If I Knew Then What I Know Now

Feb 092012
 

Another blog post suggestion, this one from Janet (a.k.a. Tastee):  what advice would you give to yourself 10 years ago? 20 years ago?

Jesus, this is a hard question to answer without using cliches that’ll cause my eyes to roll up into the back of my head.  I’m going to try my best not to get too cheesy here, I promise.

I’m going to go back twenty years for this prompt because that’s when I really needed a kick in the ass.  Here’s some advice I have for the nineteen-year-old me.

  1. DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME ON UNREQUITED LOVE.  You might feel so strongly in love with a guy that you believe no one else could possibly love him more than you.  Well, that’s not true, it just feels that way.  Trust me, there’s another sucker waiting around the corner to get all woozy over his ass.  I know it’s hard but, seriously, the best thing to do is protect your heart, cut your losses, and move the fuck on.
  2. SAVE YOUR MONEY AND SPEND IT WISELY.  When I look back at think about all the money I pissed away on stupid, stupid shit, I want to smack myself.  Quit smoking and put the money you normally would spend on cigarettes into a savings or an investment account.  Pay for things with cash.  Don’t spend money you don’t have on crap you don’t need.  It will pay off in the long run, I promise (no pun intended).
  3. DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME ON PEOPLE THAT DON’T CARE.  I painfully learned this when I was ten, but for some reason I didn’t put it into practice until my mid-thirties.  No matter how hard you try, if a person doesn’t want to like you or wants to think poorly about you, they’re going to no matter what you do.  Make a sincere effort to be nice to people and if they’re still not impressed, fuck ‘em.  Focus on the people that like you instead.

I should note that people *did* give me the above advice when I was younger, but my stubborn ass had to learn the hard way.  So is life, I guess.  At least I can say I’ve matured and wised up a bit since then.  If the fifty-nine-year-old me had something to tell me today, you better believe I’d listen.

Not Fair!

Jan 252012
 

Question I posted on Formspring/Twitter/Tumblr today: What should my next blog post be about? Zanny suggested: Something that happened to you as a kid that you thought was completely unfair.

Oh man, where do I start? I was assigned the roll as ‘bad kid’ from an early age, which meant that often I got accused for shit I didn’t do. I wasn’t always innocent, but I was falsely accused often enough to have it affect my self-esteem. For example, I remember the first time I had the opportunity to smoke weed when I was twelve. I decided to try it, mainly because I knew that I would eventually be accused of being a druggie one day, regardless if I was or not. As a teen, I would take a hit here-and-there when offered, but I don’t remember actually buying a bag for myself. At the time, it really wasn’t my thing.

Fast forward to high school. I’ve always been a night owl, which made it hard for me to stay awake in class on the rare occasion I showed up to school. A chronic truant, my only crimes against the Oxnard Unified School District were ditching class and smoking Marlboro 100′s in the girls bathroom. I spent many Saturday mornings with a stick with a nail on the end, cleaning up the litter from the previous night’s football game. Just for the truancy, though. I never got busted for smoking cigarettes.

By the time I was seventeen, I stopped caring. On days I went to school, I would drag myself out of bed at the last minute, pull my hair back in a pony tail, and head to school without make-up on. Once I took my seat in class, I would fold my arms on the top of my desk and put my face down so I could nap. Yeah, I was *that* blatant about it. My teachers ignored my sleeping in class the majority of the time.

During my junior year of high school, I dealt with a nasty bout of pink-eye in both eyes. I thought I’d never get rid of it. I treated it with the eye drops I got from the urgent care clinic. Bloodshot as hell, my crusty eyelids would stick together when I blinked. It looked as horrible as it felt.

Sleeping in class with bloodshot eyes earned me a visit to the principal’s office for questioning. He almost seemed disappointed when I showed him the prescription eye drops, proving they were wrong about me. I wasn’t stoned in class, I was just a tired teenager with pink-eye. I was told that I was supposed to let the school nurse know when I had prescription medications on school property, then I was sent back to class.

Back to the writing prompt. Although I was a mischievous kid, I wasn’t a bad one. But after awhile, I started to believe what the adults thought about me. I’ve always felt that I was unfairly pigeon-holed into that roll. I’m not treated that way as an adult, but there’s still a little part of me that’s a bit defensive, always worried that people will wrongly judge me.

But no one said life was fair, eh?

Tina, Bring Me The Axe!

Jul 152011
 

Having my DVD player go tits-up has given me a good excuse to dust off the collection of movies I have on VHS. The first movie I watched, “Mommie Dearest”, brought back memories of my childhood not because my mother beat me but because once this movie hit cable, I watched it every chance I got.

I vaguely remember seeing the trailers for this movie on TV. I was about eight or nine when it came out. The commercials on TV made it seem like it was a horror movie to me and that’s what I thought I was watching–a cheesy, outlandish horror movie. Which, if you think about it, it really was (and still is) on so many levels.

There’s really nothing I can say about this movie that hasn’t already been said. Now get back to scrubbing the bathroom. Look at this floor. Do you call that clean? Do you?

