ok. i admit it. im guilty. i might have gotten a little side-tracked from the blogosphere recently. i havent really blogged myself and i also havent had a chance to actually devour any of my normal afternoon blog readings this week either. the problem with writing is that its something you have to force yourself to do everyday because, once you slack, youll continue to do so. in this manner, writing becomes a lot like exercising. actually, writing is an awful lot like exercising. for example, right now, as i write this, im basically doing the equivilant to going to the gym and choosing the eliptical over the stairclimber. im sorta taking up time here without having to work too excessively hard. but i tell myself that im still burning calories, so it counts. right? RIGHT?

exactly.

ive actually been pretty busy recently at Sinking Ship Inc. and between that and the time i spend updating my resume and portfolio and looking for a new job, screaming at the news as i read it, planning my future life as an ex-pat, eating and sleeping…there just arent enough hours in the day!

but never you fear. your regularly scheduled blogging will return shortly. until then though, i leave you with some spoken word lyrics from Bright Eyes which, i personally, found to be very thought-provoking…

happy monday all, todays word of the day is:

geneclexis (JEN – i – KLEK – sis) : Choice of a partner based chiefly on that person’s physical attributes or biological descent, without regard for intellect or character.

from the Greek genos, “descent” and eklexis , “selection”.

so, i really havent felt much motivation to post this week. i think im having a creative juices dry spell. either that or im too busy working and being all responsible adult like and things like that. but, whatever the reason, this is my official, pointless, bullshit post. i have absolutely nothing of value to say, but im going to ramble on anyway because this is my blog and i can cry bullshit if i want to.

so…

i was checking my myspace the other day, because thats THE thing to do these days, and i was reading the bulletins area and i noticed that a bunch of my “friends” had posted one of those stupid online survey/meme things in the bulletin area. so i did what any voyeur would do and immediately read them. and then i noticed something. there was one question that starts “I have lost…” and then you fill in the blank with whatever the first thing is that comes to mind. most of the other questions involved inane answers, but the answers to this particular question were all quite serious and all pretty similar. one post in particular said “I have lost…my sense of purpose”. and this sentiment was widely echoed in the other posts. this struck me. it just….made sense. ive been feeling for a while like i just didnt get what the point of anything was anymore, like something was missing and i just didnt know what. and it wasnt sex (though that was fun anyway) and it wasnt beer (also fun) and it wasnt money (you cant miss what youve never had). but, sense of purpose? now that might just be the best way of putting it.

im a 20-something. and this is my quarter-life crisis.

i think the best way of putting it is – while you are still in school, you have specific, measurable, regulated goals. you know where you stand, where you are going and how much more you have to do to get there. and there are little victories along the way. and then!! ....nothing. youre out in the real world. youre working. you have no free time. you have no social life. you go to bed at 10. you know you are supposed to be doing these adult like things, like getting a job, buying a car, buying a house, getting a better job, getting married, having kids…(not that all these apply to everyone, because they dont, but im just making a point here) but…when? and how do you know how close you are? and are you ahead of or behind your peers? youre used to living this extremely goal-oriented, regulated lifestyle, and then all the sudden youre made to make your own goals and set your own regulations and you honestly just dont know how or, in my case, dont care enough to do it.

school does not train you for the real world. school prepares you for one thing and one thing alone – more school. if you decide to do anything else other than be a perpetual student (ive considered it, student loans are forgiven at death you know), then you basically have to start all over again and re-learn how to be a human being.

and thats when you hit a rut. and thats where i am. i work constantly, try to cram as much of my life as i can into saturday and sunday, and then….repeat. no goal, no regulation, no pattern, no measure. just…living.

in one way, its refreshing. its nice to just…be. but in another, its stressful, because thats not how i know how to live! i need set goals and ways to measure how close i am to them. without that i….lose my sense of purpose.

