And Only Tomorrow Leads My Way...

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:51:15 GMT

I keep in touch with virtually no one (I say virtually because the random facebook wall post does not count) from college.

Occassionally I talk to Allyson or Megan, but they want to teach abroad.

But it makes me wonder, how did I spend my 4 years if the people I spent my days and nights with don't even shoot an fbook message telling me how they are.

I wish I could just figure out all the shitty things about me and change them, or fuck them...either of which would be fine. But I'm afraid there are too many shitty things.

It makes me just want to delete my facebook account and keep running. Not keep running because I don't know if I was ever running, but end up on a beach in Spain or the South of France and say...Temple what? Valley who? I'm too (self-mockingly Hemingway-esque) important and interesting to remember my life before 22.

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 11:44:29 GMT

And after 5 years having passed, I still have to catch my breath when I hear from you. Maybe some things you don't move on from. Maybe it's not the thing I held on to, but that ever elusive possibility which has ruined a lot of things in my life.

How many people say possibilities ruined their life? Why am I so weird?

He was the last person who gave me butterflies. He still gives me butterflies. Even though someone else should give me butterflies. But like I said, I think it's the possibilities that do it. And you can't cozy up to a warm possibility under the covers, but you can cozy up to a sure thing. Right now, I'd rather feel safe than excited.

Sidenote: When I say possibility, I mean former possibility. Or the idea of possibility in general. But not a present here and now possibility. I just wanted to clear that up for the livejournal world, since I'm being so specific and everything.

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 07:08:35 GMT

I just found out that someone I went to school with, who wasn't particularly nice to the fat girl in middle school has a receding hairline almost to the point of being bald at 22.

Guess what? All my fat moved to my boobs, but I don't know where your hair went.

Karma's a bitch.

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:31:25 GMT

4 months.

Who knew dysfunctional could be so...functional?

<3

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:35:13 GMT

"Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart."
-h.m.

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 07:16:03 GMT

I think I have the AIDS. I'm always tired. Like always. Even when I don't do anything, and even when I do.

And I've got some sinus throat thing happening.

Either that or mono. Hope it's mono. AIDS would suck. Although the health care in this country rules.

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:31:06 GMT

Life has completely defeated me today.

I retreat from the battle with my head hanging.

I just can't seem to do anything right today. I can't even soldier on.

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:38:39 GMT

I have the internet. I have the internet. I have the internet.I have the internet. I have the internet. I have the internet.

For real.

Not some stolen wireless.

Oh my God, I love the internet.

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:26:55 GMT

It's been over a month since I've written in this thing. Almost two.

Of course I pick the day I'm eeeeming out to write in it. I have a lot on my mind. I really wish I had the internet at my apartment.

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 07:22:46 GMT

So I guess yesterday was Labor Day?

I totally forgot. I spend most of my time with a Canadian, and the internet at my apartment isn't working. It's weird. How easily national holidays are forgotten.

It's also weird to hear about everyone going to school, or back to school. On Graduation Day, being an alum didn't hit me. I figured it would when the end of August rolled around and everyone was going back to school and I wasn't. But when I read about school starting again on everyone's Facebook pages, I just thought "Oh yeah, people go to college."

I guess it's just weird to me that I can fall into a routine here, so completely removed from how I measured my life in America. And how normal it feels. Now Labor Day sounds weird to me. People being in college sounds weird, it just makes me feel old. I try to imagine my friends at Temple, sitting in the Atrium, auditioning for the season, taking classes in Barton...and I'm so glad I'm not there anymore. I don't even understand how they can do that day in and day out.

So, like everything in life, there is an upside and a down side. Upside - I feel normal, and settled, and like I have a life. But did this normalcy occur at the cost of my American life?

Can I imagine a restaurant without metal chopsticks and kimchi? Can I imagine a city with expensive taxis, not adding an "eee" sound at the end of everything I say, not bowing when I'm thankful, not taking my shoes off when I enter someone's home, not buying soju in the grocery store, no Paris Baguettes, and no temples? Yeah I guess I could. But after just a month and a half, it's getting hard. And it scares me, like everything else in life.

