Happy New Year

Every time I convince myself “oh, he’s changed” or “oh, he’ll be different this time,” it’s the biggest fucking let down. biggest. fucking. let. down.

Let’s just say I’ll leave you in 2008… Should have left you in 2005.

In other news, Happy New Year. Party hard, play nice, and make sure your friends get somewhere safe to pass out.

I’ve always found New Years Eve to be slightly anti-climactic, and just a lame excuse for a hangover and sleeping in. You don’t feel different at midnight, nothing really happens… it’s like staying up until midnight the night before your birthday… you’re not any older, you’re just fucking exhausted and sleep through most of the day when you’re allowed to party. I just have never really dug New Years… it’s probably because I haven’t had a good one since… well… ever.

But Happy New Years Eveses to those who enjoy it. 2009 means it’s almost 2010, and then the numbers get weird. It will be like y2k10. and that just looks yucky.

Cracked. Broken. Shattered.

It’s been quite an adventure thus far. Being so isolated (not as much as it used to be, surprisingly) gives me a lot of quiet in my brain… but not the sort of quiet you’d expect. More like it’s too quiet, and my brain just keeps bringing up things I shouldn’t be thinking about. I’m trying to silence it by reading and writing down random thoughts and passages to expand on later, but there’s a serious lack of distraction. And when I’m not busy, I kind of lose my shit.

I fear my overreaction upon my return to Corvallis after affectively avoiding it for so long… I might have to ground myself just to make sure I don’t get into trouble.

I sent off the final paperwork for my lease this morning, so I’m fo sho moving into the place I really wanted in bklyn. I’m amped and can’t wait to pack up and haul over there. I can’t wait to hang out with everyone I know who is already over there. I can’t wait to be within walking distance to the Daieli (or the Daioli – Dopest apartment I once lived in… but i didnt really live there, so whatever.)

Life is pretty good. I’m trying to train myself into a new way of living. It’s an interesting process thus far. I’m trying to panic less. I’m trying to give less of myself to people that give me attention, but clearly can’t be trusted or really care about my well being. Listen and observe more. Remain active in my own life, but participate instead of control.

It feels weird to write these things down, but I think it’s a step in the right direction. At least that’s what I’m going to tell myself… for now.

Merry fucking Christmas.

It’s Christmas Eve. I had a wonderful evening with my family, and then I have to ruin it by starting to look over my lease, which I need to fedex in on Friday.

4 out of the 30-something clauses are total bullshit. I am outraged and don’t think I can sign this lease. I think I even have to find a new apartment, which pisses me off immensely, because I thought this was my perfect apartment. I was really fucking excited about moving in.

Now it’s all ruined.

Merry fucking Christmas.

Merry Christmas Courtesy of Emerson College

I think it would be really tacky to post my grades, but let’s just say I passed (not with flying colors, and not just barely) and I am officially a graduate of Emerson College.

Also, I would just like to give a big hug to everyone who showed up at my going away party a few weeks ago. I was just thinking about what an amazing time I had and how it really showed who my true friends were (those of you with excuses like you were in the emergency rooms or you were trapped in a state that was in a “state of Emergency” you’re off the hook) and I will make an effort to stay in touch with those people. I find that post college, I don’t feel like I’m going to remain friends with a lot of the people I met in Boston… it’s time to start a new life in New York, and I CAN’T WAIT to get it started.

Merry Christmas. Happy Channukah. Joyous Kwanza or whatever.

A Rather Different Set of Friends

There’s an odd feeling in my head from being home and really not having any responsibility. Right now, I’m stressing myself out with the thought of moving, money, apartment, etc. I’m seriously trying to take one thing at a time (my mantra for several years now) but I’m failing miserably, thinking about things I can’t change and stressing out about things that probably don’t really matter.

