such a waste of a young heart

don't you worry - there's still time

2011-10-13T08:22:00.001-07:00

it just became very clear to me that i am really wasting my (emotional) life. i'm listening to tegan and sara while i try to grade and the line, "i can't say that i'll love you forever" kind of hit me?

that's ridiculous. it's a song. and maybe a million people have said this to me in some variation a billion times in the last decade, probably. right?

so what is it? i don't know. i'm staring at this picture in my office of the two of us together, nm and i, and i'm thinking - really? this is what you're doing, rachel? really?

and don't get me wrong - some of the best memories of my life, hands down. but lately...i don't know.

there's still time, says tegan and sara. and i want to believe them. i want to be able to say "i won't say that i'll love you forever."

but here's the real question: how do you move on without letting go?

getting serious

2011-09-03T23:11:00.001-07:00

i don't know if you know this about me, but i'm a pretty cynical person.

i'm talking the whole big cliche. a quick google search of "cynical woman" doesn't yield an image of me, sure, but it does provide these gems:

this lady is NOT IMPRESSED with your BS, and she is not afraid to let her facial expressions and sarcastic comments (like "of course I AM SO INTERESTED IN THIS CONVERSATION) let you know that she is never going to be impressed with you.

then there's this one:

which, you know, is medusa, who is five seconds from letting one of her face hairs just eat your face.

i am pretty much the hate child of these two women. at least lately. and i guess i didn't realize it until a friend told me that he apparently wasn't enjoying my company so much as of late.

I KNOW, CRAZY, RIGHT?

here's the thing. i know that i let myself get into a rut lately. (read: last two years). i don't know what happened. wait. i do. I GOT FUCKING UNHAPPY. that's what happened. big mystery solved, i guess? the why is a little more complicated than a blog post will allow. so let's not dwell on the why and start in on the WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? question that i think we all (READ: me, and that one friend i've managed to keep) are all asking.

i don't know. but i know it has something to do with being healthy. i'm not talking about zone/atkins/binge dieting that is so popular with sadomasochistic women everywhere. for the last two years, i've basically lived in two areas: my bedroom and my office. how about some sun? i can put on some sunscreen. i can soak up some vitamin d and NOT look like a handbag in ten to fifteen years.
depression is no joke, and while i don't exactly sit around imagining the ways i'm going to off myself (seriously - i'm still a chicken when it comes to physical pain), i have definitely never felt more alone than i have in my entire life.

why am i writing this and then publishing it?

because i think it's time to get serious (hence, the blog post - I'VE GOT CONNECTIONS TO MAKE HERE). there's something to be said about accountability, i suppose. and also, i don't want to be ashamed of this. there's nothing to be ashamed of. i'm lonely. i'm isolated. i'm depressed.

I'M DEPRESSED.

but i'm not going to die. and i CAN change it.

i know i'm not ever going to be the kind of woman who is bubbly or happy all the time or lives in love or that kind of crap. but i think that if i could be less miserable so that i didn't make the people i love miserable, that is a step in the right direction?

i think i can be cynical, and be sarcastic, and not fall into that patriarchal, stereotypical vision of the subservient, happy, doting woman, without being this unhappy. basically, my unhappiness doesn't stem from being single, is what i'm trying to say, so if you think that i just need me a man, PLEASE DON'T TALK TO ME.

but if you think that i can do this, and you would like to be supportive of that, then please talk to me, even when i am making it difficult for you. please.

they shoot wise people, don't they?

2010-12-11T09:26:00.000-08:00

i've been thinking about whether not i've even been able to make a wise decision this year. and other than the "letting go" decision, i've come up with...nothing.

i don't think this means that i don't make decisions ever. i just think it means that i've been pretty easy on myself this year in terms of life choices. i've just been going through the motions, doing what needs to be done, without ever really asking myself if any of this is what i want. or if i'm doing what i want. or something.

i've never been a wise person. i make irrational, last-minute decisions, and i pretty much ignore whatever consequences come my way. i'm good at compartmentalizing, and that's why i've been able to live my life in this way for so long. consequence? ah, i'll think about that later. i just do whatever strikes me at the time, and i live in the mess that will eventually consume me.

i think this is how most americans live, really. i don't want to get all "americans are this way" on you, but seriously - americans are this way. we're fickle and juvenile and noncommittal and quick-tempered and impulsive.

we're like this. wilson phillips knows what it's all about.

so those kind of lyrics aren't really conducive to a wise personality, right? i'm not saying my life philosophy, or america's life philosophy, rests in a silly 90s pop song. but in a way, i kind of am. like a 90s pop song, we're frivolous and exciting and repetitive and boring and ridiculous and how on earth can you find some kind of wisdom in all of that?

i mean, they're not analyzing - they say not to! and we try not to over-analyze everything. and maybe we lose a little of the more significant analysis that could lead to a little more wisdom in our lives..?

but really, i don't wanna think about it, don't wanna think clear.

i am an old lady

2010-12-10T10:27:00.000-08:00

this is the reason i don't party. i teach. i love my job. i want to do this forever. at least, right now i want to do this forever. and the kind of partying my friends do (at least, the friends that actually go to parties) is not conducive to keeping my job. so i don't.

and honestly, i probably wouldn't want to party even if this wasn't an obstacle. a friend recently gave me the party highlights for one night and eventually the story ended when, after spending a significant amount of time watching a fight and in fact going to the party to watch this fight, she left because one of the guy's bullets fell out of his pants pocket.

not the life i want to lead.

nobody really likes self-deprecating humor

2010-12-08T11:35:00.001-08:00

okay, i am so totally not into this prompt for reverb 10, and i feel guilty about it. because i know that the person who suggested it means no harm. only means for us to love ourselves more. to appreciate ourselves more. to care about ourselves more.

and really, what's so terrible about that?

but that's not what i do. it's not what i can do. i hope that by the changes i'm making in my life that eventually i can do that, but i'm not at that place now. not anywhere near that place.

so, in lieu of that, i'll just give you this gross/hot picture.

