Turkey Burgers at 8AM

Why not? I mean, if you just got home at 7:30 and you’re hungry and you gotta eat something, turkey burgers seem like a good choice. I’m all about unconventional breakfast food.

I found out last night that sometimes if you’re on a good porch at various locations on the south side slopes on a clear night, you can stargaze pretty well. Winter is so cold but it’s the best stargazing season. There’s really something intoxicating about laying in the snow on a clear winter night in the middle of nowhere when you can see EVERY star in the sky because there’s no hazy humidity. And being outside on a clear winter night is pretty much the coldest you will ever feel but that’s partially why it’s incredible. That feeling paired with the warm feeling that the alcohol you inevitably have to drink while doing this makes you reach some kind of weird transcendent out-of-body state and the stars feel like they’re 2 inches in front of you. It’s a weird sense of clarity for things in all parts of your life and the “important” things become less important because you realize that you’re nothing but paradoxically, you also feel less alone in some larger, “we’re all in this thing together” kind of sense. Especially if you’re stargazing with someone you love who’s important to you. It’s like two or more people in that one moment in that one place somewhere on the edge of the Milky Way galaxy in the Virgo supercluster. Nothing means anything and everything means something all at the same time.

Semi-relevant:

I love Calvin & Hobbes. I think I need to add “loves Calvin and Hobbes” to my boy requisites because I can’t love anyone who doesn’t. I think that’s weirdly one of the reasons why Matt and I lasted so long. He was Calvin for Halloween like a week after we started dating and shit like that just sticks in your head and makes you think that even though it’s hard, it’s worth it. I hate memory. I hate that stuff like that stays with you forever until you die. The last thing I want to think about right now is the good memories.

Chris is randomly back in town. Rachel texted me at like 6:40AM to say that we’re all getting together with her tonight. This is the best surprise of all time and so this day is going by so so slowly. I sincerely miss Chris and Alex all the time and everyday wish that Japan wasn’t so far away. I can’t wait until tonight. Pittsburgh/Baltimore is always an intense good time (provided that we win, of course) and now that Chris is home, it’s going to be the best night of my life.

I also saw Howl’s Moving Castle for the first time yesterday and it really might be my 2nd favorite movie of all time now. As Ed says, “…the story demonstrates multiple lessons about emotional maturity as individuals and society.” Truth. And it blew my Imaginationland mind. It was funny/quirky, it was soothing, it was sad, it was profound. I need to read the book now. And I want to cancel Netflix but I can’t. There’s just too much good stuff out there.

Speaking of good movies, I love November for the Three Rivers Film Fest. I feel like all I ever want to be doing is watching indie movies in the Harris Theater. I look forward to being 32 and coming back to live here forever. It’s definitely time to go though and I’m anxiously counting down the weeks until it’s time to start over in Alabama. The best life skill I have is my inherent ability to pick up and start over and adapt.

It occurred to me then, that perhaps the reason for my growth was I was intended for larger things. After all, a giant man can’t have an ordinary-sized life.
- Big Fish

Also, I found out yesterday that my mom might have lung cancer. That’s kinda terrifying. I guess the fact that she smoked a lot when she was younger and the fact that we kind of have a family history of it don’t make it easier to think about. No point in worrying until we know for sure though.

Life comes at you from all directions. It’s amazing and terrible all at the same time.

Let’s Talk About Spaceships Or Anything Except You And Me, Ok?

That’s a sentiment I can get behind.

Sometimes unmemorably mediocre songs are redeemed by one line or the chorus. In this case, that one line is the chorus.

Also, drunk sleep. Why does it make you bionic? I came home at 5:41AM last night so I probably went to bed around 6. But then I woke up at 10 with enough energy to run a marathon. 4 hours of drunk sleep is like 12 hours of real sleep and I have no idea why. It’s true that after a few hours of being awake, the hangover starts and you become immediately exhausted though. That’s basically every Sunday of my life. Well, probably 15% of my Sundays. That doesn’t seem a lot but when you think about how many days per year that is, you realize the magnitude of the waste. We only get so many life hours. You gotta be careful with how you spend them.

Saturdays are usually ok because Friday nights never get that crazy. We don’t have the pent up energy from a work-free Saturday influencing our decisions.