I walked around Portland by myself today in a foot of snow. It was kind of lovely, actually. It was so beautiful out and not cold (low 30s… thats NOTHING kids. Boston is like 10 degrees with some serious wind to the face.) I really love it here, and one day I hope to move back and marry one of the hot yuppies running around… It’s where all the granola hipster yuppie hotties are, seriously. Seattle has got nothing on this. When I was at Bumbershoot, I struggled to find hot dudes in the crowd, but here, they are just prowling the streets in peacoats, thick-framed glasses, and surprisingly trendy weather-appropriate shoes. Ungh. God they’re just adorable. They’re like Brooklyn guys without the ego. Sex.

My mother and I have spent the last few days lounging, seriously doing nothing. We make breakfast (in this order since I’ve been back: blueberry muffins, Fuller’s, blueberry pancakes, and sour cream coffee cake muffins), watch the news report (the weather is atrocious – both of my siblings are supposed to arrive on the 24th, and that day it is supposed to snow nonstop. I’m going to be an only child on christmas…), and make trouble on our respective computers. Today was the first day I went out by myself (most of our errands are just to the grocery), and I didn’t get lost (which is incredible, considering my sense of direction in Portland is completely off by exactly 90 degrees.) At night we make dinner together… the last few nights were fairly simple. We went to this great Pho place down the street… Unfortunately, there were some serious jalapenos that were chillin out on the side (is that traditional? my instincts say no…) and I moved them so I could get to the tasty pile of bean sprouts. I completely forgot that I had touched them, and then promptly touched my nose. I’m not sure how, I’m not sure when, but I did, and the next thing I knew, my nose was on fire. I was a noodle eating Rudolph, nonstop tearing and trying not to touch mah nose. God it was horrible. Learned my lesson rullll good.

Thinking about having a party when I get to New York… kind of like my LA Quinceanera, but I’m thinking a better idea… like debutante ball. No? Weird? Yeah. I get like that. Shit, I shouldn’t even throw a party. I know like 5 people there. But they’re 5 good people… so maybe I’ll do a dinner or something. Maybe not. Maybe I’m thinking about this wayyyy too far in advance. Oh, and for those of you under a rock, I got approved for my apartment. Win.

Anywho, I think I’m going to go to bed early tonight. I’ll just wake up to more snow, more cold, more brain relaxation. I think the only way I could be lazier is if I hired a masseuse or some shiz. Oh wait, there’s a spa downstairs. Maybe I’ll go get a pedicure for my vacation… if I can fly out on the 27th

I bid you adieu.

Epic Failures

I officially sucked at Christmas this year. Everything I bought either doesn’t work properly, or is totally lame.

I suck.

home again, home again, jiggity jig.

I’m back in Portland at my mom’s apartment in the Pearl. It’s kind of weird being back, but it’s been about 24 hours, and I’m still settling in. It’s been snowing on and off since I got here. It’ll snow during the day, then the sun will come out and melt it, and then it will snow again. We’re supposed to have 6 inches by later tomorrow night. That terrifies me. I haven’t seen 6″ of snow in Oregon anywhere but the Cascades. I feel like Portland is going to come to a semi-screeching halt. Or something. We’ll see.

My high school bestie is staying with us temporarily until it’s safer to drive I-5 and Corvallis unfreezes. Apparently a lot of people are iced/snowed in. It’s kind of outrageous… all the schools were closed for most of this week (one day had a two-hour delay, but the rest were totally cancelled) so they’re getting a 3.5 week winter vacation. Absolutely outrageous.

Mom has cable. I’ve been watching Bravo and everything she’s DVRd in the last few weeks. I never knew how much I’d miss it. It’s going to be harder when I move to New York and try to cut cable out of my life altogether.

Speaking of New York, I got approved for the apartment I wanted RULLL badly. I got it. I could die. I offered $100 less than what they were asking for and they gave it to me anyway. It’s bomb. The apartment is gorgeous and in the middle of Williamsburg and I can’t wait to move in and find a roommate. So good. SO GOOD.