MAN, I AM SO BEAUTIFUL.

my little literary community.

2010-12-08T11:11:00.000-08:00

i didn't discover this community in 2010, as reverb 10 asks for yesterday's prompt. but i don't care. i'm adapting this prompt to suit my own needs. and there's nothing you can do about it.

here's my love letter to my community.

hello, my little literary community,

remember the time you had to force me to be friends with you?

so, thank you. you saved me. in many, many ways that i could probably never express well - in blog form, in real life form, in picture form. but i promise that i'm going to try as best i can. in all of those forms. because the last few years have been tough, but they would have been unbearable if i had refused to let you all into my life.

i wouldn't have had moments like this:

remember the night? i was house-sitting. it was summer. my ex-boyfriend - my only ex-boyfriend - had just recently announced his stupid engagement. or maybe he was getting married? i forget now, but then, everything burned. so i washed everything away, with laughs and dinner (i think it was pizza?) and two bottles of wine. you both said it was okay, that i was entitled to this, and you let me go on and on and on about a boyfriend i had when i was two. not really. i was nineteen. but seriously, who needs to drink two bottles of wine because the boyfriend you had as a teenager is growing up and getting married? i was completely childish in those moments, and they let me. and our other dear friend, at home for the summer, even called in, and we're all huddling around the telephone, and i'm giggling and being loud and this other friend, on the phone, is using her sweetest "you're crazy, rachel" voice, and i just felt so at ease.

that's what's so great about this community. it's easy.
there's no drama. there are no problems. there are only moments we collect. movies and dinners and coffees and drives and there are conversations strewn about amid all of those moments. and they're all so wonderful. and i try to think back and remember all of the friendships i've had that have been this lacking in drama.

and i'm coming up empty, for the most part.

without being forced into a strange, awkward dinner with these people, i wouldn't have had moments like this:

this is the friend on the phone. she's lovely, and we traveled back from the south to pullman in january. we had a layover in minnesota. if you know anything about weather there, you can imagine how well that went. but we made the most of it, and we spent this great day in the mall of america. now, it wasn't great because we were in the mall of america. that part was awful. it was the end of vacation. we were broke. we had no way to transport items even if we weren't broke. water everywhere and not a drop to drink. it was really frustrating. but the company never was, and we found ourselves in this underground aquarium taking pictures with giant turtles and laughing at shark coitus like we were twelve-year-old boys.

so, my friends, this love letter is to tell you this - that you've made my life better. and i'm beginning to realize that there isn't much more than that. not more than anybody could possibly ask for.

i'm not an affectionate person. not really. but i love you all - you've become so much more than those strange people who just wanted to have dinner with me. you've become my community - a family - to me.

what i make when i'm inspired

2010-12-08T11:00:00.000-08:00

at the very beginning of the year, my friend and i decided we were going to make an iphone video project - talking about relationships (ours specifically) and others more generally. somehow, we wanted to get at how we define relationships, love, companionship, all of those things. we wanted to work out our own thoughts, but we wanted to show how and why we work the way we do.

we have a really weird relationship. but it works. somehow.

anyway, we probably stopped doing this by about march. i got busy. he got busy. i decided to derail my entire life by choosing do to do things and choosing not to do things. he decided he's going to be a doctor. we're weird people.

but we did make things before we decided to stop. and somehow, someway, i want us to finish something before i leave this state next year. i want us to make a video that, if nothing else, is a little piece of our history. of our story. and if i don't show it with anyone else like we originally set out (to make a documentary), i'll be just fine with that.

but i'll share this with you, just as a taste.

(from reverb 10's prompt for december 6 - i know, i'm still behind)

of letting go (and breathing in)

2010-12-06T10:32:00.000-08:00

it's been a short reverb 10 week, so this might seem like it is a premature statement, but i think this will be the most difficult prompt for me. yesterday's prompt asks us to discuss "what (or whom) we let go of this year." as if that isn't enough, we also have to share why.

the thing, for me, about blogging is that i don't want it to be a diary. i have strong feelings about this. if i wanted to write a diary, i would just write a diary. i wouldn't publish it for (potentially, though admittedly unlikely) the whole world to read. and i don't say that because i don't think people should be open. i just have this issue with the reasons why stories are told. that is, i think all stories should have reasons for being told beyond catharsis for the teller.

that's easy, isn't it? you could just justify that people need your story to connect to the people of the world, and voila! your story is now significant.

that's cheating, people.

i'm stalling. you know that, right?

i'm afraid to tell this because i don't know the purpose of sharing, beyond my own selfish gains.

this is the most difficult prompt, but i don't have the time for a difficult prompt. i hope that i can come back to this prompt, when i've had some time to let this decision set.

but i have made a decision, and i am letting go. i'm letting go of the idea that i have to do everything right now. i'm letting go of the idea that if i don't do exactly the opposite of what another person does, it means i will become them. i am letting go of the pressure.

all of this so i can let go of the half-life i've been living, and adopt something a bit more fulfilling.

an annoying response - an exercise in being that person

2010-12-06T09:17:00.000-08:00

apparently i'm just having all kinds of philosophical problems with the reverb 10 prompts. last saturday's prompt (i had company this weekend and was busy - oops) seems kind of strange to me. i am not sure how anyone can cultivate a sense of wonder. isn't the point of wonder that it is - beyond understanding, in some way, at least initially? i don't know how i create something that is supposed to bewilder and surprise me. i feel like the magic of wonder would be lost somehow if i tried.