Anyway, here’s the general Sunday “Last night got way too out of hand” progression:
- 10AM: Feeling great and not thinking you were that drunk or did/said anything crazy/stupid. Eat a solid breakfast of Doritos and chicken nuggets. Probably still a little drunk.
- 1PM: Twinge of a headache, vague memories of outrageous things
- 2:30PM: Brain swelling death headache, concrete memories of shameful things, realizing how much you actually did drink. Never wanting to see those strangers you met last night ever again. Leads to a hangover nap to escape the physical and psychological pain.
-  5PM: Try to make it to the kitchen to drink water and/or eat but can’t even sit up without wanting to die. Leads to a 2nd nap
- 6PM:  Give up on salvaging the day and watch Netflix for a few hours
- 8PM: Rally and do something productive like laundry
- 10PM: Wide awake and feeling awesome again right in time for bed where you will lay restlessly for hours until 3AM, cursing the fact that you ruined your sleep schedule and have to work the next day. Remembering that every drunk thing you did/said most likely was forgotten by everyone you interacted with because they were ridiculously tanked as well.

From August-February, football is the background noise all day. And most of the time, I pull myself together and make it out for the Steelers game so that general progression up there is a bit different during the entirety of the NFL season.

Anyway, the nights get crazier and I stay out later and later as the months go on and the older I get. I think I’m doing this backwards. You’re supposed to get less crazy as you age. I have a lot of missed opportunities to make up for though. I think that’s what’s happening here. Not having a boyfriend is awesome. Ideally, I would like to find a boyfriend who wants to stay out until 9AM with me but I understand that these people are hard to find.

Sometimes I do feel a little out of control and would just like to have a chill night with a boy. The crazy party girl in me loves life and loves the crazy party friends and all the insane/hilarious stuff that happens but the quiet sensitive girl in me just wants to take the army blanket to the middle of a field and stargaze/makeout for hours. Or make him dinner and watch stupid crap on TV. I also weirdly like just reading on a couch as the boyfriend reads on the other end of the couch and sometimes you talk to each other or smile at each other because you’re in love. Like the country/city thing, I’m 50% party, 50% chill. I’m pretty sure that’s how most people are though so I don’t even know why I’m thinking about this so much.

Last night, we were pounding long islands at Mario’s. Then we got a text about a post-Halloween party in Oakland. And within an hour, we were able to make it home, dig the costumes out of whatever godforsaken place they may have fallen into in the last week and put them on and show up to the party. Granted, we were like disaster versions of our previous Halloween selves because it’s hard to do things when you’re drunk. Also, after 2 nights of hard partying, your costumes just aren’t in good shape anymore. It really looked like we were living a wretched walk of shame scenario at 10:30PM, but whatever. We made it. Everyone else looked like a disaster too.

Moving on… people are dicks. I have no faith in them anymore. One minute, you’re forever best friends with someone you’ve known for a considerable amount of time in your short life. The next minute, he starts dating a crazy girl and cuts you out like you don’t mean anything to him. One minute, you’re putting everything you have into a romantic relationship with a person you love because you could see yourself being with him forever. The next minute, he’s calling you a whore when you’re just living life and moving on after you broke up with him because he consistently never put in anything and broke your heart over and over again. One minute, you’re dependably/continuously helping a friend work through an issue and being there for him/her 24/7 and not even caring about the energy you put into it because you love him/her. The next minute, you make one questionable choice that really has nothing to do with him/her and he/she judges you for it and that’s the end of the friendship. The third example is the most recent.

I feel so hopeless about human relationships. I think I need a paradigm shift here. Maybe I should stop thinking about them as solid long-term things and take a step back to see the bigger picture of life being 90 years of people coming and going with a few people who are there for spans of 10-20 years and most people who are there for spans of 1-5. It’s hard to do that though because I love too intensely. #1 downfall: I care too much. And when things inevitably go badly, I refuse to feel hurt for more than 2 seconds because I kind of have the “why waste my time?” mentality and believe that life should be lived happily. But the only way to not feel hurt when someone you care about does something shitty is to have hostility to fall back on and that’s kind of not ok. I’m working on it. It’s better to feel hurt sometimes then hide behind ridiculous walls that can’t be breached by anyone because what happens is you push away all but the fiercest individuals.

The weird thing is that I generally trust people completely and immediately until I have a reason not to. I’m not cautious about that part. But it turns out that not a lot of people are very trustworthy. The rational thing to do would be start being cautious about who I trust and how much I trust. I don’t even want to start being hesitant about trust though. Even if I’m upset every day for the rest of my life, being distrustful is no way to live. So I’m in this weird state of hesitancy to trust anyone but also absolute refusal to let my soul become that bitter and broken. Trust will prevail in the end. My best friends are patient with my freak outs. We fix each other.

