Aaaaand again...

So, this post is going to be about the fact that it is so damn difficult to remember to post. It's been something like 8 months since I last posted here. I could have had a premature child by now. (I haven't, in case you're wondering.)

My friend Alex and I started another blog (yes, Idle Hands, I AM cheating on you, and no, I'm NOT sorry). It's a hockey blog. I love hockey. I mean. Have you MET me? If you have, then I have probably said the words "I love hockey" to your face. (While we're here, go ahead and hop on over to 2 Girls 1 Puck and check out the witty things I've written there. I'll wait.)

Ahhh, yes. Beautiful, it is. You can see that my colleague Alex has been much more diligent in her posting duties. I, for one, have been totally forgetting that thing exists. (Sorry Alex!!!) So it really isn't that I haven't been keeping up with hockey stuff (HOLY FREE AGENCY, BATMAN!) or that I just don't care to post. I simply forget about every blog I EVER start.

New Year's Resolution: Be better at blogging. (So it's July--we'll make this a birthday-to-birthday resolution.)

Anyway, it's time to start over. And I don't just mean my blogginess. It's time to do a hard reset and just be better. There are so many things that I want from myself. So many things that I can be. And all I see right now is wasted potential. I see a monthly donation to my gym. I see an apartment that could be so charming that currently has bare, sad walls and a bedroom that is still partially in boxes. I see a guitar gathering dust in a corner. I see a potentially beautiful voice being damaged by chemicals and ALLERGIES AAAAGGGHHH VIRGINIA! I see a brain being consumed by things like "how to be a hipster" and HGTV's "how to do all these fancy things you will NEVER actually do" instead of career-propelling things like "how to write songs so you can live THE dream" or "how to be better at your current job that you love". And all of this is born out of some laziness, yes, but also out of a fairly recently broken heart that has now known its greatest defeat to date. We're not getting into it. But let's just say I lost myself for awhile there. Forgot how to be the best version of myself without the other half that I had inadvertently and rather unexpectedly claimed (and ultimately hadn't claimed me back).

But all of that must be overcome! I have already begun to face down all of my demons and become a better version of me. To become the person I am meant to be, the person I want to be. I am woman, hear me roar? That felt appropriate. But really. Listen up, heart. You're no longer broken. It's been awhile since you've BEEN broken. You are mended. You are resilient. You are better than this dilly-dallying over frivolous little things. This is the mantra I have been repeating to my heart for the last few months. And I'm OK now. Better than OK. I'm bound for greatness.

I think I forgot I had this...

Life has been so good lately that I forgot to blog about it.  Seems pretty counter-intuitive, I know.  But have you ever noticed that the times when things are bad are the times that you feel most compelled to invest in some creative outlet?  I think that's probably what's going on here.

Life is good.  I have a job now.  I'm near a good deal of my close friends (though there are some that are still far away, of course--I guess I can't have everything I want).  I have some semblance of a love life (or at least it feels like I do these days).  I'm being reminded constantly that I'm lucky.

I hope I'll have time to blog more because I miss writing so much, but (not to toot my own horn or anything--toot, toot) there are so many demands on my time that I can't make any promises to you, dear readers (all 3 of you).  With Swedish lessons, Noctonals rehearsals, gym dates with myself, and quotidien shenanigans, what's a girl to do but write only sporadically in her low-low-low-traffic blog?  (I could've said "daily shenanigans" but "quotidien" feels so much....better.)

Anyway, I'll get back to you soon.

The X-Factor

So I totally didn't realize auditions for The X-Factor were coming up in less than a month, and now I'm torn over whether or not I should audition because I'm totally unprepared.  I could easily come up with a hundred songs I could sing for the audition, but financially, it would be totally irresponsible to go, especially since there's no guarantee any success would come from the audition.  I'd have to pay for gas and tolls for the drive and a hotel room in New Jersey, and I barely have enough money to pay my bills as it is.  Grrrr.  Well, if it's meant to be, then I'll win the lottery before April 13th.