but i will say that my students provide me with a sense of wonder quite frequently. i'm in the middle of a huge crossroads in my life, b.spears style, and i think it's saying so much that even in the heartbreaking strength of my uncertainty, my affection for teaching and my students never wavers. i mean, my affections for specific students at specific moments (like, when they don't do their work or don't show up to class) might waver slightly, but i think that's only fair.

so i guess what i'm saying is: i don't DO anything to cultivate a sense of wonder, but i'm always welcoming when it comes around.

a moment, a love, a dream (aloud)

2010-12-03T08:55:00.000-08:00

it feels wrong to rank the moments of my year and to single out the one moment that i felt most alive. but that's what today's reverb 10 prompt asks of me - to "pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors)."

so i won't say that one of them is the moment. i will share a moment. share is the operative word, here. i'm pulling a chunk of writing from my livejournal (that is not public). maybe you call that cheating, because i'm not creating new material. to you, i say - i am tired today. i've conferenced with over forty freshman in two days. give me a break.

"i was at his place saturday night, squeezing in as much time with him as possible before i left again. i made him walk me to my car. i don't know why that is so important to me. it isn't that important to me, actually. i just like that he will do it. which is probably a terrible thing to say/admit. but whatever.
so he walks me, and he lives on the lake, so right outside his door is the lake. he notices that his dad's paddle boat is drifting, but he refuses to get in the water to get it. so he decides to tie a rope to a rake and throw the rake out into the lake, trying to hook the boat. of course this doesn't work, but he continues to try until he loses one rake in the lake and then runs into the garage to get more equipment. the second try doesn't work either, although he manages to keep a hold of the rake. this sounds like a stupid story. even typing it, i'm thinking - what the hell was so great about that? - but you don't know. you weren't there. and his laugh was so contagious and warm and he makes every moment i am with him something special. every moment isn't perfect. but i remember them anyway. and then he hugs me and i push my face into his chest and for a moment i can pretend that all of these emotions go somewhere - do something other than keep me tied to a place i have outgrown."

that is a moment from the middle of april. i'm thinking about that moment, and i remember just...feeling so much love. i don't know if i can define it. i just felt really present. alive isn't the right word. i felt there. connected to another person for a moment and it was great.

but the teaching moment - that's special. we're talking about taylor swift one day in a section spring semester. there was this article (which is really quite brilliant - highly recommended). the students went crazy for it. at least, this particular section did. and i have to say, i've never sat in on a more vibrant, excited class than that day. they wanted to talk. they NEEDED to talk. i couldn't get them to be quiet. they jumped in, talked over each other, demanded TO BE HEARD DAMMIT IT'S MY TURN - and i was just so in love with teaching that day. i love it every day, but that day. i just felt so happy. and the thing that's great about it is that i knew that i didn't do anything. teaching isn't always about teaching. it's about facilitating those moments where they can teach themselves to become better thinkers and members of a community. and they were -
there was this moment where one of the male students talked about how he liked taylor swift because it reminded him of his high school crush (awe). and there was another male student who said that he knew lots of really nice whores. so, you know, it was a scattered conversation. but they were all challenging each other. and challenging me. and i felt like we were all in class that day.

it was great.

the life and times of the dream

2010-12-02T07:34:00.000-08:00

reverb 10 asks, for day two, "what do you do each day that doesn't contribute to your writing - and can you eliminate it?"

a former professor and current colleague recently asked me if i had given up the dream. because of the awkward nature of carrying a conversation on a heavily trafficked public transit route, i had to ask him to repeat the question. i told myself i hadn't heard him right, although i knew i had. and i really wouldn't have even needed clarification, but he gave it anyway. "writing," he said.
and in the brief seconds it took me to gain composure and respond, a million thoughts ran through my mind - a jumbled mess of questions and answers and exclamations: no! why do you think that? does everyone? dreams are not realistic anyway. what a weird question to ask another person. probably. i've changed my dream. the dream evolved. i'm terrified the answer is yes.

i can't remember precisely how i actually responded to the question, but i'm sure it was less eloquent and more uncomfortable. he accepted my answer and moved into other idle filler conversation before my stop, but the question still bothers me - weeks later.

have i given up the dream?

it's difficult to live as a cynic and a romantic. you say impossible, but i am not so sure. i am blasted with romantic notions of winning pulitzers and other awards for my subtle yet surprisingly astute short creative fiction while at the same time gaining acclaim for contributing to the development of stronger introductory composition programs and generally being a more awesome version of dead poet's society's mr. keating. all the while, though, i know the realities of the situation - that my writing is just as average as the next person's, and my teaching isn't much stronger. i'm not saying i'm terrible. i'm saying i'm not exceptional. i've never been. so, while my writing has often been the best thing about me, as a marketable product, that's hardly saying much.

because of this, i find myself filling much of my time with other...pursuits, for want of a better term. i can't believe that anybody would call watching the vampire diaries or fringe a pursuit, but it's what i do. i'm thinking and am having a hard time coming up with much else that i do in the moments i am not writing or thinking about writing. i think about writing quite frequently, actually. that just never actually is manifested into an actual product.

i mean, here's the thing about dreams that i know, or at least i think i know: dreams very rarely share company with reality. as the years pass, i become more aware of the limits of this world, of my own limits as a writer and thinker and person. and it seems to me that i'm at a crossroads in my life, where i have to decide precisely what i want my life to be, and the weight of that decision prevents me from actually making one. it's like this:

remember beauty and the beast? and belle's great reprise of the song that is her namesake. i don't know how long that link will work, so i'll recap. she's singing about - a desire. a desire that is almost undefinable. she wants more than the life that has seemingly been alloted to her. "i want so much more than they've got planned."