I wish I could apply that to letting people in. It’s kind of related to trust but not really the same thing. Sometimes I feel like my heart is a one-way street all the time. Everything can get out but nothing can get in. Like I will try to make other people feel loved until I die but I consistently struggle so hard with allowing myself to feel loved or believing that people are genuine in their affection (it’s not a low self-esteem issue so what is it?… someone analyze this) or letting people have a concrete/solid spot in my heart that’s just for them. The first image that comes to my mind is a little virus sitting on top of my heart like it’s a cell and injecting it’s little virus bits into my heart then taking over the DNA  and ruining my heart’s ability to function as a heart. That’s what I’m afraid of. I still feel so destroyed from the breakup aftermath. Not that I’m sad or missing him or anything. But really, I’m so tentative and my heart feels like ice and I don’t know how to kick that or why I’m still this way three months later.

In August, I was a hostility monster and a crazy person and should not have been dating. In September, I finally felt real emotions again instead of just nothing. In October, I regrouped completely and made it back to the core of myself. In November, I hope to kick the whole hesitant thing. I’m still crazy impatient which is a trait that I picked up somewhere along the way. I’ve always been a little impatient naturally but it’s been really bad lately. Like annoyingly bad. My personal fix list is miles long right now. And I’m just engaging in self-indulgent blithering at this point.

I really am a hermit crab though. Super vulnerable but at least I have my shells to move in and out of as I grow and that’s how I survive. Someday (soon, hopefully) I’ll get to that point where I’m absolutely ok and normal again. Even looking at the progress since August, I think I’m happy with the results. There’s a decent amount of hope in my day-to-day thoughts/emotions. These things just take time.

And though spring, it did come slowly, I guess it did it’s part
My heart has thawed and continues to beat
- Bright Eyes, June on the West Coast

I still sometimes feel like I’ll be forever alone unless there’s a guy who’s patient enough to work with me on this and sees right through the hostility act. Maybe that’s just what love is and it’s not completely unreasonable to think that this is possible. People have baggage and you love them in spite of it. Or maybe I’ll just learn to be a human again with time on my own. I don’t need to be emotionally rescued and I kind of hate when guys try (because of my hostility/refusal to let people in thing) so the latter is probably the most likely scenario. Regardless, I’m pretty content with or without a relationship so I guess that doesn’t really matter.

There’s just something about being single that’s awesome that not a lot of hopelessly “I don’t want to be single anymore” people don’t recognize. Every place you go and every individual you meet offers limitless potential. You’re not bound to any person or situation. Your decisions are strictly yours and compromise is not a part of your life in any way, shape, or form. I mean, compromising is fine and I’m happy to do it most of the time but there’s truly something nice about not having to do it at all. Your plans are fluid and flexible. Your experiences are random and fulfilling. There’s nothing boring about being single. Things are always happening. And you can flirt with whoever you want or dance with whoever you want or go to dinner with whoever you want. And it’s an onslaught of attention 24/7. Even if 90% of it is guys trying to hook up with you, misguided/trivial attention is still worth something. It’s nice to feel like you’re the hottest girl in the room sometimes. Especially when your ex never made you feel like you were hot because he was a non-emotional negative hater type. Boyfriends: overrated. Random guys complimenting you because they want to sleep with you: awesome (as long as you take it with a grain of salt and don’t take them seriously).

Anyway, typical weekend morning text exchange with Desi:

- Desi: haha last night
- Me: it was so random. sometimes i wake up and think, “how is this our life?”
- Desi: right?  always crazy

And really, I know not ALL people are assholes. Just a few examples:

Drew and I will be friends forever and I know this because the worst shit has happened and none of that has come between us or shaken our friendship on any significant level. Desi (obviously) and I will be friends forever because we’ve both lived through amazing and terrible experiences in the last 6 years and there was never one time when we didn’t absolutely have each other’s backs and I’m pretty sure we haven’t judged each other for anything. If one day she was like “I killed a guy and now we have to go run away to Peru and hide there forever,” I would go in a heartbeat. We take care of each other. Kelsey and Greg will be my friends forever because  they’re absolutely decent people in every way. So down to earth and open and honest and laid-back and non-judgmental. Plus, amazingly funny to be around and honestly, some of the most generous people I’ve ever met.