Speaking of these things (meaning big unrealistic dreams), I had an epiphany yesterday.  I daydream too much.  If you're Liz or Dana, you've already heard me talk about this, so please feel free to stop reading.  The rest of you should keep reading because this gets to be some Inception type schtuff.


I am playing the role of Mal.  If only I could have more of the pretty and less of the crazy...

So, I daydream pretty much 60% of the time I'm conscious these days.  No exaggeration.  It started innocently and gradually with occasional daydreams of getting a nice job in Northern Virginia, being near a bunch of my friends, getting to go to Caps games every other day, having fabulous weekend plans in D.C., being able to pay my bills with no worries, and having my own little apartment--nothing fancy or expensive, but just...a place of my own.  These innocent little daydreams eventually expanded into ridiculous fantasy lands in which I am the most famous and praised singer in the world, I own 60 different properties in 40 different countries, I'm fluent in 18 different languages, I end world hunger by donating ungodly amounts of money to the people who...give food to hungry people, and of course, no fantasy land would be complete unless I'm married to Nicklas Backstrom.  Somehow, we're also mature like 40-year-olds but still look like we're 23 and have 3 ridiculously good-looking kids who all happen to have Nicky's lovely green eyes.  All of them are also good at hockey AND singing and are genius legacy children who will later graduate from UVA with top honors (as a fall-back to their ultimately-successful-anyway singing/hockey careers).  But that's beside the point.

The point is this: if you're looking at me, and I'm looking at something that is not you, I'm probably somewhere in that fantasy land, looking at my little Swedish-Asian kids.  (See?  Crazy Inception stuff.)  It's absolutely insane.  The saddest part is that the reason I'm spending so much time in my fantasy land is because I hate accepting the reality: I have no job, I have no money, I have no place to call my own, I have no love interest, a good majority of my friends are far away, I can't ever go to Caps games, I don't have enough of ANYTHING to end world hunger, I'm only really fluent in one and a half languages, and I don't earn money from singing.  (I actually don't mind that I don't have 3 Swasian kids, though.  At least right now.)

So even though I've always been a dreamer, and even though I don't like to be a quitter, it's definitely time for me to give up the daydreaming.  It's become a vice, almost like an addiction, imagining myself with a life that's better than the one I actually have.  I know that with everything that's going on in the world, this all sounds very trivial and superficial.  True, I never go hungry.  True, I have a bed to sleep in that is not a box on the street.  True, I have so many luxuries that most people don't have.  I guess the bottom line is that I just expected so much more from myself by now.  I expected great, great success.  I expected the fulfillment of at least one of my big dreams.

But my expectations have not been met, and I sit here disappointed and disenchanted with the oyster of the world.  I have found no grains of sand with which to make pearls.  Or...maybe I haven't yet found the means by which to become a pearl?  I've never quite understood what, "The world is your oyster" was supposed to mean, actually...

Anyway, the daydreaming has to stop.  Because I create fantasy worlds that are so much better than the real one I live in that when I have to come out of the daydream, I feel a sense of loss, like someone took away my filet mignon and gave me some roadkill for dinner.  I'm not like Mal from Inception because I absolutely know the difference between what's real and what's fake, but like her, I totally enjoy the fake world better than the real one.  I also don't plan on jumping out of a building and then blaming it on Leonardo DiCaprio so that he has to live in exile and has to do crazy dream experiments so that he can get that good-looking Asian man to clear his name in the US so that he can finally go home to his kids.  I don't plan on doing that.  So...in case you were worried.....don't be...

Topic sentence: If I'm going to be OK with my reality, I need to take the time to live in it, and maybe I can find ways to make it better.  (I'm feeling sassy, so I'm gonna leave my topic sentence at the end of my essay.  BOO-YAH!)

So I'm inconsistent...

Who isn't these days?  I've decided that I'm really terrible at blogging on the regular, but I will NOT let this blog die!  I refuse!