so although in the previous post i wrote that i know what i want, it's actually a bit more complicated than that. i know who i love, and i know what i love. perhaps that was the more accurate way to write what i did yesterday. but what i want? i want a life that doesn't feel like it exists for nothing. and people will respond that family and friends create the meaning in your life, but i don't want to rely on other people to be the meaning makers in my own life. they help create the meaning, but they shouldn't control it. i want adventure, but i don't want the kind of adventure belle seems to find, with a handsome prince masked as a bad boy whom i can magically melt with my warm, kind heart. i've never really been that kind of girl, even when i'm at my most cliche. i've never needed that narrative in order to validate my life. and for the most part i've been okay - happy, even - with that. but i feel like something is missing. desunt nonnulla- something is missing.

and i'm going to keep trying to find out whatever that something is, which means it is my duty to do more than write. i don't want one singular love to consume the whole of me, to speak for all of me. so the very long answer to the very simple question is this:

no, i can't eliminate it, because what i do each day that doesn't contribute to my writing is my life.

reflect/manifest - until the very end

2010-12-01T19:55:00.000-08:00

prompted by jm, i decided to join the reverb 10 project. i shouldn't. i don't have the time. i'm busy. i'm drowning. i can barely breathe.

but they sucked me in, of course, because of this part of their mission statement: "we’re connected by the belief that sharing our stories has the power to change us. we look forward to reading yours." sharing our stories has the power to change us.

the sentimental sap in me loves that. the pessimistic side of me that seems to grow each year laughs in that sentimental sap's face. it's a very confusing time for me.

today's prompt asks people to "encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. explain why you're choosing that word. now, imagine it's one year from today. what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you? "

without hesitation, this is that word, in any form:

taken from dictionary.com

come on. you already know why i'm choosing this word. if you don't, take a look at that self-portrait that stands as the welcome sign to my blog, which can conceivably called the front door to my digital life (especially now that my facebook is dead). i'm a mess. and that mess is because of my confusion. because i'm confused. because this is confusing, my life - this year.

i'm perplexed and bewildered by my inability to make any confident decisions re: my life. in one moment, i think i know precisely what i want (a phd), who i want (nm), why i want what i want (<3), and then suddenly, everything's hazy. i question whether or not the phd is my best option (because how can i possibly survive in this academic community on my own - and trust me, no family members are following). the who i want is always in a constant state of flux that i will not discuss today. the reasons why. . . let's just say that i sometimes wonder if i am doing what i'm doing for the right reasons.
because of all this second guessing, i've made my path unclear.
and i fail to distinguish between feeling lost and feeling a traditional sense of apprehension.
and that ambiguity is disconcerting.
so, there's this life i'm living that is completely out of order. i'm supposed to feel more confident in my life and self now than i did at sixteen.

and i'm almost certain that, no matter how archaic the dictionary thinks this is, all of this confusion is certainly going to bring ruin to my life.

a year from today, i'll be about ten minutes (not literally) from turning 27, and i'd like the word to be - better. i'd like to be better than this.

why i deleted (my) facebook

2010-10-04T10:57:00.000-07:00

i remember when i was first introduced to facebook. it was 2005. i had just recently been dumped by my first (and only) boyfriend. we had been avid social network users during our relationship. we were linked together via our myspace pages (although not in the way facebook links users), our friendster pages; we had even joined this site, orkut, although i'm not really sure what that site did. but maybe that's the problem at the heart of this: i'm not quite sure i understand what any of these sites really do. but more on that later.
my ex-boyfriend and i used livejournal rather prodigiously. we used the site for nothing more than diary writing. it wasn't an actual blog, in that we invited much commentary into our personal lives and public thoughts. we just wrote. we were dating long-distance, so we probably existed more as a couple online than we did in a physical space, especially near the end. in fact, i can still look online and see the remnants of that failed relationship.

i can see the livejournal entries i wrote to and about him. i can see his comments to me (even though the link to that livejournal is dead - he deleted his almost immediately after we broke up). our relationship still exists - in this digital environment - and i find that both comforting and incredibly disconcerting. comforting in that i can remember fondly how excited i was about the blossoming new relationship. disconcerting because it is entirely timeless and untouchable, unchangeable - something a real relationship (romantic or otherwise) can never really be.
shortly after our breakup, some nameless person turned me on to facebook. i already had a myspace, and i thought signing up for just one more site seemed ridiculous. but i ultimately did decide to join. and you're wondering why. or maybe you already know. you probably do, because it's completely obvious.
my ex-boyfriend had a facebook page.
i couldn't believe it. we had been dating for over a year and a half. we shared things. we blogged about each other. we were intimate, but i had no idea that he existed in this social space. i was outraged. beyond that. i was a girl scorned, and i saw every flirty wall post between he and his next girlfriend as fuel to my fire. there's that old notion that you're supposed to fight fire with fire, and that's precisely what i was going to do. with my own facebook page. we had gone to high school together, so i knew that, even though we didn't exist in the same college network, he'd eventually find me. we had the same friends. or, we could pretend that we had the same friends. i could legitimately request his friends to be mine because they knew me. and just a few wall posts later, i knew he wouldn't be able to ignore my existence (because at this point, our post-breakup communication had turned rather ugly, and he was rightfully ignoring my phone calls).
i wanted to insert myself into his life. and what was just a simple (and rather stupid) revenge fantasy warped into something completely different. turns out everybody had facebook. and the longer i had it, the more addicted i became to it. i'm the product of two addicts and although i'm not addicted to any chemical substances, i find that i still have an addictive personality, and it asserts itself in the weirdest places. my first two years of college, i went to evergreen in olympia. it was hippie and patchouli and dreadlocks; my high school is from central washington, which is none of those things. so it's no surprise that i lost contact with most of my school friends. facebook solved that problem. suddenly we were friends again, sharing each other's pictures and parties and lives. sure, i never talked with any of them, but it didn't matter. i rationalized it the way everyone does. it's just like email, but it's more convenient. you can go to one website, chat with and keep in contact with all of your friends, without having to send out fifty or one hundred emails.
but then weird things started to happen, the weirdest of which (and i still don't understand this) is this: people that didn't even like me in high school started to request we be friends. i was torn. on the one hand, i'd be friends with amanda or mariel or sarah. you know them. they're the mean girls at your high school too.

