Posts tagged personal
Champagne Bubble About Town
It isn't what I do, but how I do it. It isn't what I say, but how I say it, and how I look when I do it and say it.
Writer Thoughts
Our world may be simplifying itself and compacting information and products and technology into smaller and smaller doses to handle, but that doesn’t mean that the work involved gets any easier or lesser in itself.
For everything you do, and that’s to presume you do it well, it will still take time. A stamp of care, research, and the creation of a voice to lead the way. Oh, and some fun too. Enjoyment of the process, organic as it may (and will) be. And in no shape or form condemning it to be trivial or something that can be easily mechanized or spat out. Or make you feel like you need to prioritize it so heavily above your own personal life. Which does and always will matter and will definitely be what you use to work towards.
Today I saw a freelance writing position online that wanted the candidate to write 4-6 blog posts each day and have 3 ready by 10 AM EST with “the remainder produced throughout the day” and I looked at myself with my full time job and other side duties and I don’t know, life things too that you need to take into account for, and I immediately thought, “FUCK THAT” to myself. You can make busy be your new happy all you like, but doing too much too fast and too often, you’ll burn the fuck outta that really fast and worse, develop contempt and general dislike for something you once genuinely cared about doing, if you keep going 80 miles an hour in a 40 mile per hour zone for an undetermined amount of time.
Slow it down. Don’t hyperventilate if you don’t write or blog all the time and think because you aren’t doing something constantly, you aren’t relevant or don’t matter. Write to write something real and leave the dribble of an endless stream of jibber jabber behind. Write to write for you.
Because let’s face it if the damn position leaves you feeling so keyed up you can’t even drink, you don’t need that sort of nonsense in your life.
Birthday, Birth(day)
This blog is officially two years old today and I got the cupcake email from Tumblr to prove it (though it is not pictured here because I much prefer some Zou Bisou Bisou instead).
I started this Tumblr two years ago because I had a former blog on Blogger that I primarily wrote in during college and the 9 months post-grad where I had that horrible job in advertising. I was a copywriter and while I didn’t detest the work I did necessarily, the management was terrible. There were a couple of mornings where I cried before I went into work. And a few when I cried in the bathroom during lunch. And a couple post-work too. Once I got hired into a new job that was a much better fit for me, I wanted to exit out of my former blogging life at Blogger and leave those memories from school and that first job behind. Closing a chapter there for a time to take on a slightly longer, more beneficial one.
This Tumblr only sees a portion of my life shown, despite being referred to as “my personal blog” - the irony of a personal blog being one where you take care to edit your personal side before presenting it to an audience. What you see is what I let you see and you do see a side of me, but it is not entirely all of me either and that it can’t be because to show my entire self would be too much. It’s awkward to do, even if you don’t think so. Some people will read it and think you’re brave for writing it up. Others will turn their heads and cough to the side and keep scrolling, wishing they hadn’t paused. Everyone’s a critic, it’s my blog, let’s discuss 10 ways xyz ruined my life, blah, blah, blah. What a time we live in where our private innermost thoughts now come accompanied with hashtags and “pls dont reblog this KAI THANKS” tags.
But it’s a time where the choice is ours, isn’t it? I chose Tumblr and in turn, I chose to share. Or not share. Sharing in bits and pieces and editing the thoughts too. You get it already.
Something I do like to share are the dreams I have. I had a dream last night where a friend was driving me down to Malibu because in the dream, I worked down there. The ocean has always made me happy and to see it in my dreams (despite the proximity of being near one already) was wonderful. I used to be heavy into dream interpretation when I was younger. I had a dream journal and wrote all of my dreams down and researched the themes in them. They changed over the years, the themes represented. I used to run and cry a lot in my dreams. Sometimes I go places in these dreams that I’ve never been to in real life and continue to go to these places over the span of several years. There’s a bar I go to sometimes in my dreams that I’ve been to vaguely over the course of my dreamscape years. Sometimes I’ll dream about the people I love in trouble. In the dreams, they are crying or look blurry and I wake up knowing something is wrong. The feeling just sets into your bones, the knowing. And very seldom am I off in this assumption. Other times I won’t remember my dreams from the night before, but the slightest object like a pen or a flower triggers an image that allows a few bits and pieces to come flooding through my mind again.
