Confession: I love to watch The People’s Court. I love judge Marilyn Milian. There was a period of a year and a half that I did not miss an episode. Love that damn show. So addicting.
Day Nine: Two smileys that describe your life right now
=3 – I am happy for Christmas and being around people I love and my health.
>:0 – I’m going through something with someone and it’s never a good feeling to feel like you’re constantly on the verge of strangulation.
01. Engaging conversation. I love the sound of my own voice and I love it even more when it mingles with yours.
02. Food. Strike that, good food.
03. Love for animals. I’m a girl like that.
01. Smoking – As I am allergic and have been put in the hospital and had vacations ruined by a smoker, smoking is my #1 turn off.
02. Lack of Doing – I have to fight chronic fatigue on a daily basis, and this often gets misconstrued as apathy or lack of motivation. I am not apathetic about life and had I the energy to do everything I want to, I would. I struggle with lack of doing and try to overcome it, so I appreciate it when people DO the things they say they will and I have no tolerance for people comfortable with the lack of doing.
03. Dreamless – Having no goals, no aspirations beyond the day ahead of you. Having dreams to conquer and realize is what fuels me. I am not an easily satisfied person (hah, that’s what SHE said!) and I want my partner to strive for personal growth realized in achieving (or at least trying) a goal.
04. It’s a tough call between bigotry and ultra clingy behavior, so let’s just call it a tie. ALL bigotry is a turn off, especially homophobia. Ultra clingy behavior has garnered a few would-be suitors an official farewell. I don’t like to be called/texted/emailed/questioned non-stop.
Note: I want to mention people who aren’t the obvious best friend/family/boyfriend/doctors choices but still mean a lot for one reason or another.
Judy ~ My mentor, who since sixth grade (she was my teacher) has been encouraging and supporting my creative writing. She has been listening to me prattle on about non-existent people for a decade and some change. She’s truly the only person on this planet who knows how much I love the voices in my head.
Kate ~ This kid is a freakin’ genius. She’s a seventeen year old former camper of mine and I think she’s going to be so fantastically famous (pending her desire to be such.) Kate was the first camper I really bonded with and made a point of befriending outside of camp. She “graduated” camp this last summer and I’m looking forward to our developing friendship. It’s fantastic to watch someone so bright and witty develop and figure out life as it’s thrown at her. She makes me wish I had a little sister.
Leanne ~ Also a very treasured friend from Camp del Corazon (a co-counselor). She is what Anne Shirley would refer to as a “kindred spirit”, a familiar soul I must have known due to the ease of which we became friends. She is without a doubt the most honest, true-to-herself friend I have and has inspired me to be a better person because of her presence in my life. She is going to become a mother in March and I am SO EXCITED I MUST TYPE IN CAPS!
Opa ~ My best friend’s father. I love him so very, very much. He is my surrogate father and took the responsibility of me being under his roof very seriously; always waking me up to make sure I took my medicine Exactly. On. Time. be it at 1am, 7am, or 7pm. He took me in and treated me as one of his own daughters, and spoiled me with punny jokes, home-cooked food, road trips, stories of yesteryear and unconditional love.
Lauren-Alice-Raven-Nathaniel-Joshua-Jordan-etc. ~ The children I met and hung around with over the course of my professional patient years at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Some of these kids are dead. Their memories are dim but bright around the edges, standing out like a porch light in the darkness. They have unknowingly influenced my very being and I live, in part, for them.
01. Having let a friendship that started well get ugly and out of hand. It was a necessary evil to go through being friends with an energy vampire and for me to handle it every which bad way I could, just for the lesson of DO NOT EVER DO THIS AGAIN. Our last words to one another were the ever-cliche “I hate you.”
02. Having not taken ample opportunity of my mom still being the purchaser of my wardrobe and going full-blown awesome boho in junior high & high school. I looked like a bizarro lazy gothic ragdoll.
03. Never shaving my head in my late teen years.
04. Not being more active in high school – with clubs, making more friends, boys, etc. (although I do not regret the friends I have made and kept! They’re first class.)