(taken from the abercrombie & fitch website)
with the exception of mariel. it's kind of an old person's name, but she was blonde and thin and of course she was going to exceed the potential of her name. but that's getting off track. we were going to be friends. they were inviting me into their social circle, just as if they were inviting me to a high school party.
except it's nothing like that. i knew - and i can't tell you how, but i still know - that none of them would even consider spending time with me in real life. but there's something about the numbers. having hundreds of friends on facebook is like winning an award. and they weren't even interested in my life. after i accepted their friend requests and we became "facebook friends," i waited for them to comment on my clever little facebook statuses, or the pictures i posted, or the notes i posted (about how hot john stamos is - i mean, who doesn't agree with that?). but those notifications never came. our beautiful friendships never blossomed. still, i was addicted, but for different reasons entirely.
facebook tries to pretend like they have some privacy built into their system, but let's be honest. as long as you have a friend who has a friend who is friends with somebody who doesn't want to be friends with you, it wouldn't take much effort to see the profile. sometimes people make it easier for you and just unblock their profile. those are the best. you can invade their life without even the pretense of friendship.
take this former friend of mine. our friendship ended on poor terms. what other way is there to end a friendship? it had to do with being young, and being mean, and being selfish, and most of those adjectives are referring to me. although we were both young. we stopped speaking around october of 2006, stopped living together in may of 2007, and a few years ago, i used to include looking at her facebook profile page an important part of my morning routine. i would get to my office by 7:30 am, cook my instant oatmeal in the communal microwave, and crack open a diet coke. then i'd open my computer, check my email, my facebook, my twitter account, and then i'd check her facebook page. i'd rummage through it, reading the various wall posts, her status updates. i didn't do it to mock her. i just wanted to be a part of her life, even slightly. i felt like we were friends again, a little bit, because i had this open access to her frustration with school, her job shifts, her weekend plans. the truth is this: i missed her. and facebook allowed me to lessen that.
i don't know if she found out. i can't imagine how. but eventually she blocked her profile to friends-only, and my comfort disappeared. i won't lie - i was incredibly disappointed when i realized i wouldn't be able to learn about her life anymore. but that's the thing with facebook, and it happens all the time with people you're actually facebook friends with - one minute, you're friends, liking each other's statuses, poking each other back and forth, and then BAM! you've been deleted. they were "cleaning out their facebook" or just decided to have "close friends and family only," although i really doubt anybody has over one hundred close friends and family members online. but maybe i'm wrong.
but that's not why i decided to delete facebook. although i'll tell you that it doesn't help when friends of mine ask me to block their new boyfriend's ex-girlfriend, or when a person exists with the nickname "facebook jessica," or when my sister and youngest brother (ten and twelve years my junior) start facebooking me. all of those reasons i think are legitimate reasons to want to exit the facebook universe. because . . . . gross. i'm nearly twenty-six years old. i don't have time to be a part of somebody else's relationship drama. i certainly don't want to see my sixteen-year-old sister's stereotypical facebook photo shot (you know the pose - the pouty face, the tank top, the visible cleavage). those are all great reasons. but they're not THE reason.
the reason is this: i had 118 friends before i deleted my facebook. 118 people. 118 people who all claim to be my friend. and yet, i have never felt more isolated and alone than i do right now. at this point in my life. and all of these people like my status updates, like some of the photos i post, but they know nothing about me. and they don't care to find out. how do i know this? because i don't care to know much of anything about them. it's mutual. i'm not the facebook saint here. i'm just as culpable in this fostering of fake relationships. and i'm tired of it. i had 118 friends, but i can barely count on one hand the amount of people i know that actually know or care anything about me. i had 118 friends, and i bet you a small portion of them even notice that my facebook has been deleted. i had 118 friends, and i don't miss them. isn't there something wrong with that?

an exercise in being cryptic.

2010-09-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

i've been blogging for this graduate class i'm sitting in on this semester, and it's changing the way i feel about blogging. on the one hand, i still love it. i've blogged in some way or another since 2003, when a dear friend set me up with a livejournal account. sure, it sometimes operates as a diary/journal. but it also acts as my digital log, a way for me to keep track of my memories. i'm unreliable because i'm human. okay, so maybe that means that my entries are unreliable too, but they are more reliable than trying to remember an event that happened ten years ago on the fly, so i think that's pretty impressive.
for example, on this date in 2007, i posted this gem:

"i need to do my laundry. everything is dirty.

i need to clean my apartment. it stinks.

i need to take a shower. i stink.

nobody in my program likes me. HA! SEE ABOVE. THAT IS PROBABLY WHY!

i really can't stand jaslene from the last cycle...gross.gross.gross."

self-indulgent? yes. pointless? yes. random? yes. but it tells me a little bit about my life at that moment. i was beginning the difficult task of being a graduate student, and i didn't know how to do it. so everything in my life was a mess. my personal relationships. my professional ones. the only relationship i really carried out was with my television. maybe you couldn't get all of that from the entry, but i can, and it is important to me when i think about the trajectory of my life - where it's been but also where it's going.

i've been thinking a lot lately about what i want my life to be, who i want in my life, and what i want my home to be. all of my friends, or many of them, are going about the business of getting engaged, or planning weddings, or having babies, or finding men to father the babies they've already got, and i just feel like i'm in exactly the same place as i was three years ago. i mean, that above sentence, really could describe me right now - except graduate school is over (for now).

what does that have to do with blogging? let me tell you.

