karma.

i'm back in seattle after being in portland for a few days for christmas. my living room smells of mildew instead of baked goods like the home i just left does, dishes are scattered about the entire house after sitting there for who knows how long, and the groceries that i bought are now gone. i'm just so ready to move out and get my own place. it's funny, we all knew before we moved in that we didn't exactly keep a "tidy" house before. i'm not sure how it came to the point where we all completely let it go- not just the house, but almost a complete disrespect for the fact that each one of us lives 3 other people. everyone deals with things in their own way. shannon cleans every once and a while but lets everyone know that he's not happy about it, harrison does it most often out of either boredom or housewife instinct, joe may or may not clean when asked and other wise not at all as to not appease the rest of our passive aggressive suggestions that he should do it sometime before the lease ends, and i am either the one to clean up after when we have groups of people or after myself. any way you look at it, it doesn't leave anyone necessarily happy about the situation.

i'm just tired i guess. i'm a pretty easy-going person to live with i feel. sure i might not enjoy cooking or cleaning [at all] but i like to think i make up for it with my presence alone. kidding.

i like to spoil my friends, make sure thy have the time of their lives and laugh their asses off in the process. if someone needs something, i like them to know i can either be there or get it for them. call it 'needing to be needed' or whatever you want, but it just makes me happy doing it. would i appreciate someone reciprocating the favor? absolutely, but i don't expect it. i try to not expect anything lest i not be disappointed. however, i've decided i need to be [i would say a little, but i need to start with being so initially...] selfish.

for example, i want an apartment with hardwood floors, pretty appliances and matching dishes, a couple massive pieces of art to provide the majority or color, a sectional couch, a 47" flat screen tv, and ceiling-to-floor windows with curtains. and i want it all for myself. if i leave the lights on when i leave for the weekend, it's my fault that the electricity bill is higher than it should be. plain and simple. i'm not particularly keen on sharing responsibility with 3 other people. bills don't get paid on time because no one can manage their money unless the fairy godmother steps in and pays someone's share with no inclination of when/if she'll be paid back. i love them, like, LOVE them. i just need to live with someone on the same page as i am, aka myself.

it will be good for me, a true test of responsibility and work ethic. i'll be forced to live according to what i can and cannot afford for the very reason that i don't have anyone to split anything with. i crave the challenge. my goal is to have at least $5,000 saved up by the end of my lease. even that i hope to exceed. $10,000 would be ideal, and i know i can do it if i truly set my mind to it. no more tipping my bartenders 150% just because "i love them" and hope to someday have karma come back and help me in that arena. it never does. no more offering to treat friends to endless drinks just because i want them to be involved in the fun. it's time to be selfish and fend for myself, because i have yet to meet someone to return the favor. i will continue to give and give and give, and be there and be there and be there, but if what goes around truly comes around, i'll pace myself for the next lap.

the trees are finally naked, lining the icy streets as mere skeletons, providing an invisible shelter from the frigid seattle air. the rays of sunlight hit the pavement at 5 or so in an orange fury, anxious to sink beneath the surface of the sound. who knows if there's telling when we'll meet again. my skin longs for natural warmth the sun just cannot give me.

winter has brought her usual antics, imposing a sense of white noise i can't block out. it's time for movement despite the inclination to hibernate.

woods.

i love waking up to coffee. i just bought a coffee maker and seeing as i've been awake since 8:30, it's necessary. [i go to bed after 4am on a daily basis].

i've been in a funk lately, that i haven't been able to shake. for me, that is rare. i can't remember a time i felt depressed or something and someone wasn't able to make me laugh and therefore forget what was going on. this was just an intense fog that i wasn't even aware of for the most part, if it hadn't been for people asking me what was wrong with me or why i was in such a bad mood then i would have just thought of it as "meh, whatevs i'm fine."

