To edit or not to edit

So it's been a while since I blogged...Almost a year in fact since my last post. And a lot has happened since my last post, in fact only 3 days after my last post I met Seth which (thankfully) put an end to my crazy dating life. And lately I've been thinking about posting again but i've been torn about how to proceed. Do I get rid of my old posts? Make a fresh start? Step back in to the katnip? Well finally I decided I can't erase the past. I gotta keep it real. So the freaks stay in my blog and everyone will just have to love me warts and all.

Overwhelmed by it

Today i was driving home from taking my anatomy test (which I rocked thank you very much), listening to crappy radio that I love so much and I became totally overwhelmed by the possibilites of everything. I get this ball of energy sometimes in my gut where I realize there is no need for fear, that every mistake can be put behind you, how life was created so we can experience everything to the fullest, try everything, risk everything. How boring life is if you just don't constantly take risks and experience it! I'm surrounded by so many people who are just living in safe bubbles, safe boring bubbles of ordinary. I want to shake them, pull their heads from the holes in the ground they put them in. They don't even know what they are missing. I didn't know what I was missing. I just want to run through the streets, painting the town red.

Sometimes I just can't take the wonder of it all.

Me circa 1992

So I went and saw this amazing thing called Mortified (www.getmortified.com) where people get up and read things from their teen journals...Of course I had to go back to my journals and find some pricelessly mortifying moments...

Here is a poem I wrote July 12,1992. I was in Italy, living with a family and absolutely in love with one of the other exchange students named Steve (no, not that Steve nor the other Steve nor any other of the thousands of Steves that seem to come into my life)

i'm being Sucked up into your world
Trails of your life are becoming minE
i watch your eVery breath
i mEmorize your every word
i now belong to you, i'm yourS
from head To toe. your puppEt
from Verona to Egypt.

Notice the capitalized letters spell out Steve. oh god.

Another hilarious thing in my journals, that unfortunately i still do to this very day, is every few months I create a numbered list of "things to change about myself" It's interesting to see the things that I actually did change and the things that never change.

Here's my list from 1992
1. be more outgoing
2. dont worry about what other people think (fuck them)
3. stick to it (whatever "it" is)
4. don't procrastinate
5. be more active (walk the dog)
6. be more social
7. be more "touchy" don't flinch
8. get a boyfriend
9. call a guy
10. smile more
11. don't forget to take pills (i was the worst contraceptor ever! good thing i didn't have sex till '94)
12. don't be so moody
13. speak up
14. tell people what i think of them, good or bad
15. stop making stupid lists

Can you picture what a horrible non-smiling, flinching, wall flower i must have been back then? No wonder i moved to DC.

I can't belive it's actually true

So many of my older friends told me, "just wait till your thirty" "Things make sense when your thirty" "Something happens when you turn thirty"....and it's true! In the last two months I've started to feel different, I actually like myself more now than i have at any time in my life. The other day I took a shower and then had to get something in the kitchen, and I walked through my apartment in just what god gave me without a second thought...This is a crazy change for me. The first two men I slept with never once saw me fully naked...I never even looked at myself naked till i was like 27 years old. Hell, I didn't even wear tank tops for 7 years. I have to say, I like naked time. I'm sorry i missed out on it for all those years.

Reason #24 why I shouldn't move back in with my parents.

Friends

I'm feeling pretty lucky today (Lucky and sappy so bear with me). Sometimes I forget about how lucky i am to have all these great women in my life, these women who share themselves with me and teach me about myself. These women who are so different from me and so much like me it's almost unbelievable. These women who accept me for who I am and allow me to take risks, make mistakes, mess up, embarass myself, rant like a lunatic, wear ridiculous clothes, sleep with all the wrong men, complain, judge, hide, fail, succeed, laugh, care, win, show off, act dumb, repeat the same mistakes, make huge changes, try and try again, and still they love me and return to me and let me back in when i wander away.

I am indeed lucky.

Memories

Llamaduck's blog reminded me of my childhood and the long long long drought we had here where everyone's lawn died and you had to take 5 minute showers and not flush the toilet and reuse every bit of water you can imagine reusing.

On Friday i was hanging out with my niece, i had the day off because i work at a place that gives us Cesar Chavez day off, and i was explaining to my niece who Mr. Chavez was and how when i was a kid we didn't eat table grapes which lead me into explaining to her what a boycott was. i don't think she got it until i told her about life before dolphin safe tuna. This really got her goat. "Why would they kill dolphins Auntie?" "Because ?Haley, they are mean corporate giants who don't care about beautiful personable dophins in their quest to make money on non-cute, tasty tuna" "But why Auntie?" "because they are mean, but we showed them, we stopped eating their tuna and now they put pictures of dophins on the can of tuna and perhaps they don't kill dophins, at least we don't hear about it any more." I think i really taught my niece a valuable lesson.

Aparently my roommate who grew up in Pennsylvania never boycotted anything in her life! isn't that crazy?

Gimme a break

After Nick, the surfer boy who was so paranoid i would think he's my boyfriend after one date, he made me paranoid, Joe the most pessamistic datee yet, a bizzare encounter with a friend, and the married man who just won't stop contacting me, I think it's time for a break. I'm banning myself from all online dating portals for the next month. No more winking, flirty messages, checking to see who's viewed me, etc. Instead I'm going to spend the next month doing things I enjoy doing...by myself (or with a friend). Though don't take this as i'm "working on myself" or "getting to know myself". I know myself fine. I just don't want to have to know anyone new for a while.