Here's my excuse for not blogging more often (and I think it's a good one): many (or none) of you may know that I've struggled with multiple bouts of depression ever since I was 16 years old.  For awhile, I had my head above water, and I was doing all right, but gradually, I've been sinking, and now I'm not really doing all right at all.  It doesn't help, of course, that I've now reached the rough one-year mark on the job-searching front only to be met with disappointment after disappointment, rejection after rejection (one particularly exciting and potentially life-changing opportunity having been very recently snatched from me by what I assume and hope are more capable hands).  But that's not exactly the root of my depression, of course.  It's just a contributing factor.  The rest is, well...all in my head.

Anyway, what may or may not be the source of my depression is sort of beside the point.  You know those commercials about depression where the voice-over says stuff like, "Does it feel like it takes everything you have just to get out of bed in the morning?" or "Do you feel like you've lost interest in everything that used to make you happy?"  You know those?  Well, they're nothing like actual depression.  I'm not saying those statements aren't true--they certainly are.  I'm saying that explaining or describing it and actually experiencing it are two very different things.  That's why I'm not going to describe it.  I'm not trying to be any more of a Debbie Downer than I already have been to everyone I freaking know.


I'm not ambitious enough to Photoshop my face into this.  Sorry, reader.

I fully believe that if you've never experienced ACTUAL depression (I'm not just talking about the blues), then you will never really be able to understand what it's like, even with the best descriptions in the world.  In a way, I guess I put myself on some weird pedestal.  I know what depression is like, and you don't, so THERE.  It's a self-alienating disease (and yes, I consider it an actual disease), and regardless of the fact that it is a mental or emotional disease, it has several physical consequences.

BUT that's ALSO not the point of this blog.  The point is that there are still small, shiny spots inside the abyss of depression, little beacons of light that manage to cheer me up, even in my darkest moments.  I encountered a few of those today, and I just want to give due credit.  Note: these are only the ones that I encountered today.  If you think you should be on my ultimate list of rainbows and sunshine, then you probably are, but I didn't interact with you much today.  Please don't be offended.

1.  This person:

That's Liz, my best friend.  Other than myself, she bears the brunt of my depression, I think.  All day long, she and I text while she's at work (hahaha), and every time I'm feeling particularly down, all I do is moan and groan about how much my life sucks.  On top of that, when she offers me encouragement, I snottily shoot her down, and I'm downright rude and unpleasant to her a lot of times.  But she still loves me and tries to encourage me to be positive, and she never lashes out against me for how I treat her because she knows I'm not acting like myself.  It's always easier to take things out on the people who you know will still love you afterward.

2.  This picture:

I've talked about him before.  Nicklas Backstrom of the Washington Capitals is pretty much a dreamboat to me (and a whole lot of other girls who are, of course, my worst enemies).  So...I'm not gonna lie.  Most of the "official" pictures of Nicky are actually not very flattering at all.  I've labeled him the Least Photogenic Hot Dude Ever.  BUT I recently (re)discovered this website capsinpictures.com, and I have to take that label off of him now.  The candid shots of him that are all over this website are usually the cutest freaking pictures I have EVER SEEN.  THIS particular picture actually, genuinely makes me smile.  Every time I see it.  He's so cute!  Totes adorbs.  Love him.  Love this pic.  Thanks, capsinpictures.com.

3.  My mom:

That was my mom (with my oldest sister Teri) back in the late 70s-ish.  Hee hee hee.  Aren't they presh?  Oddly enough, this is the only picture I have of my mom that's accessible from my computer.  She still looks the same, pretty much.  One of the blessings of aging Asian.  Anyway, my mom has never been super affectionate.  It's just not how she is.  Mostly, we kids have come to accept that fact.  But today she was comforting and encouraging in a way only a mother can be, and it made my day not-as-terrible as it could have been.

4.  This guy:

Obvi, that's me, and that guy is my good friend Paul, and we're clearly awesome (this was YEARS ago by the way).  I don't get to see him often because he lives a few states away, but he's in town this week, so he called me, and we get to hang out yayyyyyy!  Paul is one of those people who is almost always entertaining to me.  If he laughs at something I say or do, I feel special and hilarious.  I love Paul.  Love you, stupid. 