so…i need a new goal. something to work toward. or for. or…anything. any suggestions from those who are also going through their quarter-life crisis or those who have already been there and done that would be appreciated…

yesterday, while jogging my little legs off on the treadmill, i was reading some under-important fitness magazine that my gym happened to have after i discovered i had accidentally left my current gym reading—Plato’s Symposium—at home. (and yes, im serious about that, i really do read plato while i do my cardio). and in said fitness magazine, there is this article about the physiological effects of positive and negative thinking. now i know that the whole !better living! movement is really big right now, and i admit that ive readily jumped on that bandwagon (hail organic!), and i know that your thoughts can influence not only your emotions and perception, but also your physical well-being as well – science has proven this over and over again. BUT, the article suggests that one of the biggest mistakes we make is wishing our lives away because of work. it says that people have a tendency to spend monday through thursday wishing it were friday, friday counting down the minutes till 5o’clock and then saturday and sunday dreading the inevitable coming of monday.

well…yes. i do do that. except for the dreading of monday all weekend thing. i can honestly say that i dont even think about work until around 6am on monday morning, thats when my dread strikes.

the article goes on to say that we should instead say “thank goodness its monday!” or “yippee for tuesdays!” and that this will make our week seem so much less painful and will improve not only our physical health, but our happiness as well.

...

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GAH! i just cant do it. i cannot bring myself to be thankful for mondays. i can, and have, said “thank goodness i have a job and am not unemployed”, but I dont mean that at all, and usually the only person im trying to convince is myself—and i know im lying. i can ALWAYS tell when im lying. im just good like that.

so… im trying to come up with better, more honest, positive statements to say. ones that i will actually mean when i say them. like, “thank god i have a job with a steady paycheck so i can afford to go drinking after work today” or, “thank goodness today is thursday and i am at work and therefore do not have to answer any of my mothers nagging phone calls”, or even “thank you lord that my job did not require that i get fingerprinted when i started because god knows what kind of file the FBI might have on me by now”.

yeah…these sound good. i feel better already!

anyone else got some good ones?

this one is actually quite useful:

macrologist (ma – KRAHL - uh -jist) n : a boring conversationalist that you meet at a social event and that you evade by deftly passing on to someone else.

It comes from the word macrology, which means redundancy or longwindedness.

In a 1963 paper for the New York Academy of Sciences, Edward Lorenze explored the idea that one flap of a seagull’s wings could change the course of weather forever. This would later become known as the “butterfly effect”, an idea associated with Chaos Theory, that states that even the smallest action, such as the single flap of a butterfly’s wings, can ultimately affect the entire world.

**

July 24, 1994. Today is your twelfth birthday. We are celebrating, you and I and a bunch of your friends, at the local community pool. We splash and dunk and belly-flop and cannonball – all those things that only kids can do for an infinite number of hours. And when these grow tiresome or our bellies grow too pink we have contests to see who can hold their breath longer under water or race one another the length of the pool over and over again until we are so tired we can barely move.

At sunset we gather all our stuff together, a large assortment of colorful kickboards, foam noodles and rubber rafts, and trudge slowly back to your house, a whole 2 blocks, leaving a trail of little wet footprints behind us.

After ice cream and cake and an impromptu sing-along to Des’ree’s “Gotta Be”, still wrapped in our brightly colored beach towels, we pack into the two large, yellow rubber rafts (the ones we have brought inside, still wet, and left in the middle of the living room floor, much to your mother’s dismay) to watch a movie and snack on popcorn. I don’t remember what movie we watch because after 20 minutes we are all sound asleep, a giant mess of tangled limbs and popcorn kernels, contorted and uncomfortable but so comatose that it doesn’t matter.

In the morning, stiff and still sleepy, I hug you goodbye when my father comes to pick me up and, as the car drives off, lean out the window and say “thank you for the party!” adding quickly, “…cant wait for next year’s!”

Neither of us know at this moment that this will be the last birthday I will ever celebrate with you. We have been best friends for what seems like forever but, having just finished up our first year of middle school, childhood has already begun its surreptitious retreat. In the summers that will follow we will hear from each other less and less, as is the tendency with childhood friends. By the time we graduate high school we will not have spoken in 5 years. All that will remain of the once strong friendship are some notes and pictures, a few trinkets that mean nothing to anyone but the two of us, and a handful of good times spent together – like a twelfth birthday party.

July 9, 2004. The roads by the reservoir are often foggy at night, especially during the hot and humid Baltimore summers. The sun has set long ago and, as the heat of the day begins to fade, a low ground cover of fog begins to settle in.With the exception of the constant chorus of crickets and tree frogs and the occasional hum and whiz of a passing car, it is a quiet, still night.

