Nothing too Interesting

So today turned into a cluster-f*ck from hell.

Not the worst of days, but definitely a bad one.

I found out I have almost no money in my bank account, I’m still waiting desperately to hear about whether or not Winter/Spring transfer to state schools is closing, and I had a teary conversation with my boyfriend after he stormed out of the house.

But surely not the best of days.

I wish I could get utterly specific with my posts, unfortunately this is the internet and I cannot post everything I think on to a blog (I would rather reserve that for a diary or journal.)

But what I will say is that it’s quite the relationship journey (or something like that anyhow) when one member shuts down and doesn’t know why or how to fix it.

At least he wants to fix it.

And I hope we do. I love him very much, and I hope we figure this out.

County Fairs

Tonight I went to the San Mateo County Fair. It was pretty awesome.

Well…

Until I got on the ride named “Vortex” at which point my boyfriend started to black out and due to the centripetal force I began to suffocate. I felt as if a large man was sitting on my chest and I could only take tiny, little breaths to fill the very tops of my lungs.

But after some corn on the cob and a hot dog, our stomachs settled enough to stagger around the fair and see what else the vendors had to offer.

And that’s when we stumbled upon the booth with the Dragon Lady. She had little figurines and statues of dragons and fairies.

To be fair, I’ve always been a huge fan of fairies and dragons, but growing up my mother didn’t approve, therefore I never got to have any. And this is one of the many reasons why I love my boyfriend so much. He looked me square in the eye and asked me if I wanted one. I tried saying no, and then he kissed me and told me to go pick out the one I liked best.

So here I am at home and up on the shelf to my left is a small fairy sitting on a glass ball holding a purple dragon. And he also got me a pair of gothic renaissance scissors which came with a sheath that makes it look like a dagger.

Oh, and my boyfriend had to get himself something as well. He got a dragon plaque that held two swords which were actually letter openers. So to say the least, we’re going to have awesome decorations around the house when we move up to the school I transfer to.

I am very excited.

All in all- Very good night!

Official Start To Cooking

So this evening I have officially started learning to cook. Vegetarian meals no less. My boyfriend is a vegetarian, but alas I am not. I love meat all the juicy, bloody, mess of it all. But my boyfriend was raised by a mother who wanted him to be a vegetarian. So even if he wanted to eat meat, it might very well kill him (this is known by the few times he’s tried it and has been forced to talk to god on the big white telephone for a few days negotiating terms.)

Under our usual likes of boxed meals and frozen microwavable plates, I decided to try cooking Potatoes Gratin from scratch. In a kitchen I am not familiar with. I must say that it is quite awkward having to ask my boyfriend’s Mother where the casserole dish. I don’t know why it’s awkward, but I think it’s because she makes anything that isn’t her idea as a huge embarrassment or inconvenience.

But back to food. It’s in the oven now, and I can’t wait to try it. I doubt it will be very good… The potatoes stuck out above the milk (well soy milk because his mother doesn’t believe in regular milk) and I thought it was weird how little spices and ingredients it called for. But I shouldn’t be too disappointed because my boyfriend doesn’t like super spicy food.

Wish me luck!

Movies and Etc.

I wish to be a writer of fiction at some point in my more or less immediate future (i.e. the next five years). But alas, I have found that movies have drawn my attention far easier than putting my fingertips to the keyboard or my pen to the paper.

And why is it that procrastination proves itself more pertinent than pursuing ones dream?

I find myself baffled at how much effort it took to sit down and write this post today. But I guess that is the fault of any good habit. That it remains troublesome and hard to keep in effect.

I got out of the habit of writing anything, much less fictitious works, and now seem to have lost my voice. My fingers enjoy the tapping of my fingers upon the letters of this computer, but I find myself occasionally afraid of what I might or might not be able to write.

And movies are an escape. An escape I cannot seem to loosen. Even at this very moment I find my attention torn between this post and the film North & South. A tale about the cotton mills, and the strikes, and the romances. I find myself so inexorably moved by the music and the words spoken that I’m terrified that I might not be able to produce anything so moving, even if just for myself, and instead be left to  wallow in pages of words that have no movable meaning.

But this is the cure, isn’t it? To write is the only cure I have, no matter how scary or foreign it feels.

I only wish to someday write something of consequence, something of meaning. And I guess I have to pave that road with words that are empty and meaningless. Words that I will not be able to begin to understand for the next ten or fifteen years? Is that what I am faced with? With writing utter crap for such a long time, that it won’t be until the later years of my life that I will see anything I’ve written worth salt.

But then, I’m being over-dramatic aren’t I?

Someone I Love

The man I love. And yes, Today I am talking about A man. How cheesey, Right? I love this man who will gleefully Pull out a large tub of Lego parts and find the creativity to create something masterful. I get that it sounds like I’m in love with a seven year old, but it’s been this long joke between us that I’m a four year old trapped in an adults body.

I love that we can build Legos and go outside and play Hide-n-Seek.

I love that we can have Tickle Wars and He will laugh just as hard as I do… Well until my face turns blue from laughing so much I forgot to breathe.