Mark got me hired on a job in LA, so late January I’m bouncing out to LA for some on-set work. It’s a bittersweet trip: I’ll have JUST moved to New York (I’ll be there for about 3 days before I fly to LA) and the weekend I’m gone, some friends from Boston were planning on being in town. But it’s a great gig, I’m going to see all the people I love in LA, and I’m excited just to be working and traveling and rocking. I wish I could say “per usual” but that would be a lie… right?

Anywho. Back to life. I’ve almost adjusted to PST, and by the time I do completely, I’ll be flying to Hawaii for the New Year and have to switch another 3 hours earlier. Boo hiss. At least I’m not flying straight from the east. That would suck. Hard.

Alright, back to snuggling, eating, drinking, and being merry. Except for the part where my Muppet Family Christmas VHS is NOT WORKING. It is a failure of epic proportions and it is completely unacceptable. Completely. Unacceptable.

Good day. Stay warm.

End of an Era

In December of 2004, I was waking up to the sunny shores of Kauai. My father brought the phone to me and said it was for me. It was the house sitter (newlyweds that worked for my Dads that he talked into guarding the house while we were gone) and they announced that I had received an acceptance letter from Emerson College in Boston and Fordham University at Lincoln Center in New York City. Woo hoo, great. Just super. Got into two schools I don’t want to go to. I said thanks and hung up. At least I got into college… I would impatiently wait for my letter from USC, which arrived in late April, letting me know that I did not gain acceptance into their film program.

Super. Just super.

So I decided that I would attend Emerson, although when I visited, I hated the hoards of smokers standing outside every building, the fact it was 19 degrees the day we visited, and that there was no campus, no football, no traditional school spirit. I hated Emerson, but I didn’t really have a choice: Fordham had so many religious gen-ed requirements that I thought I’d kill myself (the good little somethingoratheist that I am) and Loyolla Marymount in LA was too close to USC and I would be very, very sad I wasn’t as SC.

So Emerson it was.

I didn’t visit again, I just sent in my paperwork and deposits and prepared myself for a school experience I really wasn’t expecting. In August, off I flew to Boston, to discover a whole new world of extroverted, loud people that I had belonged in all along.

Over the next three and a half years, I began to discover how glad I was I didn’t go to USC. I would have turned out very differently (probably JAPpy) and I was proud of what I was able to accomplish here (at USC, I wouldn’t even own my own films…) Emerson has turned me into a much more resilient person, and I am so glad that this is where I ended up. It almost makes me believe in fate… but not.

As I prepare to leave Boston in January for a new life in New York, I really question who I would be if things had gone differently. Would I be happier with who I am? Would I be more successful? What would be my plan upon graduation?

I am scared shitless of my immediate future, and I’m trying to ignore the fact that everything around me is changing at a mile a minute. There is no immediate responsibility, no urgent tasks to be taken care of. Just pack up and move out. Move on. Change again.

I have lived in New York before, but I haven’t started a life there. I feel like the home I’ve developed in Boston is suddenly being abandoned, like a treehouse a child has grown out of. When does that happen, you know? What is the pivotal moment where you stop going up the ladder? What day do you decide you’re too big to play up there anymore? As an artist, I am trying to never let go of my imagination. But I question if this is the moment where I am too big to climb into the tree.

I’m thinking this isn’t that moment. This is the moment where I have to try to nurture it as much as possible in preparation for the day when I’m just not allowed to even go there anymore. This is the only time in my life where I will have this sort of freedom, and I kind of just need to grab it by the balls and go.

I need to let go of academia and get inspired by something. I need to close this book and start a novel. I need to stop needing things.

To hear what I’m thinking, listen to Jon Brion’s “Here We Go” and Flying Lotus’s “Camel”

Goodnight and good luck.

+ plot

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Holy Hangover, Batman

This weekend brought some parts of me back I never thought I’d see again. And I absolutely loved every second of it.

Thanks to everyone that made this last weekend in Boston truly magical. Graduating this week is going to be bittersweet knowing I have to leave this pile of fun.