Shortly after 2am, a mustang (for some reason I imagine it might have been green) comes speeding around the bend at the bottom of the hill on Providence Rd. It doesn’t fully make the turn though – instead the silence of the night is broken (but only for a second) by the squeal of rubber on pavement, the awful crunch of metal and fiberglass and the shattering of glass as the car slides off the road, slamming sideways into one tree before crashing headfirst into another.

The police report will say that the driver “failed to negotiate the turn”, but you will never be able to tell them why. You do not survive the crash.

I won’t hear about it for another two weeks when, at a bar, the following conversation plays out between me and an old friend:

    Him: Hey, do you remember Telly? We went to school with her in elementary and middle school…

    Me: Yes! Of course I remember her! We were best friends for years.

I see the change come over his face immediately, the corners of his lips fall, and then, quietly…

    Him: Oh. Im sorry. I didn’t know. I hate to be the one to tell you but…

**

I can only hope that your death was immediate, that you did not have time to feel the pain, or think about the friends who were in the car with you, or contemplate what it means to live or die. I hope that one minute you were laughing and joking and singing along with the radio and the next…

Static. Like when you turn the TV to a non-existent station. A gentle hiss, the flickering of black and white with the occasional flash of a broken image that you can almost make out, but not completely, like a dream, or a fading childhood memory…

**

If the Chaos Theory is correct, then it is impossible for any person, no matter how ordinary, to cross paths with another, even for a breif moment, without ultimately affecting the entire course of their life.

im in a song lyric mood, so just some song lyrics today…

Jamie Cullum—Twentysomething

I’m a twenty something.
Let me lie in, Leave me alone.
I’m a twenty something.

alright, so ive been a terribly neglectful blogger the past couple of weeks. but i have a good excuse! several of them!

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ok, so i dont actually have any good excuses, only that i have been busy. really terribly busy, doing everything else…but blogging. also, hungry, as i have been boycotting the grocery store. now, you might be asking, steph, why on earth would you boycott the grocery store. because it does seem like a silly and, oh, unintelligent thing to do. and it is, i can assure you of that. but the reason is simple and logical (to me). you see, ive been going over my finances for the past few months trying to find ways to cut back (because i am trying to 1. save money to buy a house and 2. pay off the mountains of debt that my useless degree from loyola college has left me with) and what i saw was that there were places i could easily scrape money from if i just cut back on the “unnecessary” spending. so….first went iTunes. (you have no idea how painful this was for me, i even had to deauthorize the account just to be sure i wouldnt get up in the middle of the night and binge download in my sleep). next went Barnes and Noble followed closely by Old Navy (both evil stores who accept my non-credit debit card). then i cut back on the trips to Target (i couldnt cut them out completely). so these…have helped. but i thought, surely there must be more i can cut back on right? right!? (oh, and giving up my whole foods addiction or canceling my high speed internet were NOT, are NOT and NEVER will be considerable options). (also beer. giving up beer is not even to be suggested. the slightest hint that i should give up beer will be taken as an offensive attack and wrath will be rained down upon you accordingly). so i thought….

and thought some more…

and finally decided that there were three things left in my life which i personally did not see as necessary

i dont watch tv often, but the roommate would be kind of mad if he came home one day and the cable was gone , plus its useful for sporting events and my friends would probably stop coming to visit me if i didnt have cable. so that had to stay. that left two:

well, i have to go to work (and the gym and everywhere else all over the state), so clearly i cant give up on buying gas, so that means the grocery store has to go.

and so there you have it. makes perfect sense right? plus, if im not buying food, theres the added bonus of the starvation diet! and, lets be honest, i could stand to lose 10lbs anyway right?

now, there are exceptions. i do buy milk and orange juice, granola bars (for breakfast), and bread. other than that though, ive just been using up whats in the kitchen already (which is a lot more than i thought). so far i have had several cans of vegetables, ramen twice, several peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, spaghetti on several occasions and multiple bowls of cereal. (i also had a peice of cheesecake for dinner last night – my mom gave it to me though so it doesnt count). ive officially run out of spaghetti sauce, and theres only two cans of peas left, but there is an abundance of ramen, tuna fish, saltine crackers and peanut butter still there, so i think i should be good for a while…

maybe, if youre good blog readers, i just might keep you updated on how the grocery store boycotting goes…