if you haven't before, listen to bon iver. i was laying in bed, refusing to move and i had my headphones in. lil wayne wasn't really overwhelming me with the relaxing feeling i was going for, so i put on "woods" and just laid there, completely still. it's one of the most peaceful, soothing songs ever. there are only 2 lines to the whole song.

i'm up in the woods, i'm down on my mind.

i'm building a still, to slow down the time.

i'm excited to go home for thanksgiving. time will slow down considerably, i'll get to spend time with the fam and i can truly relax. i don't really have any friends in portland so i won't get cabin fever like i normally do. my desktop is currently a sepia photograph of the main drag in palm springs. sigh, nostalgic. i can't wait until i can save up enough to go on a vacation! palm springs probably wouldn't be my first choice, but i miss the sun and just the familiarity of being able to go somewhere when i need to get away.

oh, being able to escape. i can't wait.

glass mask.

have i ever told you i feel sorry for you?

you talk constantly of killing yourself and loving anyone who will have you more than the person you actually say 'i love you' to. i wish i knew why you were hurting enough to sacrifice your dignity. i really do. being depressed is one thing, but to combine that with such arrogance and this self-professed title of 'the shit', you might as well be hiding behind a glass door. and this glass door- is open.

aren't you exhausted from putting up this facade nonstop? you now hate yourself beyond your ability to bear it, yet you remain too proud to change anything whatsoever in your life. congratulations, you have made everyone in your life expendable sans the people who benefit your life. and more congratulations to you, this time for acknowledging that you failed.

i'm sorry, i really am. it just would have been nice if i hadn't been one of those people you deemed less than the people causing you to hate yourself. so thanks.

please flail your arms and legs outside the vehicle at all times.

life's funny, how it throws different opportunities your way at just the right moment and you still have no idea how to accept them. in the past week i've gotten 2 different design offers: one through a friend and the other via my resume getting passed around and landing in the right hands. it's hard to imagine living anywhere else when i'm financially secure here in seattle. all i hear about is how terrible the economy is everywhere and yet i feel so blessed to be "okay" in my situation here. i have something to get me by before i get my big girl job, while in the meantime i am given the opportinuties to pursue what it is i actually want to do for the rest of my life.

the rest of my life.

such a seeminly terrifying concept and yet i am perfectly content at the thought of committing to just that. sure i'll end up having to get glasses as a result of staring at a screen all day every day, but thinking about what i'll be staring at- my designs, my creations, my ideas, makes it worth it. knowing that i can create movement from seemingly flat images or shapes and make something so dynamic? priceless. the idea alone is just exciting to me.

i'm starting to rekindle that belief i had in myself earlier in the year, around the winter/spring of my senior year. i was so confident in myself as far as my career went. for a while i lost that sense of hope, but i'm starting to regain it, and quickly. ;D

sidenote: i really hope that my career involves alot of travelling. my dream has always been to go on business trips to awesome places where i can experience different cultures and get paid to do so. i can see what graphic design is like in italy, spain, australia, central america, greece, etc. almost makes up for losing the ability to see it with 20/20 vision. [cue glasses!] it seems almost like a genre in itself to do american graphic design. you look around you and see capitalism, structure, architecturally influenced shapes and figures juxtaposed with fluid lines reflecting the current trend that is urban outfitters. i can't even imagine designing for a small business in the mediterrainean, taking into consideration their pace of life, their involvement with the hustle and bustle of the business life, and how much they care about being corporate. see to me, that's just fascinating. maybe i can morph my focus into "international design marketing strategies" and be the art director of it all!!! umm, dream come true-- tied with nike, of course.

i'll let you know when i buy my first plane ticket and where the destination is.

gia.