Hello lamp post,

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 06:00:53 GMT

whatcha knowin'?

It's been quite a while (by livejournal standards), since I've last posted.

But usually the absence of posting means the goodness of real life, which is what's happening.

+ soft ball
+ family dinners
+ korean wine
+ good people
+ a couch
++++++ working 24 hours a week and getting paid for 30

- i still have to work

Woah, only one minus. Yeah, my life's pretty good.

Don't misread the signs, if you turn the key then things will turn out fine...

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:35:01 GMT

you're pushing me you're breaking
over taking me you're racing
first placing me not chasing me back home

don't let me down

I'm going to be very rational about this. Very rational, very mature. Very rational, and very secure in myself. I will not jump to conclusions. No jumping to conclusions, no doubt. No jumping to conclusions, no thinking in general. I will not think, because I put myself through crap. I just want...I don't know what I want. But I know what I don't want.

Things could go back to the way they were. But they either need to change, or go back. They can't just sometimes be the way it was, and then sometimes be different. I don't do stuff like that.

Entry spamming...

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:38:33 GMT

I know it's a little ridiculous, writing in this thing so often. But I just need to put it out somewhere and know that it's there, not just in my head.

"AUGH! I feel like I'm running and moving and doing all these great things - but when i stop and look around, im in the same god damn place as i was yesterday, last week, last year, last decade...and thats what kills the most."

That is a quote, from me, written on my Dead Journal on January 22nd, 2003.

Five and a half years ago.

What happened to that girl? I read that post, and I feel exactly the same way. But the righteous frustration is gone. I am resigned. I read it, and found comfort in feeling the same way, how fucking sick is that? It's also kind of ironic I guess. What happened to that girl, where did she go? Where did that fire under my ass go? I mean I'm in South Korea so there's still some fire left but come on. I'm just so apathetic now.

Going back and reading my Dead Journal was probably a bad idea. So that means I'll just do it more and dwell. Because I am a dweller.

"Death is no big deal because life is just...blah blah blah. Look, Silas, life is just blah blah blah.
You hope for blah,
and sometimes you find it.
But mostly it's blah and waiting for blah.
And hoping you were right about the blahs you made.
And then just when you think
you have the whole blah damn thing figured out,
and your'e surrounded by the ones you blah,
death shows up and...
blah blah blah."
- El Andy The Book of Weeds Chapter 4 Verse 7.

I am the table.

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:53:33 GMT

I killed a huge bug in my bathroom last night. It was bigger than a quarter, kind of looked like a cockroach, but it had some cricket-y looking parts to it. I'm thinking crockroach. I didn't want to get too close to it, so I poured dish soap on it until it stopped moving. But I couldn't get rid of it. It was late, I was tired, and it was so big I didn't want to touch it in squishy dish soap. So I left it there. Then when I got up this morning, I left the door to my bathroom open because I didn't want to be alone with the crockroach. It's still there. I have to work 12 hours today, and I refused to start my day by letting a crockroach rest in peace in my trash.

However, I also didn't want to start my day the way it started anyway. And I sort of feel like an asshole, which is nothing new I am one, but for different reasons. And the worst part is, it's my feelings that are making me an asshole. No one forced me, or coerced me into it, my feelings make me an asshole.

Ugh. I'm dreading today.

When I get home, I'm going to pour myself a large glass of wine, and bury the crockroach. Unless I can get someone to do it for me. Then I'll pour two large glasses of wine, and watch the crockroach get buried.

New Life Motto.

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 07:28:55 GMT

WWNBD?

What Would Nancy Botwin Do?

That's how I've decided to start living my life. I think it's going to work out.

Dear Journal,

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:30:27 GMT

I think everyone at my work establishment is boring because they're old. And by old, I mean all over 25. But then, I think of Mariane's Mike...he's over 25 and not lame. I just hope when I get old (aka 25), that I'm not lame by then.