Links:
Mommie Dearest at badmovies.org
Mommie Dearest (Hollywood Royalty/Special Collector’s Edition)
Mommie Dearest (book)Biographies & Memoirs) by Christina Crawford

I Saw Him Dancin’ There By The Record Machine

Apr 022011
 

mod girlsA month ago, I bought a very very basic turntable. I think the last time I owned a record player was when I was nineteen. I remember buying Nirvana’s Incesticide on vinyl when it came out and listening to it in my first apartment. After that, CDs took over.

Now, I’ve got vinyl back in my life. After setting up my new player, I dragged a heavy box of LPs out of my closet. The first two records I ever bought were in there and in good shape: Pat Benatar’s Crimes of Passion and The Go-Go’s Beauty and The Beat. Looking back, I’m proud that little eight-year-old Neva chose music by women artists when she went to spend her birthday money that day (regardless if it was intentional or not).

I loved that Pat Benatar album as a kid. (I still do!) For me, not only did she rock hard but she was also a brunette! As silly as it sounds, it meant a lot to me and my brown head of hair as a kid. Growing up in Southern California can be like living in the land of Chrissy Snow sometimes. Thankfully, Pat Benatar was there for me with her voice and her wild dark hair, and she was there at a speed of 33 1/3 rpm. We are strong…no one can tell us we’re wrong…

Another record I was really excited to find was my copy of Louder Than Bombs by The Smiths. Buying that album was the first time I made a point to buy music on its release date. KROQ had been hyping the big day beforehand. I made my mother drive me by the record store that day so I could get it. If I remember correctly, my mom wanted to make sure my visit to the record store was a quick one, so she kept the motor running at the curb. I had to run in, buy the album, and then run back to the car. I was fourteen years old and I needed The Smiths just as much as any moody teenager did. My copy is in surprisingly good condition, considering how much I played it.

On a side note: Downloading newly-released music doesn’t compare to the excitement of going to the local music store (or running out to your mailbox, because you’re a member of the Columbia Record Club) and getting that LP, cassette, or CD in your grubby little hands. Kids today, yer missin’ out, I tell ya.

Now, I’m having fun cruising used record stores and thrift shops on vinyl scavenger hunts. I may not have been able to find any 80′s Joan Jett the other day, but I did find a copy of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Record bins of Portland, Oregon, here I come…

Links:
Record Store Day (4/16/2011)
Grace Digital GDI-VW00 mini-vinylwriter USB turntable
Nirvana – Incesticide (180 Gram LP)
The Smiths – Louder Than Bombs [Double LP]
Elton John – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road [Vinyl]
Pat Benatar – Crimes of Passion
The Go-Go’s – Beauty And The Beat
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts – Greatest Hits

How Soon is Now?

Jul 122010
 

morrisseyA few weeks ago, Cuervolinda and I were reminiscing about Southern California car dealership jingles and L.A. area radio stations of the 80′s. We both agreed that KROQ’s playlist during the 1980′s was the shit. Since then, I’ve been remembering songs and bands I haven’t thought about in ages. The Smiths. Siouxsie & The Banshees. The Cure. Oingo Boingo. Echo & The Bunnymen. X. Violent Femmes. And the list goes on. All music that sounds just as wonderful and soothing to me today as it did back then. I was 13 years old in 1986 and full of raw creativity, the kind I desperately want back these days. The music is reminding me of what it felt like to slowly become my own person.

I spent this weekend downloading songs from that era. Twenty-four years ago, I was making mix tapes of these songs for a bulky Sony Walkman. Today, I’m loading them up onto my iPhone in the form of mp3s. This makes me feel as if I’m starting over again–Neva at 13, meet Neva at 37–and it feels good.

KROQ

It’s Been a Long Time, Marlboro Man

Jun 232010
 

I quit smoking ten years ago this week. Ten years ago. Am I glad I quit? Of course. Do I miss it? Yes and no.

How’d I do it? Zyban (which is another name for Wellbutrin, which I take now for different reasons), Nicorette gum, and spending time in the Smoking Cessation forum at About.com. When I tried to quit cold turkey, I literally felt like I was going insane when I was coming off the nicotine. The meds and the gum were expensive but worth it.

The sad part is that I’m in worse health now than I was then. Around two and a half years after I quit smoking, I fell ill and was diagnosed with lupus. It’s a good thing I quit when I did.

I thought that once I quit, cigarette smoke would smell disgusting to me. That’s not the case. Sweetness for me will always be kissing a cute drunk boy, tasting beer on his lips, and smelling a faint smell of cigarette smoke on his t-shirt.

Kissing is Pee Chee

Nov 232009
 

We all had one and marked it up. There was, of course, the logos of our favorite bands and the names of our crushes. There was also the thought bubbles and the disgusting and violent things we drew on the athletes. How did you deface your Pee Chee? What kind of doodles and graffiti did you draw on it? Comment below!

Links:
Pee Chee history at CreativePro.com
Pee Chee on Facebook

 Older Entries