i never considered myself to be the type to need alone time. ever. tonight at work i, for some reason got extremely emotional all at one time. and it was over the stupidest shit too. i was annoyed with someone and by venting it just escalated into almost bringing me to tears. my second housewarming party is currently going on, and i have absolutely no desire to partake in any of the activities. drinking, socializing, anything. i want to go to a coffee shop and stare at this screen for hours, doing design and delving into the unknown so i can somehow know it. i want to watch hours of tutorials and teach myself, little by little, the complete ins and outs of design and all of the programs that can be used to do it. it’s almost like i want to be an intern for the rest of my life. i am a firm believer in the fact that i will be a student for the rest of my life regardless of whether or not i‘m in school or not. i am constantly wanting to know more.

i feel like my life is going nowhere. i know that this is the transitional period that almost every grad experiences after they seemingly lose all structure that school tends to offer with a set schedule of classes, homework, etc. i always told myself that i would be able to better manage my time with design once i actually went to work to do it. i still have yet to do that, so i guess until that happens this is how i’ll feel. whitney says to live my life while i’m still young, because it’s rapidly coming to an end. i can’t wait to grow older, in some strange fucked up way. not in an age sense, but rather schedule-wise. no longer worrying about my peers wanting only to party. i am out of school, therefore to me, the party season is over. let’s get responsible people, why do people avoid it for so long? maybe because they’ll have to deal with it for the rest of your life, but to me, why prolong the inevitable? you’re going to have to deal with it sooner or later, so the question is: do you want to be 30 and just learning how to grow up, or deal with it in your early 20’s and bypass the embarrassment of coming into your own a decade after everyone else did. this issue has haunted me for the past 2 years, waiting for myself to step up and take my own challenge. obviously not everyone is going to make the same decisions as i will, but it’s my fault for not doing them because they won’t. my finger just want to FLY across this keyboard, spewing out every thought that comes to mind. i can’t slow them down enough to differentiate whether or not they are self-deprecating or constructive criticism. i can’t differentiate between the two anymore, i’ve noticed. i do need girl time, as well as my alone time. my dream has come true: i live with gay boys and love each one of them more than i can ever express. i just need someone to listen to me rant and talk out my issues if i need them. that is my only complaint. i’d rather spend time with them than alone, and should i get the house to myself before our lease is up and we decide to go separate ways, fine. it makes no difference to me. i’ll be the same either way, and that’s a completely honest statement.

i feel like gia- in the metaphorical sense, of course, and minus the drugs. someone put on such a pedestal, under such pressure to perform and to succeed that i’m destined to crack. only in my case it’s purely self-inflicted.

**sidenote: anyone that reads my this blog on a regular basis, you must think i am a seriously depressed and fucked up individual. i am not, i just use this as an outlet to word vomit what i can’t verbally over-analyze to another depressed and also fucked up individual. ;D i kid, i kid.

moral of the story, i just need to get the ball rolling. i need to break the trend of not being able to say no to social situations because it will eventually get me in trouble.. again. soon i’ll be sane enough to be obsessed with life, rather than just to enjoy it, you know?

i got sunshine.

we drive. my feet on the dash with an arm out the window. the music drives the car down who knows what road, ‘cause our hair is in our eyes. without our vision, we are indeed the passengers. you ask me to tell you when we get there, although where, i’m not sure. but hey, we’re driving, so it has to be somewhere. it has to be somewhere.

please don’t let me look, and spoil the surprise. just let me feel movement without moving, let me anticipate what can’t be anticipated, and please, let me love what i know can’t love me back. although what, i’m not sure. but hey, we’re driving, so it has to be something. it has to be something.

and just because the wind is blowing, we cannot find air to breathe, for the laughter won’t come to and end. the sun floods our lungs and somehow that’s enough. with bare golden skin sprawled out each window, the music still drives us along. although how, i’m not sure. but hey, we’re driving, so it has to be somehow. it has to be somehow.

we are passengers, unaware of impact until we wake up, far away from the road. our bare skin covered in white plaster, the sunlight replaced with florescent white. i lay next to you, the music still playing faintly. although whose, i was not sure- at first. but hey. even now, we’re still driving, so it has to be someone’s. it has to be for someone’s.