Once those images are there, I wonder how I couldn’t remember them in the first place.
Anyways, 2nd birthday. What comes next is anybody’s guess, but I do love me some Tumblr so I’m pretty sure I’ll be here for awhile longer to come. Alternate versions of me - older, younger, thoughtful, maybe more sharable - they’ll come along for the ride too. Maybe one day I’ll get to a place where including tags with a post doesn’t make me feel like projectile vomiting too. #personal #me #writing
Ugh, nevermind that day is not today. Tags blow.
HT
“I like NeNe Leakes.”
-my mom on the phone with me this morning, breaking up the conversation every now and then to tell me about the lululemon pants she was looking at
Every year when Father’s Day rolls around, I’m filled with an inexpressible amount of love for my father. But this kind of love is very much all around on the other 364 days of the year too. My dad and I decided many years ago that our relationship had hit a level where we were not just father and daughter, but two friends. Two confidantes. He’s a self-proclaimed “man for all seasons” and I try to never let him forget that he refers to himself as such either. The sacrifices he made over the years for our family have been extraordinary and he has taught me how to laugh through a crisis, that there is a time and a place to be serious but when life gets heavy-heavy, there’s a pop culture reference that can usually be inserted in there somewhere to lighten it up a bit. I can’t wait to see him next month. We have so much catching up at the bookstores and loud music listening to do together!
Best friends and sneaking in all the cheap candy into the movie theater buddies for life!
In exactly one month from today, I’ll be at home.
Climbing up the City Museum’s Castle Climber is within my near future (!!!!), as are so many other activities spent with family, friends, and myself, since I am so prone to walking all over the place. My dad may be more excited than me actually - in one day, we’re going to conquer visiting all of his co-workers downtown (many of which have known me since I was in grade school), heading to a new library, going to Clayton, and then heading to another bookstore after that.
Can’t wait to dump the Instagram photos all over the place and get my flower crown making/champagne sipping/park hopping dayssssss on!
Chalk art outside the conference hall.
I really wanted to cry looking at it. I’m sure I’m not unique at all in this regard but don’t you ever just see something that makes you want to throw your hands up in the air and quietly mutter, “Will I ever live here?* Will I ever not be broke constantly? Will I ever be able to see what my future looks like clearly?” I cannot imagine where I will be at 30. I can’t imagine where I’ll be in 2014. I had a talk with a friend tonight about this. It’s strange. I have an idea of what I want ultimately from life (kind of?) but I try not to idealize my future much. I like the idea of being open to spontaneity. But still. Do you ever wonder where you’ll really end up in the end? All the places you’ll go before that time? And where you won’t? Who you’ll meet and who you’ll miss and who you might lose?
I think I just ruined the sleep patterns for a lot of you tonight. Please don’t ever let me go to the airport after I’ve been drinking ever again. Still food for thought though. Consider it.
*Here, being any city you love a lot and not limited to SF only.
Perfected the sock bun this morning.
Books I’d appreciate for my birthday later this year. Or anytime, really.
Notes on a move
1) It was fast. Like, stupid fast. The movers packed and wrapped up everything I had, drove us all to the new place, dropped everything off and assembled my bed in 40 minutes. Mind, blown. And they were so nice! Fate dealt me a sweet moving hand the day I saw their truck in one of my former apartment’s parking lots. If you live in the SoCal area and are ever in need of moving aid from point A to point B, go with the Skinny Wimp Movers!!
2) My new bedroom is twice the size of my old one.
3) I also have a bathroom included with my bedroom. And it’s just for me! This marks the first time in my entire life I will have not shared a bathroom with multiple people. It’s like a beautiful birthday and Christmas gift rolled into one.
4) I really was expecting to feel those “aw missing that former apartment already” sads but what really happened was that the moving truck wasn’t even out of the lot and I had a big grin on my face and was ready to go, go, go! It was just time to get outta there. You know when you know.
5) I also now have three very excited puppy roommates who are all super cute and well mannered. Will the universe succeed in making me a dog person yet? Stay tuned.
Last sleep at my apartment commences tonight before the move tomorrow morning!!