So, the fact that last night ended with Desi, Greg, and Kelsey and then a phone call to Drew makes me realize that I actually kind of love my life in spite of the shittiness. I go back and forth on this all the time and I’m sorry if I sound like a broken record of narcissism where I’m whiny about how much I hate life/people then immediately come back to how much I love it/them.

I wonder if life will always feel like this or if it’s just a thing that happens in your 20s. I guess I won’t know until I’m 35. I guess it just seems like the whole 20s thing is a ridiculous transitional time where you’re starting to learn how to have adult relationships and sometimes failing and sometimes succeeding. Plus, you’re kind of transitioning in time and space on every level. It’s not like we’re all settled down with families in the same place with the same friends. People come and go as they go to move to different cities for school/work or just decide to pursue life in a different way/place.

I feel like we’re molecules in a gaseous state in a closed space and subjected to increasingly hot temperatures. Buzzing all over in crazy directions and reacting with each other sometimes in bad ways that are explosive and sometimes good ways where new molecules are formed but always changing in some way then eventually zooming off into a new direction we wouldn’t have gone if not for that interaction. Science is my religion in case you haven’t noticed. I’m going to write some kind of religious text where the human experience is explained via science analogies. I used to have this list of Biology concepts/processes that could be used as metaphors for love in its various forms. It kept me pretty grounded for a long time. I wish I could remember some of them or had that list. I’m sure if I read that textbook again, it would all come flooding back. I think I’m the only kid that read every page (because who’s an overachiever like that?)

I swear to God, life has this beautiful thing about it where everything that happens at our level mirrors something that happens at the lower levels and the higher levels. I mean, you could totally think of people as solar systems or stars or galaxies or anything like that. Maybe that seems like it’s not a good analogy because things in space seem to happen so slowly, but in the timeframe of eternity, it’s happening pretty damn fast. We used to be stars anyway. I’m relatively certain I blogged about that before but I always come back to it because it always blows my mind.

 We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong.
- Sir Arthur Eddington

Sometimes, I just wanna be that chill kid with a handful of close friends and no drama or craziness in my life. But then, I think about how incredible it is to experience life in every way you possibly can and part of that means that you have to take the risk that sometimes things are going to go badly and you’re going to be unhappy. Bad choices and upsetting situations are the price of meeting both the good and bad people who are going to influence you to fulfill more potential than you could without running into them in life and also having those experiences that blow your mind and give meaning to your existence. I think fate has a way of working things out anyway. We just fall into the place where we’re supposed to be eventually. When that moment comes, it’s effortless because of everything you’ve already done to get there without even knowing that’s why you were doing it.

Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
- Henry Miller

I ran a cost-benefit analysis. The expected return favors living.

So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.
- Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Messages

I love mom e-mails. They kind of always sound a little ridiculous. I don’t know what it is. I’ve been trying analyze this for years. Just their choice of words and/or tone is weird maybe. They always sound different from e-mails you get from anyone else. Case in point, the last one my mom sent to me:

Oh my dear!  I am so happy that your wishes are coming true as you head to Alabama. We will miss you greatly but know that this is what you want to do and we are behind you all the way! The next 2 months will be filled with excitement and anticipation! Hope your weekend was fun and that THING 1 and 2 were a hit!

Mom, why do you do stuff like randomly capitalize the word “thing?”

I also love this song: Messages by Xavier Rudd

Oh, the lyrics. They really make me cry life tears 50% of the time I listen to the album. It’s a good Sunday night album.

So, hold nice and close
Once you get to your soul
So that when it is cold
You won’t feel so alone
‘Cause the roads that you take
May just crack and break
With the changes you will confront

With each gift that you share
You may heal and repair
With each choice you make
You may help someone’s day
Well, I know you are strong
May your journey be long
And now I wish you the best of luck
Well, I know you are strong
May your journey be long
And now I wish you the best of luck

Also, please care about the environment. Thanks.

I’m so teary lately anyway. The outrageousness of Halloweekend has made me realize how much I’m going to miss everyone for real. Like there have been a few times when I’ve just looked around at my friends doing what we always do and I just feel sadness and the ache of missing them already. The journey of life is bittersweet.

What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? — it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.
- Jack Kerouac, On The Road

Even though I love everyone to death, Halloweekend has been outrageously crazy and I’m kind of ready to get off this ride. Excerpt from one of my drunk tweets:

Oh Lord. Halloweekend. We are all going to die.