Love,
Mary Rose

I got 21000 things that I gotta do today....

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:24:45 GMT

21st century life!

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are bittersweet. Bitter because I have to work early (ick), but sweet because I cab to work with someone I like a lot. My favorite part of my day is walking into school with this person. Just literally the 5 seconds we walk through the front door together. I can't explain it.

And then 30 minutes later my little shitheads make it my least favorite time of day.

Some random person friended me on Myspace today. It happens a lot because it's mostly people in the Army friending everyone in Korea because they're stationed there, and I'll at least give the person the benefit of the doubt because who knows? maybe we'll get along and the more people to know here the better.

However this particular person...is an idiot. His page was so stupid, I legitimately got dumber looking at it for the .2 seconds before I closed the window out to prevent myself from having a brain aneurysm. This was his status update:

$$-$^*tHuG d00d*^$-$$ sezz erryTinG haPenzZ 4 Ah ReezIN...

Granted that wasn't verbatim since I am trying to repress that memory, but you get the gist.

My IQ dropped 5 points. I need to read more and then have a discussion about sexual relationships in Victorian England expressed through literature or something.

Sorry, I know it's arrogant and elitist, but I had to tell someone.

I hope I have plans tomorrow night <333

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:15:19 GMT

I had an underwear dance party today. Complete with cute underwear, White Zinfandel, cheese and crackers, and BANGIN tunes (namely G. Love and the Special Sauce).

Very few things were missing. However, there were some, and they are:
- someone else to dance in my underwear with
- a couch to dance on

Grammatical note: Does my participle dangle if I didn't split the infinitive? Is there a law for this?
I guess my grammar is missing too :(

If it was more than my washing machine what would you do?

Excuse me, I have to get back to being emo and classy (wine in a wine glass, not in a bottle...who knew it could be done?).

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 05:34:50 GMT

It's a self-preservation thing you see...

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:20:37 GMT

I'm eating a birthday muffin to celebrate. Really it's just a regular muffin that I happen to eat every Monday Wednesday, and Friday, but today it is a birthday muffin because today is my birthday.

Every year, when I know my birthday is coming up, I think that maybe this year my birthday will be different. Maybe I will like my birthday, maybe I will feel happy or celebratory. But then my birthday comes, and I still feel shitty and I realize that nothing ever changes. I know that hope is a good thing, that I can hope things will be different, but I don't know why I do because they never are.

But I think this year I've figured out why I hate my birthday so much. I think I hate my birthday because it's one more way to mark a year - that's all holidays really are. So you can think about the birthday, Christmas, Easter, Halloween or freaking Memorial Day before this one. And when you do, what's different? How have things changed? How am I supposed to mark my days? How should I measure them? Why don't I understand, why can't I find a way to mark time and measure my life that feels right, that feels good, that gives me peace?

That's why I don't like my birthday. Because I am one year older and no closer to knowing anything that really matters.

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 07:03:36 GMT

I have plans I have plans I have plans I have plans I have plans I have plans I have plans I have plans I have plans!

For tonight.

Unfortunately, I accidentally entered the wrong password for my bank card at an ATM, and now my card is locked...but I have enough for cab fare, and one drink. So either A) It is not fated that I will be waste-face or B) I will find someone to buy me drinks, and defy the Waste-Face Fates. WOAH. Say that 5 times fast. Dare you!

What??

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:22:41 GMT

Do any of you guys remember when I did People to People? Ok, well I know no one else reads this, but I remember when I did P2P.

Since the wonderful invention of online networking, I've gotten back in touch with a few people who found me on Myspace.

One of the girls I did a 3 week tour of Europe with is pregnant. I know someone married and expecting. And she posts pics on Myspace. Maybe that's the weirdest of all. That's what our society has developed into. I mean granted I wouldn't have heard about it any other way, but I heard about it on Myspace. I also heard about another friend's marriage on Facebook.

Perhaps being weirded out about hearing about these milestones being broadcast on the internet is a cover for being weirded out that I know people hitting these milestones.

