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.

Some of My Favorite Things

Feb 042012
 

Another writing prompt, this one suggested by Shelley. Here’s a list of some of my favorite things:

  • Diet Dr. Pepper. I need my caffeine and I don’t drink coffee.  Yes, I like being a pepper, too.
  • Diner Food, because I like greasy food and eating breakfast for lunch.
  • My Roku Player. I got one of the original versions for Christmas of 2008. I use it to watch TV shows and movies via Hulu Plus and Netflix Streaming.  Sure beats paying for cable or satellite TV.
  • My iPhone, because it’s helped me lose weight, get around using public transit, track my car mileage, track my period, read e-books, keep a grocery list that I don’t forget to take to the store, etc.  Why waste time thinking about all this stuff when there’s an app for that?
  • Revlon ColorStay Ultimate Lipcolor, Nude 075.  My signature color since the 90′s.
  • My electric blanket.  Mmmm….cozy!
  • My Kindle Touch.  I’ve already blogged about this one.
  • Instead Softcups, because I hate tampons.

And that’s all I care to admit to teh internets, (wink wink!).

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?

The End (of 2011) is Near

Dec 132011
 

With the new year quickly approaching us, I thought I’d take a look back at the last twelve months. For the first time in a long time, I can honestly say I will end a year in a better place than when I started it. This is what making slow progress feels like and it feels good.

I went back and re-read some end-of-the-year blog posts I wrote over the years. In 2003, I was introduced to The MayFly Project, which invites you to sum up your past year in twenty-four words. Here’s how I summarized that year:

Got sick. Learned how to get better.
Lost job. Still looking.
Lots of sleep and good books ease my pain.

In hindsight, when I wrote that I only thought I had learned how to get better. I had no idea then and I still don’t know how to “get better”. However, I have learned how to take care of myself better since then and that’s half the battle…or something like that. Job hunting hasn’t been an issue for me in years; I’ve been on SSDI since December of 2005. I still have the same hopes and dreams as I did eight years ago, but the game plan has changed, and changed again, and keeps on evolving. This, I think, is a good thing. Bring on the progress! Bring it!

As for 2011? Here’s my summary in twenty-four words:

Right hip replaced, no more limp, a lot less pain.
Too much Internet, not enough writing.
Deleting my online dating profiles:a good decision.

I will list my goals for 2012 at another time in another post…more later…

Dreaming of Admittions and Omittions

Apr 252011
 

Do you have reoccurring dreams? What are they about?

Here it is: through no action of my own, I manage to become an unwitting accomplice to a murder. The details of the murder–perpetrator, victim, method, etc–vary from dream to dream. The body hasn’t been found and the police are getting closer and closer to solving their case.

People suspect I know something, but can’t prove it. I’m horrified and in shock, so I admit to nothing. The dream is filled with the guilty anticipation of everyone finding out the truth and the subsequent consequences of my involvement.

I can’t bring myself to come clean with what I know, yet I just want to get busted and get it over with. I’m overwhelmed with the anxiety of getting caught, even though I’m only guilty of omission. My mouth stays shut because I know that no matter what I say, no one will believe me, even if I tell the truth.

I always wake up before anything gets resolved, leaving me forever unable to defend myself, to explain what happened, to make things right.