I love that while he hates Chick Flicks, he will go with me to see one in theatres so long as I promise to go to a gory horror with him.

There are more. I love that we bicker occationally because it reminds me that our relationship isn’t this perfect happy thing all the time.

I hope that we will last for a very long time, because I want to be like my parents, where after 27 years of marriage, they still look at each other as if they have only been married for five and have yet to start making a family.

I want my relationship with my love to create that hope for others, and I hope it builds up to that, like the bricks of Legos. Rising higher than was thought of and made of a multitude of colors.

It’s Been A Year

It’s been over a year since I last posted a thought on this site. I’m watching Julie & Julia and I realized that I need to get back to writing. I miss it, but I’ve developed this fear over doing terribly in my writing.

So today I am resolving to try to write everyday. My posts may be small and inconsequential compared to many out there, But I have this new-found inspiration and determination to actually follow through.

Wish me luck!

The Windows in The Living Room

My house seems to be unusually blessed with these beautiful and expertly placed windows on the west side of the house. There are four columns of two window panes by four. I have two Oleander bushes which frame the windows and push your focus out beyond my neighbors orchard, above the rooftops of his neighbor, and into the hills where the fog from the ocean meets the sun as it sets for the night.

Sitting on a wicker chair, with cushions of course, I can not help but face the windows and see the outside, nature in this almost untouchable state. I realize I could always get out of my chair and walk out my front door and touch a tree for all I care. But that is not my point. My point is that there seems to be this beautiful illusion with windows- especially in the countryside where there is far more nature within reach than in many metropolitan locations. The illusion is that windows seem to almost idealize nature in some way, yet we can never touch it. People (such as myself) place hummingbird feeders right in front of the windows in hopes of seeing a miraculous sight of tiny birds who flap their wings faster than I will ever be able to do anything with any part of my body- no matter how many times I do push-ups or run.

It’s nearly seven, and the sun is only just beginning to set, the sky has yet to change colors and I can hardly wait. There are a few trees that block the sunset most of the time, but in a way they enhance it. At the right moment, they become these perfect silhouettes and the perfect contrast between color and black. It truly is beautiful.

There are moments in my days like this one right now when I wish that I lived as Thoreau did in near Walden Pond. The Transcendentalist lived for an entire year in the woods, fending for himself, building his own shelter, growing beans, and most importantly- writing. He wrote about what he believed in, and I want to be able to do the same. That seems to be the curse at my age, my opinions and beliefs are constantly changing and morphing me into the woman I am destined to be. (Oh, destiny- I’ll have to come back to that in another post.) Although as a side note, I always have been partial to Ralph Waldo Emerson. He brought up Transcendentalism before Thoreau did if my memory serves me right.

But back to my windows. My mom has a painting leaning against one of the panes on the window. What I love about this painting, is that it is those mountains in our town where the fog meets the sunset, but it’s already nightfall in my mom’s painting. The sky is already a dark blue paint, and the dark expansive mountains and hills are a deep green which look more like waves with the blue than mountain tops.

Inspiration

Inspiration seems to be able to come from nearly anywhere- at nearly any time. Take today for instance. I was driving home when I saw the reddest car probably in my life. It looked nearly ripe as a tomato. So much so that I suddenly wanted to make spaghetti (I have been craving it for some time however, and therefore it was not that much of a stretch to be inspired by a red car to cook). So I stopped at a small store in my hometown, and purchased enough ingredients to make a small batch of spaghetti sauce (by my family’s standards, as we have very large pots) I then went home and started peeling onions, and garlic, opening cans of tomatoes, and grilling up chunks of italian sausage (without the cases). To set an even more inspired tone I put my iPod on the donut and the soundtrack to “Stranger Than Fiction” started to play and fill every corner of empty space in my house. So I was dancing in my little red apron and flinging my mixing spoon around (figuratively, unfortunately I had not thought about doing so during the process) and having an absolutely gay time.

After minimal difficulty with cooking the meat (hot oil hurts and when italian sausage is not contained in those edible sheathes, it becomes very difficult to do any sort of browning- especially when the meat chunks are so large) and some burnt grilled onions, I thought my meal was ready. Mind you I had long ago added the Italian Seasoning and the Herbs De Provence. Sadly, it was too sweet for my tastes. My family normally adds approximately half a bottle of red wine on average to our spaghetti sauce. It’s brilliant because it bitters out the sweetness of the tomatoes and rounds out the flavor so that it is not too salty. (Side Note: NEVER ADD SALT. And entire spaghetti dish is perfectly salty without trigger-happy fingers flinging pinch after pinch of salt.)

Anyways, back to my point and the title of this post. Inspiration can come from anywhere as I stated before, and after I had made my spaghetti (not my best because of the extra garlic and no wine to add) I really wanted to watch Julie & Julia- because I had just cooked alone for the second time in my life. So I press play and I begin watching the movie and periodically lightly blowing my spoon of spaghetti sauce, completely immersed in the story. But as I was watching the show I began to identify myself (or more accurately my fears) with the Julie Powell character before she started her cooking adventure.