At Mike’s party on Friday night, we crossed the event horizon of insanity/debauchery never to return apparently. I thought I was too hungover to drink last night. I was wrong. Yes, I was still mad hungover and didn’t really want to drink but it happened. I thought we had all pulled ourselves together by the time we met up again at my house last night. Not true. Two parties with a bar adventure in between and we were all back to Friday night where the craziest shit was going down. At least Desi and I are naturally synched up so that only one of us is obliterated at a time and we take care of each other. Thank God, because if it weren’t this way, we’d be completely non-functioning wastes of life.

There’s been drama, there’s been fun, there’s been the surrealness of being sandwiched between Boba Fett and a dude dressed like a sexy woman while you back that ass up as the stereo blasts some Juvenile.

I mean, we went hard. It’s not even over yet. There’s still a small gathering happening at the Cage tomorrow night. Honestly, I can never get enough Halloween though. It’s truly one of the best holidays.

Apparently, Matt referred to me as “the whore in the other room” on Friday night however. That was nice of him. Glad to see he’s healthily/maturely moving on three months later. I know it shouldn’t have broken my heart that that’s how he thinks of me because I’m more or less over it in every way but it still sucks to know that there’s so much hate directed toward me from someone I used to love and who used to supposedly love me. I also know it’s not true at all. I was only ever the most monogamous/faithful/loyal/dedicated/loving/non-slutty girlfriend a person can have. It still stung really bad to know that he called me that and I guess I’ll never know why.

I think that guys will never really understand the level of disaster the situation with Matt was and I can never really fully throw out a disclaimer about why I’m so hostile towards them. I don’t believe in nice guys because my ex is the type of person to call you a whore three months after you broke up when it was entirely his fault and semi-unfaithfulness that caused you to end it.

I guess that’s essentially it. It’s hard to believe that a nice/decent/good guy is actually that when the guy you thought was that nice/decent/good guy in reality is a shady bastard who calls you a whore and that interferes with my assessment of all men.

I’m definitely ready to get out of here. Heartwrenching or not, it’s time to move on.

I still haven’t come to terms with the fact that I’m going to be living on Mobile Bay and basically the Gulf of Mexico. My connection with bodies of water is one of the most solid/consistent things in my life. My whole body is itching to go. The Gulf of Mexico and I have some kind of magnetism now. Water is also helping me feel less upset about leaving and the inevitable disconnection that comes with long-distance friendships. But when I think about the fact that ultimately New Orleans is my goal and that we’ll all be connected someday by Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, I feel more at ease about it. I like the idea of being able to look at the Mississippi River water and knowing that some of that came from Pittsburgh. And even farther up, some of it came from Potter county where my mom works so I’m connected to everyone that’s important.

I’m actually crazy. This is proof. A sane person would feel connected to people in 2011 because we have cell phones and the internet. A crazy person gets all 1894 about it. Pittsburgh is only a steamboat trip away!

This blurb from Wiki is cool:

The use of steamboats on major US rivers soon followed Fulton’s success. In 1811 the first in a continuous (still in commercial passenger operation as of 2007) line of river steamboats left the dock at Pittsburgh to steam down the Ohio River to the Mississippi and on to New Orleans.

I was obsessed with steamboat history for awhile. You can blame alt-country for that, I’m sure. But yeah, got books out of the library about it and everything. I was a steamboat expert for two weeks.

I also love houseboats. And speed boats. And tug boats. And fishing boats. And life boats. And pontoon boats. And kayaks. And canoes. And gondolas. And all other boats. Those are just the first ones that come to mind.

But sailboats most of all. Intense love for sailboats. My ancestors must have been pirates or vikings or fish or something. I’m most at peace on/in the water. It’s the most universal thing ever when you think about it. First of all, the earth is 70% water. Secondly, the water comes from everywhere and goes everywhere via the evaporation and rain cycle. And the molecules get all broken up then put back together. The atoms just move all over. I also like that hydrogen bonds are super weak unless there are a lot of hydrogen bonds going on from a lot of molecules being together. That’s so universal. One person alone is nothing. But a million people together is unbreakable. We need each other. Together, we have a high specific heat.

Putting the physics/chemistry aside (why am I such a nerd and only think in terms of science?), the water is also carried all over via gravity and waves and currents. It’s humbling to think about the power and magnitude of it but also comforting because of the connection to all things that it makes me feel.

I definitely cry my face off at the end of Big Fish every time. And kind of all the way through. The “I was drying out” line in the bathtub scene makes my heart explode. It’s not even really 100% sadness tears because of the death thing. Mostly life tears actually. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only person who loves the mix of good/bad in life so intensely that they cry about it. Not really happy or sad tears. Just love/existence/humanity tears.