Or maybe not that they're hitting these milestones, but I am not.

I just found out about this woman's pregnancy while I'm sitting on my apartment floor (because I'm still couchless) in South Korea eating chips (that I have no idea what they are called), and drinking a beer. What?!?!?

And perhaps most weirded out that, not only are these things happening, but when I find out about them - I'm jealous. That's really weird. I've always wanted a family, obviously, but at 21 I envy a woman who is married and prego, but I'm living abroad. Who is supposed to have the characteristically fabulous life? But I know she has the fabulous life, and it is her we should all envy.

I guess the appropriate thing is to congratulate her via a Myspace comment??

What's proper etiquette for Myspace?

This is our decision to live fast and die you

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:16:45 GMT

We've got the vision now let's have some fun
yeah it's overwhelming but what else can we do
get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?
forget about our mothers and our friends
we're fated to pretend

Today someone I haven't thought about wrote on my facebook wall. He worked at the Pensione Ottaviano when I stayed there in Rome. I saw that he wrote on my wall during class, when my students were taking a test and I was bored (and shouldn't have been checking facebook), and my heart physically hurt. I felt this great weight pressing on my chest, and I couldn't breathe for a minute until one of my kids pulled me back from that place with a "Teachuh teachuh...what this?"

The whole rest of the class, and even now about 3 hours later, I can't stop thinking about those 5 days. I went through my pictures on Facebook, and all my memories. And even though things happened in Rome that made me sad, I can't help but look back on those times and smile, and miss them. I think because I had a feeling of infinity that went beyond sadness and happiness, it was deeper than that. Actually, it was a totally different pool. Feelings and feeling infinite are two different things. And I was infinite.

I want to say that's what it feels like to be young and invincible, but some of the people I spent those 5 days with were in their mid-thirties. Maybe they were still young. Maybe it makes me sad that a 35 year old could feel younger than I do.

That was the time of my life. A beautiful city, beautiful company, doing whatever we wanted. Seeing a 2500 year old structure in the morning, napping in the afternoon, eating a delicious dinner, then experiencing the Italian night life. What's better? Honestly, think of something better than that. I can't. And that's why it makes me sad I guess.

I think it also makes me sad because I still keep in touch with the friends I made in 5 days, and here I am in South Korea, and I know next to no one. I'm even shy about asking coworkers to go out on a Friday night. And I shouldn't be. That's not who I am, that's not who I want to be. I guess I'm just intimidated because they all have lives here already, circles of friends, plans.

Maybe that's why Ottaviano was perfect and infinite - because we were people from all walks of life, but for the better part of a week our paths crossed perfectly, we were all in the same place.

I think I just feel out of place here. I'm young, and loud, and obnoxious, and stupid. I make bad decisions. But here, I'm pretty quiet, I think before I speak, and I haven't been to a bar in this city yet. If this is growing up, I'd rather die of cirrhosis at 50 than live to a dignified 90.

I know it will take time to fall in with a crowd who is loud and stupid like me. But I don't want to wait. I didn't come here to wait. And I feel like I have been waiting for the past three weeks. But really I feel like I've always been waiting. In Middle School I waited to go to High School. I waited to drive, I waited to go to college, I waited to turn 21, I waited to graduate. Now I'm waiting until I make a good circle of friends. I wait until I can buy a couch, buy a cell phone. I CAN'T WAIT ANYMORE! Sorry for the caps, but it felt necessary. I'm bursting out of my skin, but I've got nowhere to go.

And I say that now, in my apartment, with Korean tv commercials blasting, but I know once I get to work tomorrow Colin and I will eat lunch in an awkward silence, and I will burn, simply burn, to ask him what are you doing tonight, would you like to get a drink, maybe go downtown? And I won't. I'll probably come home tomorrow evening, completely exhausted from a 12 hour day, skype my mother and go to bed. And Saturday I'll probably wander around the city by myself (again), and see The Dark Knight (by myself), which sounds exactly like what I did last week.