So I wanted to do something similar. I understand that this is in no way an original idea, especially when you look at the overwhelming number of blogging websites. And as it is quite obvious that I can be pretty inconsistent, I want to do some sort of blogging quest/project/blurp in which I do something creative nearly every day.

So now I just have to figure that out. So inspiration can come from anything, but I truly hope that something will inspire me as to what I should ‘blog’ about and what inspired that inspiration.

My sauce by the way, so delicious by my standards. It’s missing the red wine flavor and the flavor the grilled hamburger meat brings, but I’m pretty excited. I want to start cooking more exotic things- or more specifically, things I haven’t tried before. I want to stay in the European area for now, besides I’ve got a long time before I need to worry about what I’ve eaten and what I’ve yet to try.

Spontaneous Blurt

I was listening to Taylor Swift music unabashedly for over an hour sometime earlier in the evening. And naturally, from listening to Taylor Swift, one’s thoughts become consumed by Love. Wasn’t it once stated “such a small word to mean so much” or something or other. Regardless of the state of the word itself, Love is one emotion that human’s have yet to rationalize.

I am currently taking an introduction to Shakespeare class in preparation for my English major at whatever university I end up attending and my professor keeps talking about Love- Because Shakespeare was most definitely obsessed with it. As am I. Of course, I have yet to be some unknown genius as he was. Regardless- one of the reasons Shakespeare seemed to be so obsessed over the thing called love is that love is completely irrational, and it makes whom ever it touches to become completely undone on the most basic levels. Love makes people do crazy things from moving across the world to be with someone, to breaking every promise so they can be happy, to letting them go because it is what is best for them.

Human’s are inherently selfish creatures, and yet love seems to bring out these small acts of selflessness. I want to be a writer, and some days I do consider myself to be one, but I don’t understand love. I’ve read it in books, watched it on the television, and even seen it in my parents and extended family. But I still don’t get it. There were brief moments where I was sure I was experiencing love, and then I would quickly revert back to my humanistic and selfish nature.

So how am I supposed to write about love if I have no experience to demonstrate I have any knowledge of any of the crazy things it makes people do? Do I fake it, and create these contrived, and flat relationships where the only real feeling happens when I bring my characters to their unhappy endings? I feel lost. How do I write about love?

I guess the only true aspect of love I have experienced some how is loss. And maybe pain as well. There is this mind numbing feeling that takes over and deadens everything. This is not the numbness in which there is a soft throbbing or buzz, it is a pure dead feeling. Almost like looking at a bright computer screen in the dead of night where the only thing that makes sense are your hands in front of you, everything else is either blurred or black.

Is it possible to feel as if you miss something you have never experienced? Or was I truly in love with Mark during our time in each others lives. I went to the Starbucks in Menlo Park yesterday, wanting to see him. Maybe I miss being in love with Mark, because I miss the happiness I felt when I was with him.

A similar happiness I felt while I was dating Josiah. And is it love I crave, or these men? Because I wonder if maybe it is not love which lets us down, but our lovers of whom we put up on this high pedestal for all to see. I have a feeling that I miss being in love, and I have been warned in the past against getting into something with someone because I want to be in love. But why? Won’t wanting to be with someone to be in love somehow keep from putting them up on that pedestal? Or will it do the exact opposite.

Either way, I am currently pursuing something with Nick. As slow as I think we are going (having yet to go on a second date) I am remaining optimistic, and for the first time in my life when love is concerned I am only planning for the present. I am paying attention to now, the future will be worked out later. I definitely feel that I am somehow growing through all of this. I occasionally slip, fantasizing about what could happen in the future, but now I recognize when I am doing that, and correct myself with maybe a little chastising.

I haven’t been writing as much though. But I have a hope that the reason is because of my fear of correctly capturing love with the written word. But maybe I need to be more active. Less television, more writing or reading. (I have been reading more from online sources [ficitonpress.com] which I think is far better than only gaining reading material from required texts for school.)

And hopefully, Cross Your Fingers, I will be writing more frequently on WordPress so that I can develop even more as a writer, and maybe start writing more fiction.

Character Names

I find it interesting that there are many writers who use generic names such as Jill or Bob when they are writing and later during the editing and revision process figure out the names they want and change it.

I bring this up because, have you not encountered someone saying, or yourself saying, “Oh, she’s just another Sarah.” Almost as if names have personalities themselves. If you do, then you will understand why I am confused. I do not outline my own stories when I write (it robs the creative flow- for me), and I have found that the name of one of my characters can greatly influence the flow or direction of the story. When I think of a Ben, I think of a guy who is nice, wholesome, smart, with a little pinch of rebel in him. When I think of Jack, I envision a man who rides a motorcycle and does not care about what others think, but with some of his own issues that he keeps hidden. Naming my characters is like naming a child- I would not name my child one thing and then two years later change it to something completely different.

I say that you should pick a name you love for every character you create. Therefore you may be able to develop a deeper understanding for your characters and add a more really element to your stories.

Just a thought really.