I'm Not Judgemental, I Just Have Standards

“well you can stare all day at the sky, but that won’t bring her back.” - tori amos, bouncing off clouds

give me credit: two posts in a row

i like lists.  lists give things order, purpose. lists make sense of things that otherwise, don’t belong together. here is my list for the day, of all the things that sucked:

1. i woke up sick, i.e. fever and sore throat

2. i had work at 8am

3. i was stuck on phones all day which would have been fine except that i couldn’t get anyone to cover my breaks and it took me an hour to find someone to watch the line while i peed

4. the only class i wanted to take in the fall got cancelled

5. our printer doesn’t work

6. i made two sets of plans and both got cancelled

7. i am too sick to go to the gym

8. i have the chills and i am hot and cold at the same time

9. some creepy guy on the phone asked me to laugh for him

10. nobody even reads this journal

i know it could be worse.  but today was miserable. i really want to sit down with my guitar and strum it out but i am far too tired and achey. a certain best friend of mine should be home soon to rub my head and paint my nails.

i am currently taking recommendations for new music.  if you read this, send me some of your favorites of the moment on facebook.

xx

n

“i just don’t wanna, so i’m walking away.” - sia, the girl you lost to cocaine

ALRIGHT.  I surrender.  I will proudly wear the title of worst journal keeper ever.  To make up for it, I will do the year in review as i used to.  I know I know, it doesn’t make my negligence okay, but think of it as a step in the right direction.

aPRIL 2009. - the first of four months living with a certain best friend of mine. she spills red medicine on my white sheets the first night. i sleep on the floor and make lots of sandwiches. it’s still chilly and i wake up at 6:30am for a 9am class. i am gloomy most of the time, except when we curl up and watch tv at night.

mAY 2009. - the mattress isn’t mine, but i like it. i start interning at nbc.  my feet always hurt and i visit that same best friend at work after i finish making photocopies three days a week.  we buy things at fairway and i stop feeling so gloomy, especially when we shop in the british section. i wear an orange t-shirt four days a week.

jUNE 2009. - it’s hot all of a sudden.  i walk across central park twice a day and it always feels longer on the way home. i play rilo kiley’s take offs and landings so much that a certain best friend considers popping her own ear drums so as not to have to listen to it anymore.

jULY 2009. - i begin my twentieth year of life and almost everyone important remembers.  my un-biological sister comes to new york with my parents to celebrate and we buy things at ikea. the best friend that shares my room comes to dinner with us and we eat pizza.  i sunbathe in capemay with my un-biological sister and best friend and i could not be happier than i am on the sun deck.

aUGUST 2009. - my best childhood pal becomes my roommate and we move into our new apartment. quickly.  it doesn’t feel like mine right away but i am happy with it.  i miss living with a certain best friend but i am happy to be living with a different one. i take off my orange t-shirt for the last time, even though i don’t know it at the time.

sEPTEMBER 2009. - i pack up my life into two suitcases. i take my first flight across the atlantic, with two old friends and a new one beside me. i move to dublin, ireland. i am terrified.

oCTOBER 2009. - i meet some people who will change my life and i don’t know it yet. my parents visit me in ireland. it’s harder to say goodbye to them this time. i visit england and scotland.  i pour myself into my work. i drop everything on halloween and i start to believe in magic.

nOVEMBER 2009. - i visit halina in london and remember why i miss her. i almost quit school and fly home, but i don’t.  i stay. i begin to finish. i listen to tegan and sara’s sainthood and don’t know any of the words because i don’t have the liner notes. i sit on my bed when everyone else is out at night and i cry until my sides hurt and i can’t breathe.

dECEMBER 2009. - i stop crying. i don’t sleep. i develop a temporary eye twitch. i participate in a certain showcase. an old friend and i become conjoined. i miss her when we part. i struggle to find the words to say goodbye to a new friend. i don’t get it right. i fly home and cry in my sleep on the plane.

jANUARY 2010. - a certain best friend of mine promises that this year will be better than the last.  we join a gym.  i start using the word “we” again.  it feels good.  i re-edit. i move back into my apartment.  it doesn’t feel like mine and i write a song about it. i go back to tisch and feel like an upperclassman for the first time.

fEBRUARY 2010. - i celebrate a twenty-second birthday with a certain best friend. she shares my room with me for a little while.  i complain but it’s nice not to be alone. i give her a drawer. i make meatloaf. i try to get it together. i write a song about it.

mARCH 2010. - i visit halina again in london and i go back to dublin sooner than i thought.  old new friends aren’t really that far away. i plan to take pictures but instead i just soak it all in and i am content. i spend st patty’s day with halina and i get double carded.  i attend a gig for one of my favorite irish bands and i feel like a rockstar in my own right because i’m with the band. i fly home. a blue t-shirt is waiting for me as well as a certain best friend who lives in my building now.

aPRIL 2010. - i am returning to abnormal life, to quote the sounds.

i promise, i’ll do better from now on - journal keeping, wise.

xx

n

“i know you feel it too, these words get overused when we get up and over it and over them.” - tegan and sara, hell

i am back from london.  it was amazing.  i learned a lot of things:

1. bus 31 doesn’t run properly on saturday nights and if it’s raining, you will get wet and your feet will freeze waiting for it.
2. its easy to find boyfriends in london, i.e. kerpal and fred.
3. fondant does not taste good.
4. glee is addicting and wonderful.
5. big ben really is.
6. indian food is amazing.
7. mice do not belong in bedrooms.
8. i love halina. (see #9)
9. eight years is a very long time. 
10.  that’s what she said never stops being funny if timed properly.
11.  if you look really closely, the national portrait gallery has pictures of all of the major characters from cheers. 
12. boys are silly, especially when they don’t know what they want and even more when they know and don’t tell you.