Anyway, it’s obviously my favorite movie. And probably influenced me way too much when I was considering applying to nursing school in Alabama. I hope someone proposes to me someday by fake catching a catfish with an engagement ring (more proof that I’m Imaginationland crazy). Or actually catching a catfish with an engagement ring. That seems risky though. He could just pretend.

And take me to the river when I die. Preferably, I would like to die in the river surrounded by all the people I’ve ever known but that’s obviously way too whimsical to be real life and only happens at the end of Big Fish and not even really happens. It just happens in the story that Billy Crudup tells to Albert Finney while he dies in the hospital. Y’all can just cremate me and toss me in the river with some kind of short ceremonial celebration of life. Be drinking whiskey too, of course.

Wow, I think I just planned my funeral. These blogs get out of control. I go in with no organization or idea about what I’m going to write whatsoever and this is what comes out.

Relevant: If I Die Young by The Band Perry

Halloweekend 2011

It started crazy. It will end that way as well, I imagine.

Last night some very shameful things were done. That’s what happens when there’s a keg. It was bananas.

Desi and I are Thing 1 and Thing 2 but it’s so cute because each interpretation reflects our personalities. Couples costume with your boyfriend: overrated. Couples costume with your best friend: awesome.

Also, I had a surprise phone interview yesterday for nursing school and they basically accepted me immediately! So, I’m officially moving to Alabama at the end of December. It’s way more intense than I thought it was going to be. We have to go to school on the 4th of July. It’s only for a year. Then I’ll be a nurse. That’s such an amazing thing to realize.

After I got in, I started crying unhappy tears instead of being overjoyed. I think it was partially due to the stress of having an interview that day and not being ready for it AT ALL. But mostly due to the fact that now this is real and I’m leaving and going to miss everyone and this city immensely. Most of my dearest friends at this point are here. I don’t know how to live without them. I mean, ultimately this is definitely what I want/need and I’ll make new friends wherever I go. But Pittsburgh is home at this point and you can’t leave home without feeling a little heartbroken.

That was such a boring post. I don’t even know why I wrote it. I’m still in a state of hangover death. You can blame that. I had 12 too many celebratory shots last night. Definitely gonna be the sober kid at the parties tonight (lame) even though one’s at my house. I wish drunk Liz would have made better choices last night. I think my brain is swelling.

Bridge And Tunnel

And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.

Summer is my free/limitless season where everything is possible and I exist in a purely happy state. It’s my favorite, hands down. And so I resist fall on every level until I’m forced to acknowledge it. But I ease into it. And realize that I love fall too.

Sweater weather… pumpkin beer… gorgeous leaves… football… Halloween.

Tonight, it rained a little and I got agitated from being inside because I could smell the rain on the breeze. Everyone thinks that summer rain smells the best and that’s not necessarily true because late September rain is one of the best things you can experience.

I think I was also agitated from life and loneliness. This whole social circle change/weird dynamic/upheaval is kind of wearing me out. Well, more like wearing me down. I regularly feel despondent and it sucks.

Anyway, while in that unsettled state, there’s really only one thing I can do. Get in the car, roll the windows down, turn the music up, and go for a drive. I know I should be more environmentally conscious but really, sometimes I just need to go and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Pittsburgh is one of the greatest places to drive at night. So many bridges and tunnels and rivers and hills and curves. I think one of the reasons I picked Pitt for college is because I wanted to have that experience regularly. The infinite one.

There’s something about that tunnel that leads to downtown. It’s glorious at night. Just glorious. You start on one side of the mountain, and it’s dark, and the radio is loud. As you enter the tunnel, the wind gets sucked away, and you squint from the lights overhead. When you adjust to the lights, you can see the other side in the distance just as the sound of the radio fades because the waves just can’t reach. Then, you’re in the middle of the tunnel, and everything becomes a calm dream. As you see the opening get closer, you just can’t get there fast enough. And finally, just when you think you’ll never get there, you see the opening right in front of you. And the radio comes back even louder than you remember it. And the wind is waiting. And you fly out of the tunnel onto the bridge. And there it is. The city. A million lights and buildings and everything seems as exciting as the first time you saw it. It really is a grand entrance.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is real and honest and heartbreaking and encouraging and painful and beautiful and powerful and devastating and relatable. It’s universal.