If I don't make a bad decision in the next 48 hours, I'm going to explode. People can hold jobs and be stupid, I know it can be done.

I thought one of the great things about coming here was an opportunity to start over. I could be whoever I wanted. I decided on the plane that I was going to be responsible, and wake up early, and go to the gym, and eat healthy, and have healthy relationships. But now that I've been here for only 3 weeks, I see that that's not the point of all this. Starting over can't be done, and I mean that in the least pessimistic way possible.

I don't think people really change. I think things happen that change people, yes, but essentially we are who we are by this point in our lives. I think things like going away to college, travelling, living abroad, they don't give us an opportunity to start over and change who we are, they give us the chance to understand who we really are - and to love the person we are, not love the person we want to be. If you asked me now to go out drinking, at midnight when I have to be up at 7:30, I would tell you hell yes let's go. I'm not responsible. I'm not going to join a gym. I'm not going to wake up early. I'm not always going to do the right thing. And I love all those things about myself.

Before I came here, there were things I wish I could change about myself, about how I look, how I act, what I've done. But being forced into a personality suit that doesn't fit me made me realize those things about myself that I hated, are who I am. I've been that girl at a party. I've been a bitch. I've pushed away all the people I should have kept close (with a few exceptions of people who can stand me somehow). I'll never be physically fit. I'll always be lazy. I want to be that person.

I want to be the lazy-slobbish-irresponsible-psychotic-pushy-loud-stubborn-all-over-wrong person that I am. Because I'd rather be that kind of person well than be a responsible-nice-kind-sweet person very poorly, and without fun I may add.

And in that way, I have changed. I have changed because I realize I will always be the same, and I love it.

Now, do I think people can change drastically? Of course. I'm not talking about drug addicts, alcoholics, all that stuff. I'm talking about just people. I mean really...how different are you now from when you were 11? We've got bigger more expensive toys, and more complicated relationships, but the way we act is totally the same.

Love the person you are right now, not the person you want to be. When you can do that, I think we become different people - better people; different because acceptance (of anything) is something we all struggle with, and better because I believe anyone who finds new and more ways to love, and who holds more love in their heart, is better.

Hello old friend,

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:06:22 GMT

it's been a while.

I've been keeping a sort of blog on facebook about moving to South Korea. I'm trying to update it every week or so, maybe every two weeks. Check it out! When I have a few moments to myself, I'm going to create an actual blog, and post videos and photos, but I'll still link the text to facebook.

Shomesing you may not know about me...

So I am in South Korea, Gwangju to be exact, and I started teaching this week. Its slow going all around - from finding a couch to making friends. Currently I'm having a crisis involving my bank account, but the situation will be remedied at most by Monday when I get my reimbursement for my flight. However, I still can't get my American money out of my account. I currently have the equivalent of 35 cents in cash. But I can use my card at stores. So I can buy things, but I can't pay for things in cash. It's weird.

So I was supposed to get a couch this weekend, but that probably won't happen. I am trying to get all, or some, of the teachers at my school together to go out maybe on Saturday. This has been a very long week, and I could use a drink.

I don't think the other teachers really like to go out, or go out a lot at least. So I really need to find some people who will stay out late and go dancing and drinking with me. Like, I really need this.

Dark Knight FINALLY comes out next week here. As does WALL-E. So I'll be at the Megabox a lot next week.

If you want to know something about what I'm doing, just ask!

Other than being in another country, and sans-couch, life is pretty much the same as always.

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:04:32 GMT

+ visa...obv.
+ going to South Korea tomorrow!
+ spending my last night in Philly <3
+ good music in NYC
+ Eddie's
+ Mare
+ laughing so hard my abs hurt <33

- packing...it sucks.
- flying...it sucks.
- Having to fend for myself at the airport of a foreign country...I mean really foreign.
- not seeing Butchie for a long long time

"i met someone swell, so swell, we go together like..."
"pb&j?"
"no way. like tonic and taaaaaaaaanq....ueray, ueray, hooray!"