nobody cares. nobody cares about my life, or how i analyze it. it's just a conversation i put out there. we talk at each other, but we rarely talk with each other. and that is so frustrating to me. you think, "hey, i've got this great idea, or maybe not such a great idea but it's an idea, and i'm going to blog about it and share it with my community," but then nobody responds and you're left with the silence of that. that you've composed all this material and nobody has anything to say about it. and that bothers me because i keep thinking - why am i really blogging (instead of just posting this on livejournal, blocked to friends-only)? do i get off on the voyeurism of it? do i like the audience? or do i really feel like i'm contributing something worthwhile. and if i do feel that way, to whom am i contributing? i know a few friends subscribe to the blog, so they're compelled to read it. but do they read it because they actually care to converse with me, or is it a desire to keep tabs on the people who used to be a part of your life?

that probably reads really harsh. i don't mean it to be. but apparently i am great at pushing everybody away, so why limit that talent to just my physical interactions with people?

so i could tell you that i'm thinking that what i really want is change, but that won't mean anything to you. i could tell you that i still don't want to get married, or have kids, but that i'm terrified of being alone, and what could you possibly say, other than "yeah, me too" or "eventually you'll change your mind," and both of those responses are neither true nor helpful. people don't really fear that they'll be alone, because people are always going about the business of either finding what they want or settling for what they've found.

i thought i knew what i wanted. now i don't know. but i know what i don't want. but that doesn't help me at all.

i guess all of that to say: i'm having trouble living right now, and i don't know what to do about any of it. i'm in the middle of transitioning, and i'm not sure where i'm going to end up. how are you doing these days?

happily ever after

2010-07-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

i am supposed to attend a friend's wedding at the end of this month, but due to financial hardship, i cannot. it is disappointing to me only because of what it means to see this friend get married and not because i am fond of weddings in general. they are boring, self-indulgent, and affirm values that i believe to be antiquated and dangerous. but the friend in question i've known since she was just a small girl. she's really so lovely and fun and i have this fond memory of walking around the spring parade with her when she was just ten or so. so because of that reason, and that reason alone, i am disappointed. anybody else, and i'd probably think the lack of money was serendipitous.

according to urbandictionary.com, a wedding is defined as: "a spiffy ceremony in which two people get married only to divorce/kill each other a year later." that's the first definition. there is a fairly disgusting third definition in which one person rails about how every bodily fluid will be secreted during the wedding. gross.

but i think it's telling that most of these definitions are negative. you say, "obviously rachel - you picked "urban dictionary." what did you expect?" and i know that it's not exactly webster's dictionary, but this is the voice of the people, is it not? at the very least, it is the voice of grammatically challenged twenty-year-olds.

i already told you that i feel weddings are awful, in so many words, and for the most part, i mean that. the white dress? being dumped from father to husband? mr. and mrs. MAN? garters? bouquets? do i even have to follow up these questions with the statements that clarify just what is wrong with each of these heinous traditions?

still, some weddings can be nice. if a wedding looks like this, maybe i don't have a problem with it. the first time i saw that video, i cried. CRIED LIKE A LITTLE BABY, people. and why? i couldn't really explain it at first. now, i think it must have something to do with the attitude behind these strangers' nuptials. i like the idea that they don't take the ceremony seriously - or they do, but they don't take the traditions seriously. i'm sure there is a lot of love in that couple, but none of it is for tradition. and i really like that. i like that this isn't the billionth couple in america getting married. this is j and k - two randoms that became two individuals with one fateful video. some people said tacky/cheesy. i say those people are so heavily entrenched in the tradition that they cannot see joy when it so clearly manifests itself in an awesome wedding dance. sure, chris brown is singing. i don't care. this isn't about forgive or forget the rihanna beater. this is about forever, and dancing, and fun, and love. and it made me want a wedding like that, if i were a person who wanted weddings. wanted to get married.

marriages, on the other hand, i have more complicated feelings about. feelings i probably won't be able to explain in this post. so i won't.

all of this to really say, i hate weddings, but i'm sure that yours, my dear friend, will be absolutely lovely. because you are.

babies and ladies

2010-06-30T15:20:00.000-07:00

my friend ls continually tells me that i am going to end up with five or eight or ten kids. the number fluctuates depending on how much she wants to irritate me. it always does, to some degree, although i can't fathom why. it is not as if i will have five or eight or ten kids, just because she says so aloud. last time i checked, procreation didn't work that way (although it has been awhile since i practiced, so i don't know - maybe they've changed things?). after the irritation has subsided, i always come back to the same curious thought: me, pregnant, fatter than i already am, about to burst. for some reason, this image is set in some idyllic beach house, and i'm pregnant in the summer, eating watermelon, barefoot, lying on the couch while some anonymous, faceless man fans my perspiration away. it's always almost lovely, just slightly intoxicating, until i remember that babies cry too much. then the image shifts and i'm susan smith-ing it into the backseat of a cop car because i can't hack it as a mother.

i am with all those single ladies (or attached ladies) that think their uterus is just fine perpetually vacant. i have never felt the maternal need that some of my other female friends have. that isn't to say, of course, that they are wrong or weird or somehow not feminist. it just means that they are tied down where i am not. although i have a friend, jg, who has more life experiences than i have, and she has a two and a half-year-old. it isn't that i don't have a child because i have a life; rather, i don't have a child in case i ever manage to create a life. i don't have a child in anticipation of what my life could be.