And Stephen Chbosky pretty much precisely describes exactly how it feels to fly out of the Fort Pitt tunnel in the middle of the night.

And when the September mist/air all over you and you have this song on your iPod, life reaches an infinite level. I will never get tired of that feeling. It really is like the first time every time. Maybe it’s unsafe to drive fast with my hair flying in my face but the emotional and spiritual cleansing is worth it.

I really do love Pittsburgh. And I have to go away for awhile. But when I’m done getting everything out of my system, there’s no place I’d rather be for the rest of my life. It’s the absolute best place to come home to.

And when I listen to Angels and Airwaves, I will forever think of this Shakespeare quote because life memories have eternally linked them together. And it’s actually applicable to right now kinda.

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

Et tu, Brute?

I can’t think of Julius Caesar without saying that in my head. I apologize for the irrelevant outburst.

In all seriousness… the high tide, people. It’s right now. Don’t miss your opportunity. I, for one, am about to let it float me out to sea.

More irrelevance: here’s your daily dose of the Avett Brothers… Die Die Die
I think there should be a competition where someone earns the title of “World’s Biggest Avett Brothers Fan” because I would win. Y’all don’t have a chance.

Even more irrelevance:
In Rainbows. Best Radiohead album? Decisively yes. I decided that on my drive tonight. Is Reckoner the best Radiohead song? That’s still up for debate. Attempting to conclusively resolve that question that is like trying to find out how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a TootsiePop. The world may never know. I think it’s just my temporary favorite right now because it’s so raw and so am I. Thom Yorke does raw like nobody else. “Reckoner” was almost the title of this post because that’s such a badass title for anything. But the Honorary Title happens to have a song with a name that is so unbelievably fitting for when you’re discussing Pittsburgh’s civil structures that I couldn’t pass it up.

Finally, Matt Costa.

And we’re bound for where we started
With a downwind course through the harbor
At sunset I was sorry

Boats. Metaphors.

Don’t Be A Halloweenie

(Hopping back onto the blog train. Summer is too busy and euphoric. It’s true that if we were incessantly happy all the time, we wouldn’t need to think about things or create things or invest time in things. I was perfectly happy just to eat burgers and swim and lay outside and never once felt compelled to write anything. Now it’s starting to get gloomy and cold and I suppose I should pick back up again to fill the void.)

Halloweekened 2010 is upon us. For some, it’s just an excuse to party and they arrive to the events dressed as sexy nurses or standard zombies and drink a lot of beer. For others, it’s a reason to be something else and we employ our limited creativity skills to take risks and see what we can make with our imaginations. If you want to be a sexy witch because you just don’t care that much about Halloween, then that’s perfectly fine because I definitely follow a policy of  “to each their own” for the most part. However, if you always arrive as a ghost just because you’re lazy or feel like you can’t think of anything good or have worries about how a costume will turn out, I encourage you to try something a little more outside the box next year (or this year if you have some time to pull something together tomorrow). It doesn’t have to be your life’s magnum opus in terms of excecution and it doesn’t even have to be that creative of an idea. But it will likely be something that no one else has ever done (or done the way you did it) and it probably will be some kind of tangible extension of yourself, even if that aspect is unintentional.

I’m not telling you to completely regress into your childish ways and show up as a princess or anything (unless you want to!), but think back to what Halloween was like when you were a kid. No one ever thought “Oh, yeah. I’ll just be a skeleton. That’s cool.” You actually picked what you wanted to be and got excited about it. Even if you changed your mind 10 times, you always said to your mom, “I want to be an alien this year,” or something similar. It didn’t have to be an original idea or anything crazy/elaborate. But you legitimately invested time into selecting what you wanted to wear for your classroom party. It was never like you had a cowboy hat laying around and decided you’d put that on 2 hours before school started. Obviously, some kids didn’t get to pick. Sometimes they had to wear a hand-me-down from an older sibling or had to use whatever was laying around at the house or whatever their parents bought for them at the store. Please call me out if I’m wrong, but it seems that those situations really only happened because the kids had no choice as dictated by their parents’ time resources and/or financial resources and/or lack of interest. If that was you, make up for it now that you’re an adult and can do whatever you want. If that wasn’t you, remember what Halloween used to be and get back into it.