unconventional things to learn in england, i know, but wonderful nonetheless.

and now here i am, back in dublin, waist deep in stress and i know i should be doing work instead of writing this but oh well.

more later friends.

xx

“can’t you see what you do to me? you fill my heart with misery.” - the ramones, can’t seem to make you mine

literally every boy that i have ever almost dated has been involved in my life in one way or another today.  i haven’t felt this inadequate in a while.  thanks, boys.

on another note, i love the new tegan and sara album.  they really know how to tug at my heart strings, so to speak.  i want to write songs like that someday.  and be six foot tall.  one of these things will happen, i know it.

last week when i was shooting all of those projects for music video class i had to wear false eyelashes a whole bunch of times and they must have done a number on my real lashes because when i went to mascara them yesterday morning i realized that a big chunk were missing from my left eye.  i am now painfully insecure about it and thought about having individual fakes put in until they grow back but i fear it may make it worse.  i was sitting in front of the mirror this morning tweezing my eyebrows thinking about how strange it is that i have so much extra hair in one place and so much missing in another.  how unfair and temporarily unpleasant.

this blog will officially have very little to do with actually being in dublin, even though that was the reason for its conception.  sorry to disappoint.

if i were a crayon today, i would blue-green.

currently reading: the tipping point by malcolm gladwell

currently listening: sainthood by tegan and sara

from now on i’m going to begin with a song of the day.  i believe songs say things that my words never could, so here’s to saying something:

“and we’ll no longer memorize or rhyme, too far along in our climb, stepping over what now towers to the sky…” -the shins, phantom limb

before you even say it, i know, i know.  i haven’t written in two months.  fail.  alright, i admit - i am not the best journal keeper in the world.  the whole reason i’m even writing tonight anyway is because i was visiting bryce this afternoon and saw he had a tumblr and when i asked him to add me and he saw this mess that is my two lonely posts, he made fun of me.  i am driven to write by shame.

——

it is the third day of the eleventh month already and i am somehow so very far engrossed in my music video and the funny thing is, i haven’t really even started yet.  i have this foundation for a treatment that i’ve written and i honestly can’t tell if my band is keen on it or not - i sure hope they are because i really would like to shoot it.  i guess if not this video, maybe the next one.  here’s the evidence toward my first strides in the direction of optimism.

talked to dara on skype today - a very much needed distraction from the rest of my life today.  the weather is suddenly very harsh and cold and all day long i felt like i just needed a hug.  when mary came home from getting dinner i was in the kitchen and we both stood there for a few moments trying to figure out why today was so dreary.  we couldn’t really nail down a solid answer, but today was certainly glum.  a shins kind of day, shall we say.

i am still finishing up my final music video exercise for screening tomorrow.  i am so sick of looking at it and i honestly don’t feel like doing it anymore, but i must admit that there is a tiny sliver of me that is quite proud of it.  of course, it’s not amazing by any standards, but for once, i shot what i wanted to shoot.  mission accomplished.

xx n

ps. today i counted that i have to unlock eight, yes EIGHT, doors in order to get to class.  that’s a lot of doors considering i live less than one hundred yards from all of my classes.

two days to go.  this week has been insane.  in the last 3 days…

1. i bought both a raincoat and a warm winter coat, the latter of which does not fit into my suitcase and will, at some point, need to be shipped to me.

2. i had two pairs of jeans hemmed.

3. i picked up new mascara and treated myself to an eyeliner.

4. i managed to track down UK and Continental Europe power converters (i figured i’d get both in case i travel).

5. i had my second to last chipotle burrito.

6. i searched high and low for a flanel shirt but couldn’t find one i liked

7. i packed, well mostly.  it was a struggle.  i have figured out that i am not a good packer.  not good at all.

all of this has culminated with me, sitting on the couch, barely awake, watching christina aguilera’s E! true hollywood story.  i know, it’s pathetic - but it was on and i don’t know if i have the strength to change the channel.  i am wiped.  what an appropriate end to the year i’ve had.  summer didn’t really feel like summer.  i didn’t really get to slow down, i just simply had a few chances to put the chaos on hold for a couple of days.  i only managed to read a few books (blink, darkly dreaming dexter, the white tiger, and currently the girl with the dragon tattoo).  i found a few new bands (florence and the machine, the sounds, etc). i moved into my very own apartment, which i must say i am devestated to be leaving so soon.

well i suppose that’s all for now - i have another busy busy day tomorrow.  until we meet again…

xx n

today i did absolutely nothing that is in any way dublin related.  i just thought you would like to know.  today was a waste of a day, dublin-wise.

xx n

so here it is, folks, the very beginnings of my blog that will chronicle my journey to dublin and, eventually, back.  not much to report tonight, except that there is officially one week left until i depart for ireland and i must confess that i am not even close to being ready.  there is still so much to do…

1. i still don’t have a warm winter coat, so i need to buy one.  i knitted myself an ivory hat and scarf, so preferably in a colour (notice the british spelling? i hope i fit in over there…) that matches.
2. i also do not have a raincoat, although it would have come in handy this summer considering how much it rained in new york city.
3. i need to buy new mascara and some prep and prime for my eyelashes - i bought some about a month ago but con bought it off me when she came up to visit so i’m back at square one with that.
4. my luggage is still in new jersey, making it moderately difficult to pack.
5. i don’t have winter boots that aren’t uggs and aren’t rainboots and aren’t leather so i guess really the thing i don’t have is snow boots, which, now that i think of it, i do, so scratch number five off the list.
6. i still haven’t figured out how to knit mittens.

it’s late and that’s all i can think of right now, although i am certain there are plenty more things i’ve forgotten that i’ve forgotten to do. maybe i’ll remember tomorrow…

xx n