and i thought there were so many women in agreement, but more than that - i thought that mainstream america was starting to align with this thinking as well. WRONG. even my former beloved sex and the city is a total feminism traitor. i haven't managed to see the second movie yet, so i'll refrain from talking about it in detail (although i must say that the trailer where charlotte's daughter smacks her designer-label-wearing butt is absolutely ludicrous. as in, the way i am going to assert my feminist independence is by wearing expensive clothes while my six year old is painting. brilliant). the first movie, though, was just atrocious. you think about it. charlotte was always a whiny, needy character, who craved motherhood. but miranda? miranda was always my favorite character, and then she had a baby. and the series and movie did try to show moments where miranda wanted a life outside motherhood. but they were all depressing. she lied to one suitor about actually having a baby, brought him back home, and while working her very best to secure an orgasm (something everyone is entitled to!), ignores the child crying until the guy gives up. i mean, it is hilarious and everything, but it's also uncomfortable and depressing. because what does that imply? the show didn't tell women that they could have it all. no, in that scene, they told women what we already know - you have to choose. mother or not. business or not. love or not. work or not. there is never any in between.

now you're thinking: come on, rachel. pop culture in america is not exactly liberal in viewing of women and a woman's role in the world. we're still sex. or mothers. or bitches. the end. and you're right - those three categories can be placed on most women in pop culture, but i still thought that some shows, some movies, some writers were trying to break that mold. some are. i know they are - they just can't get through.

because americans won't have it any other way. i'm reminded again of my friend jg. she's the best example i have of a woman who has a child but is not defined in her role as a mother entirely. it is part of who she is, of course, but she does not let that nor does she want it to be all that she is. and for the most part, she's great and blurring those lines, finding the in between. still, the world refuses to let her live in that in between. currently, she's in a fight with the child's father for custody, and because she refuses to sit at home and watch her child sleep, she's called a slut and a whore and accused of never watching her child. she works 5 days/40 hours a week, tucks in her child every night, and yet, if she wants to go cut loose dancing or drinking, she's a terrible mother. again, you might say - well that has to do with heat of the moment and the issues of custody cases. that isn't a reflection of reality. BUT IT IS! it is. enough documentation of her going out every weekend (which she doesn't, by the way) and the courts might think, "hey, maybe she is unfit." they might not do anything about that thought, but it would still be there, completely unjustified but still on everyone's mind.

that is a huge problem for me. i don't actually go out much, on account of i'm a reclusive freak, but say i wanted to go out. say i wanted to go out every saturday night, for a whiskey sour or two and maybe a shot of tequila if the mood stuck me. i would be responsible. i'd take a cab. i'd be with friends. and i'd come home, pleasantly intoxicated, and wake up with my child like a responsible parent the next day, plus an additional headache and the need to hydrate myself every thirty minutes. that shouldn't be a problem, but you can bet your ass that in a suburban neighborhood, i'd be "that parent." that unfit parent, that boozy floozy.

plus there's this whole problem. i was raised mostly in a single-parent household. even when it was a two-person household, it was a single-parent household. sometimes, it was a no-parent household, or a rachel-is-the-parent household. anyway, remember that image i have of myself pregnant? there is a reason that the guy is nameless and faceless - because i can't picture myself married, or raising a child with a person. i always picture myself as a single parent if i think of myself as a parent at all. and that seems to be a problem to me. it isn't that i think that all families need to have two people to be happy. i don't. but i do think that, for me, i would want somebody to help me pick up the slack. if i wanted to sleep in, i'd want somebody there to soothe the baby. if i couldn't make it to pick up the kid from school, i'd want the pinch hitter. or something. i'd want somebody that was required to be there too, so that i didn't feel like i had to constantly ask for favors from family and friends. i can't owe that many people that much.

so, whenever my friend tells me how many kids i'm going to end up having, i feel the urge to punch her in the face (anger outbursts are also probably not a great trait when you want to procreate, i'd imagine). i want to scream, "i won't have kids! i won't!" as if that matters. as if saying it aloud will make it true. i don't know what will happen. i definitely believe in (gasp) abortion. i always say i'd definitely have one if i ever got pregnant. but then i think, what if i couldn't? what if i couldn't bear the thought of not having a child with somebody that i loved? so, i guess that means if i don't love you, i'm probably going to kill your child.

but here's the secret: sometimes i imagine it. i blame this on my nephew and k, jg's child. my nephew is probably the sweetest little boy i've ever encountered, and i'll say the same about k, the sweetest little girl. i watch k and my nephew grow, and i'm so amazed. i fall into this dreamy state. once, when i had my nephew for the weekend, we were at the grocery store and a woman called me his mother. this is not the first time this has happened. i don't correct people when it does, unless somebody i know is with me and i am forced to admit that i am not. but why do i do that? why lie about it? why let them think i am his mother? i'll never see them again, but that look on their face - when they see how beautiful he is and look at me, as if to say, "congratulations on your beautiful child," i want to keep that. i want to keep the congratulations as my own. i want him, for just this moment, to be mine. i want to experience that kind of pride. also love, but that desire doesn't come at the grocery store mother mix-ups. it comes from the sweet moments where he nuzzles into my chest for a nap, or when k and i play hide and seek. i taught her how to high-five, how to say gross, and how to blow spit bubbles (her mother loves that). i am so proud of those moments; i love the idea of her high-fiving people when i'm not around. i can't quite articulate why. i suppose it is because it feels like a part of me is always with her. i am a part of the narrative of her life now. i am the one person in the world who taught her how to high-five, such a simple act. but she can't unlearn it, and nobody can reteach it. i taught it. i was the one. i would guess it is a similar feeling to being the first person to do anything. you feel special, important, even if that feeling is false. i also feel like i get a part of her to take home with me, to carry around. she's now a piece of my narrative too. and that makes me so happy, i can't even begin to explain. i feel a part of this world in a way that i rarely do. i can see tangible proof that i contribute to the people around me, even in the simplest of ways.

i will think about this forever, probably, or until my lady parts stop working and it is no longer for my uterus to have a vacancy sign at all. i wonder if i'll have a child ever. i know i don't want a child, but for generic reasons. i know i want a child, but for selfish reasons. because of this, i don't know what will do. i don't want it to just happen to me. i don't want to just happen to wake up with a child. i want to want to have one, fully and completely, or not at all.