Maybe my reality is distorted here. It’s possible that not everyone had an awesome mom like mine. She  is directly responsible for inspiring my Halloween passion. The slight irony here is that my parents were slightly apprehensive about some Halloween costumes and traditions due to their religious beliefs. We weren’t allowed to dress as witches or ghosts and some activities were ruled out. Maybe it’s not that ironic if you attribute our creative costumes to the fact that we weren’t allowed to dress up as those Halloween staples. Whatever the reason, my mom went all out. She certainly has a passion for sewing and maybe Halloween for her served as an outlet for that interest. And of course, I’m sure it helped that she knew she was making the happiest Halloween kids ever. I definitely threw some fits regarding her creative direction versus mine, but as an adult, I really only have the utmost appreciation for her effort. We had a dalmatian growing up and one year I wanted to be Rascal so she made me an awesome dalmatian costume. When Episode 1 came out, my sister wanted to be Queen Amidala so my mom made  a crazy hair piece out of fabric and sturdy wire to look like this. Obviously, you could tell that it was very homemade, but the fact that it was homemade actually made it more awesome. I mean, kids always want their costumes to look as real as possible and would rather have an awesome costume from a store than one their mom made, but as an adult, I totally appreciate that homemade quality.

Even has a senior in highschool when I wanted to return to the Halloween tradition after a long absence and asked for the best pink tutu in existence so I could be the most over-the-top dead ballerina ever, she once again took to the machine and I was in tulle heaven. Of course, I contributed with a black bow around my waste and gothic eye makeup and sprayed/destroyed black-ish hair, but it wouldn’t have been anything without that skirt.

The people who truly embrace Halloween inspire me to do the same and the magnificent result is a party full of characters and interesting costumes and the mix of all of that leads to an event that would be fun even without the keg. Even if all you do is throw on a banana suit, really try to embrace that banana. Don’t be a weenie. A costume doesn’t have to cost a lot or take a lot of time, but if it’s ridiculous and/or you really love it, then you’re a Halloween champion for the ages. In 10 years, you’ll look back at the pictures of you and everyone else and think “That was a damn good Halloween.”

Here are some pictures of costumes from Halloween 2008 and 2009. They’re delightful and I love my friends and their personalities and creativity. Even if you buy a costume that someone else thought up or if your costume won’t make sense to anybody… as long as you think it’s awesome then it’s awesome.

Ed is always something horribly inappropriate like a member of the KKK or a slave because that’s just Ed. In 2008, Julia dressed up as M.I.A. and was a very effective one all night until she put on the banana suit then added PC’s jacket to go over it thereby creating a second costume. And how can one not appreciate the originality of going as a baby mama or hot gluing cotton balls to a sweatsuit in order to be Little Bo Peep’s sheep and thereby enduring severe temperatures all night but having a couple’s costume that everyone loves. Duffman was impeccably executed and Calvin actually went to Toys ‘R’ Us to purchase a Hobbes. All of those and so many others are better than the standard skeleton/school girl. And if you really want to be those things, then go for it. But if it’s just a cop out, consider taking a risk and think of something else then make it happen.

It doesn’t really take a lot to make it happen. You can very affordably come up with something without spending a lot of time. Go to Goodwill and buy some stuff and make it work. For my 2008 astronaut costume, I paper mached a helmet using a balloon as the form and then spray painted it. That took all of 3 hours over the course of a week. Then I put on Under Armour, a white skirt, ridiculous winter moonboots, and a down vest. All of which I already had. Matt’s Calvin costume involved spraying his hair light yellow, buying a tiger, putting black stripes on a red t-shirt, and wearing shorts/shoes that he already had. Rob went as Mr. Clean and shaved his head, put on a white t-shirt and jeans, then painted his eyebrows white. Last year, Des put on a dress she bought for New Years and painted her face to look like a doll to become a coin-operated girl. Eli wore a wife beater, dress pants, suspenders, and yogurt lids he had saved to be “the bear Jew” from Inglourious Basterds. And if you have the time/creativity, then push boundaries to make something insanely impressive. Mike’s Duffman costume was unbelievably legit.

To end on a personal note, this year I was going to skip Halloween because my sister’s senior recital is this weekend. However, life messes are unpredictable and I have to stay to take care of some things. But there’s no way I’m missing Halloween if I’m going to be here. So, I have to come up with something fast. I’ll post a short update next week to prove that Halloween can be 10x more awesome than it would be if you hadn’t tried, even with a limited time/money budget. As long as there’ s will, there’s a way.  Don’t be a Halloweenie. Take a risk and try something new. It’s your chance to be something you’ve always wanted to be. Make a real impression. Even if no one remembers what you were 2 years later, you’ll at least get their attention for that one night.