5.  This guy:

And this guy (on the right):

The first is Brooks Laich, the second is Alex Ovechkin.  Hockey is one of those big shining beacons in my life--I look forward to hockey all the time.  I could watch hockey all day, every day.  Anyone who doesn't get why I'm so obsessed with hockey should just know this: I can't give any specific reasons for why I love hockey, but the fact is I love it, and it is one of the only things that makes me happy these days.  So accept it.  Anyway, the Caps played the Islanders tonight, and after 59 minutes of pure torment and being behind by one goal most of the time, Brooksie scored the game-tying goal with only 47 seconds left in regulation, which took us into overtime, which was ended within two minutes by a beautiful, BEAUTIFUL goal from Ovie, therefore winning the game.  And any sports fan knows that the outcome of your team's game can make or break your entire day.  These two men made my night, for sure.  I didn't include Nicky (pictured on the left, next to Ovie) because...let's just say he didn't play his best game tonight.  Hahaha.  Ohhh sweet Nicky...

6.  My sister and nephew:

Angela and Aidan.  Despite the fact that we live together, I pretty much never see them because I keep such an odd schedule.  And any day that I get to see my sister and not fight with her is a good day. :)

7.  This person:

That's Eunice, another of my long-time besties.  She and I got to chat for a little while today, and I'm glad we did.  We don't get to talk much anymore, and I miss her.  She and I always have a lot to talk about--we're able to be super silly together or super sentimental, and anytime we talk or hang out, it's always good.  And it's her birthday!  Happy birthday, Eunice! <3

I think that concludes the list for today.  Through the cloud of depression, it's often difficult to acknowledge and appreciate the good things.  I just thought it was important to take stock of all the good things that happened today.  I'm going to sleep in a much happier state than I was in when I woke up.  I am grateful.

I swear I haven't given up...

I just don't have much going on right now--it's all been more of the same.  I'm thinking mostly about all the same things: money, jobs, hockey, men, and friends.  Oh and Sweden.

That's not to say that I'm not very creative.  I've always considered myself a pretty creative person, but the last thing I want is for this blog to be artificial.  I want it to reflect me, my sense of humor, my present struggles or joys or just...whatever I'm actually thinking about.  I don't want to CREATE a topic just so I can have something to write about (which is one reason why I'll never be able to make money from writing).

There is something I've been thinking about though.  It's something that has taken so many manifestations in my life in the last few months that I think I need to sit down and work it out.  This issue is, once again, related to my friendships.  But more specifically, it's about how my friendships change.

I've had the same best friend since I was ten years old.  Sure, there have been times when we drifted a bit, but the last time I genuinely felt like we weren't best friends was way back in middle school, after I moved away from our neighborhood and she moved away from our town.  Especially for young people, that distance should have effectively ended our friendship.  I think maybe over the course of one year, we only spoke a few times, and mostly on the internet (Palace Chat, anyone?), but just because we realized we really didn't want to grow apart, somehow we both started making an effort to grow closer again.  Part of it is because we could probably go for years without talking, and when we spoke again, everything would feel the same.  It's inexplicable and special.

As lovely as that all sounds, I do have other close friends.  I wish that I could say that I'm as attentive to all of them as I should be, but I'm not.  It has nothing to do with loss of interest or loss of affection.  I have only ever purposely ended one friendship in my whole life, and these days, I'm beginning to regret that decision.  Like the karmic forces of the universe are paying me back for how I handled that situation.  But this person I cut out of my life was horrible to me in many ways, and in the end, I think it was genuinely beneficial for both of us that we aren't friends.  In actuality, I think if said forces are messing with me for any reason, it should be because I have neglected actually meaningful relationships in my life.

There's a lot more I could say on the topic, but I'm feeling conflicted and guilty right now, so I'll just leave you with my conflict and guilt.  At other times I feel angry and justified, and still at others, I feel bittersweet pangs of nostalgia.  The way things used to be--on one hand, reminiscing gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, but on the other, it leaves me hollow because things can almost never be the way they used to be.  That's why they are not still currently that way.  Something changed.  Something shifted.  And usually that something is irreversible.  I'm not saying it's always a bad change, of course, and I am definitely NOT saying that it can't be overcome or...managed, I guess is a more appropriate word.  If my best friend and I had never changed or dealt with the many shifts in our friendship, then we'd still be ditching each other on the playground as 20-somethings, and that would be...awkward.