secret confession: i have the names of my children picked out, although to be honest, the first names shift continuously. when i was ten, i was sure her name would be kit, because i really loved a league of their own.

across the united states in 10 days

2010-06-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

it is fitting that on this, the first entry of the new blog, i write about how pumped i am for the deathly hallows film for a few reasons. reason one (the most beneficial reason for me): it lowers expectations. this isn't your funny blog. it isn't the blog you read when you're wondering what is happening in the world. this isn't the blog you read when you want snappy, biting commentary on the ways of the world and its people. no. this is the blog you read when you're bored. and probably because you went to high school with me. so this entry appropriately lowers any grandiose expectations you might have had.
reason two (the most beneficial for you): it allows you to see what i have to offer, as blogger, commentator, member of the human race, which is this: not much. i can talk to you about harry potter, about the vampire diaries, about the amount of times you can dye your hair red and be convinced strangers think it is totally natural. that's pretty much where i draw the line - frivolity is where it's at. where i'm at, anyway. at times, i may stumble upon a serious conversation, but i assure you that it will most likely be by accident.
reason three (the most awesome): harry potter is awesome, yo. and those of you who disagree can just stop reading. anything. in the world.

all i really want to say about the harry potter and the deathly hallows trailer is this: it was amazing, and i can't wait until november. i'll go all fan girl and wear my harry potter scarf, bring my wand, wear crimson and gold eyeshadow, and just be dorky and nerdy in general. you wait. it will be amazing, and i will post pictures of myself alongside the 100 confused, embarrassed sixteen-year-olds that i will surely be forced to watch it with during the midnight showing.

but that is entirely too frivolous for the inaugural post. so i'll talk about my most recent trip to boston, ma, which was completed via car in ten days. ten days! it was epic, in both exhilarating and exhausting ways. the reason for the trip is both complicated and simple, complicated mostly because i cannot and will not explain it on the internetz. bottom line: my friend j and i decided to go to cambridge to visit a mutual friend.
now, there is no possible way that you are interested enough to read a play-by-play of the entire trip. so i'll give you the highlights.

highlight #1 - rachel is introduced to the national monuments via the presidents.
that's right, folks. i saw mount rushmore. it was both as exciting as everybody said it would be and also kind of a let down. it was only a let down in the sense that once you see it and take a few snapshots (including one where you look cold and uncomfortable, as per usual), you have nothing left to do. you're not going to hike up to touch their faces or anything. so what do you do? you take pictures and leave fifteen or twenty minutes later, that's what. but of course, it is beautiful and breathtaking and all of those other adjectives that try to capture what it is but just don't quite cut it. you know the feeling when you're there, don't you? like so many other things in this life. it builds in your stomach, the goosebumps spread through your arms and you think, for a second, i am so proud. proud of what? i don't know. i certainly didn't feel the desire to start singing the national anthem or anything. i'm not one of those americans. i mostly felt happy. that is the word that will have to do, i suppose.

highlight #2 - rachel sees new york.
to be honest, this was mostly during the dead of night, but i saw some in the early morning hours. this is the new york that surrounds i-90, so there are tons of trees. not what i pictured at all. and i fell a little bit in love until...

highlight #3 - also known as the best highlight, rachel sees massachusetts.
my very first thought? i need to live here. now. sooner than that. i needed to live here back when i was 18 and could have gone to mount holyoke but didn't understand financial aid and was truly just terrified of leaving the family, dysfunction and all. i kept snapping pictures with the camera and phone, but none of them would do the views justice! i thought, when i was at evergreen, that the olympic peninsula put any other state's nature to shame, and how amazing it was that i was a part of that, but i was wrong. i think my friend in massachusetts said it best. the trees there don't make you feel claustrophobic. they make you feel surrounded, sure, but like a hug does (or so i've been told). you feel loved. you feel warm. you feel protected. all of that surged through me.

highlight #4 - the coolest girls ever.
the chicken coop club is where it's at.

highlight #5 - walking around boston to find dinner.
i wanted to cry, i was so tired. this is due to the humidity, yes, but also how incredibly out of shape i am (understatement of the century, folks). i had to hold it in, because the children accompanying the group were able to keep themselves contained. if eight-year-olds can, shouldn't i? but then i tried black pasta at dinner (squid ink is weird), and everything was right with the world. also, unrelated to food but related to this night: designing your own clothes, unless you are a legit designer, is almost always going to be a bad call.

highlight #6 - geeking out @ emerson's house and longfellow's house.
yes. that happened. longfellow has a ridiculously gorgeous garden in the back. we never paid the money to actually go in the house, but i still feel like i experienced a little piece of literary heaven.

highlight #7 - new york style pizza in massachusetts.
tip from me to you: don't throw away your crust in front of people. ever.

highlight #8 - walking around harvard yard.
except for when i saw the most pretentious book ever while waiting for the bathroom (1000 words all educated people should be able to use and define). barf. but they redeemed themselves by also carrying a copy of awkward family photos.

highlight #9 - rachel is introduced to greek food.
moussaka!

highlight #10 - pennsylvania dutch and the sweetest parents
ever.
if i get into penn state, i am totally stealing my friend j's parents.

but here is what is not awesome. a lowlight? if you will.
living out twister in friend's tiny car. to be honest, we didn't actually see a fully grown tornado. i snapped a wicked picture of a crazy cloud, she saw the funnel start to develop, and then we exited to a gas station where everybody was watching like it was apocalypse now or something. later, i'll post the terrifying video i have of the lightning storm that later followed us through iowa. fyi: i do not want to live in iowa or minnesota. ever. unless i get into the iowa writer's workshop, in which case i guess i'll just rent out a basement apartment.