me, and relieves some of this pressure.  I'm not sure what a daughter is supposed to be, or what we're supposed to do once we're adults, but I think that she thinks that I'm supposed to dedicate my life to her the way she dedicated her life to me.  I guess that I think that if I help her find a life of her own from now on until she dies, she won't expect me to give her more than I can.

I didn't mean for this to be nearly as depressing as it is.  I like to think that my mother's future will be much brighter than her past now that she's unburdened by me, and I want to help her make that happen.

Blogging Challenge Day 2: My First Love

Well, this should be pretty easy since... I've never been in love before. I consider myself a late bloomer. I just started dating in my early twenties, and haven't really dated that much yet. It bothers me sometimes that I haven't experienced what so many others my age have already, but I'm starting to already see that a lot of things are wasted on youth, love included. Can we really understand and appreciate it? So many can't, and I wonder if I should relax and have fun in the 5 years that I have left of my twenties, and save the love and romance for when I know exactly what to do with it. Don't get me wrong - I won't turn it away. But there are too many girls my age looking for their husband and the father of their children, when they barely know how to take care of themselves or what they want from life. I'm still figuring that stuff out, and I know that if I rush it I'll get it wrong.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Ursulines Ave,New Orleans,United States