05. Not keeping in touch with one family I used to babysit for. Loved them.
06. Not having more pictures of Mr. Destiny
01. OMGDEATH! I try not to think about death and dying unexpectedly, or prematurely but I do because it’s my greatest fear.
02. Health Insurance. My whole life revolves around keeping my health insurance and making sure I am never without it. I have had to pass up on a lot of opportunities in life as well as put myself in place of extreme anxiety and stress for the purpose of hanging onto my health insurance.
03. The future. I like to daydream a lot about the future and what possibilities it holds. I think a lot about having an awesome career as a multi-faceted writer, a bit-part actress and a wife and mother.
04. Food. I’m hungry A LOT and food is also my business, so my brain always has food on the brain. Plus, I’m a stress over-eater so food holds a high level of comfort for me. I’m constantly thinking about my next assignment, my next recipe, dinner, etc.
05. Stories. I’ve been creating works of fiction since I could form sentences. I’ve been telling them aloud since I could talk. I’ve been writing them down since age twelve. I think so much about my own works of fiction that if I weren’t forced by life’s responsibilities to think about other things, this is pretty much all that would occupy my brain. Yes, I am true-to-God that self-obsessed. I have too many individuals living in my head space that demand my focus but I’ve forced them all to take a number and wait their turn now.
06. Money. How can I make more of it? What should I do with the money I have?
07. My loved ones and how much I love/despise them. Often times I am feeling so much love for a person and having an all-out screaming fest with them in my head. They probably ate the last of my leftovers or something.
note: I already had this post typed up and queued to post in the afternoon. It’s gone missing and is nowhere to be found, even though my URL changed itself to reflect that there already is this URL in existence. It cannot be found anywhere and I’m cranky about it. The recent WordPress update is suspect.
01. I am completely incapable of lying to the people I need to lie to. This includes creepers, pushy broads, nosy busybodies, and aggressive salespeople. I’m a compulsive truth teller when I am put on the spot in an uncomfortable situation. I could look my mother in the eyes and tell her a bold-faced lie but heavens if I can’t just tell a would-be stalker to piss off.
02. My resting facial expression is not unlike what one would refer to as “Bitch Face” I can’t help this, but I’m often approached by people, even people who know me well, tentatively asking if I’m angry. More often than not, I’m daydreaming about being front row to a Billy Idol concert and totally rocking out.
03. While my feelings towards religion varies from benevolent tolerance to rrrrrrrrrrrage I really do love sitting in and listening to a church choir singing Christmas carols.
04. When I was in fifth grade my teacher assigned the class to draw our dream career/achievement in life. I drew a picture of Geena Davis, my then favorite actress, awarding me an Academy Award for Best Actress. I really wish I still had this picture.
05. Also in fifth grade I would pray to the Lord to make me a vampire. I would wake up disappointed.
06. I have been an accessory to more petty larceny & minor arson between the ages of nine and fifteen than I care to speak of. Online anyway.
07. The highlight of my extraordinarily brief, barely lived modeling career was modeling an AMF corset at DomCon 2.
08. I believe I have encountered what in popular terms is referred to as a ghost, or remnant of once living energy. This ability used to be stronger when I was a child but due to fright and maturity, my awareness is not what it once was. I wouldn’t mind doing exercises to reopen it. I’m a firm believer that everyone is ‘psychic’ on some level, be it good instincts or full blown Sylvia Brown kind of abilities.
09. Once when I was ten years old a friend and I were trekking through the woods (like you do) and decided, for whatever idiotic kid logic reason, to walk on the ice covered creek. The ice broke under my feet and I fell in backwards. My winter clothes & snow boots were too heavy and quickly being soaked up with water, too heavy for me to lift. Were it not for my friend, well…you can use your imagination. I also had to hike back home…my snow boots & socks came off. Yes. I walked in the snow, up to my knees, barefoot. Just like your grandpappy did ever day to and from school.