I guess the bottom line I'm trying to reach is this: I love my friends, even if I sometimes get caught up in other crap.  Even though people change and relationships change, those people and those relationships are still important to me, and I can only hope that as I change, I'm still important to the people who are important to me.

Patience is a virtue...

AND I HATE IT.

I haven't had much to talk about because my mind has been consumed by a total of two things: money (or lack thereof) and hockey.  But somehow the subject of patience falls under the "money" category because I'm waiting for the day when I make wads of cash.


Preferably they will not be ones, but I'll take it...

It's unfortunate that I've racked up some tens of thousands of dollars in student loans for something like a top-rate education that has literally gotten me nothing in return.  It's more than unfortunate.  It really, really sucks.  My whole life, I believed I had to go to college to get a good job.  Here I am, a shiny, new-ish degree in hand, and I'm jobless (more or less), while my friends who don't have college degrees are making more money than I am and receiving benefits (of which I have none) at their full-time jobs (of which I also obviously have none).  I'm not saying they don't deserve those jobs--they do!  I'm proud of them, and I'm glad they have those jobs!  All I'm saying is I thought that with a degree I'd be a desirable candidate for SOME kind of job that earns me more than minimum-wage, even if it is JUST a liberal arts degree.

Frustrated and impatient.  That's how I feel.

The glue that holds me together...

Is apparently nonexistent.  This is going to be a shorter post than others.  I just want to work this out a bit.  I've been thinking lately about cohesion in relation to...me.  I listened to my ipod on random for about two hours today.  The first song was "Maybe Memories" by The Used.  It's a "post-hardcore" screamy anthem, speaking to living in the present, looking toward the future, and not looking back or regretting things like eating beans before an interview or accidentally using poison ivy leaves as toilet paper (it's actually probably about former drug habits or the like, but let's just pretend it's less serious than that).  To give you an idea of what that song might sound like, this is the lead singer Bert McCracken screaming (not singing) something:

He's screaming, "I HATE SHOWERS!"  Probably.  Or maybe, "I'M AWESOOOOME!"

So that was the first song.  And I totally rocked out to it and thought about not looking back at skipping so many classes in college (wah-wah).  Then the next song came on, and it was "Sexual Healing" by the great Marvin Gaye.  No explanation necessary--if you don't know what "Sexual Healing" sounds like, then we probably shouldn't be friends anymore.  The next song that came on was "The High Road" by Broken Bells.  I actually have no idea what it's about because I only know half of the lyrics, but it's a mellow, sort of electronic but mostly just...awesome type of song.  Here.  The musical equivalent of judging a book by its cover.  Tell me what you think they sound like:

Other than awesome, I'd say they sound...really awesome. 
How they make beep-beeps and boop-boops without a synthesizer present, I'll never know.

Then after that tasty little diddy, there was Sara Bareilles with "Gravity".  A sweet, heartbreaking piano ballad that makes me want to cry for days at a time (I'm still crying, in fact).  Her voice-of-an-angel plus her piano-playing-of-an-angel equals best-song-ever-if-you-have-your-own-sad-love-story.  Then there were others: The Starting Line (usually-upbeat pop-punk), Mumford and Sons (BANJOOOS!), Leona Lewis (crazy amazing diva singing), Jay-Z (best rapper alive--debate.  Now.  Go.), Sarah Brightman (her Broadway era--yes, I have showtunes on my ipod).  And so on and so forth.

I actually, out loud, asked myself, "WHAT IS HAPPENING?" in all caps.  There is little to no cohesion in my musical taste.  There is no single element that draws these songs/artists together except, "I like this."  And the lack of cohesion extends beyond my musical taste.  Take this blog, for example.  What is the bonding factor?  It's mostly just me talking at my computer (via my fingers) about things from hockey to Sweden to woe-is-me sob stuff.  There is no bonding factor except, "I like talking about this."

I guess I just have to face the fact that I'm a weirdo.  I like what I like, and I don't need a reason.  I just like it.  SO THERE.