Overhaul

It is time for some major changes over here. Things are coming to fruition (at least in my head) and I'm sort of at a crossroads and I sort of need to just do what feels right.

I have been scooting along ever so slowly for the past 2 months (actually you can just tack on the 5 previous months and make for a grand total of 7 months of total crap healing) trying to reclaim things (namely myself). I've been writing journal entries, and excising painful little pieces of truth and memory (they are not always the same) and anonymously plastering them all over the internet, and writing letters to myself, and writing letters to people who will never read them…and I understand that this is how it had to be.

I made a conscious decision to manipulate my winter break into an opportunity for change. I plan on harnessing the momentum of the shift in routine that spending 9 days in Northern Ireland provides and making another go of it starting now(ish). This may make very little sense if you're not inside my head right now. Sorry. I have been called "the queen of vagueness" and have also been told I'm just plain bad at being articulate. Let's try again.

I need to go in a different direction in terms of content. I am a sarcastic and witty and judgmental person who has a penchant for sharing maybe a little bit too much. I'm good at writing, and it does not make sense for me to be writing about what I had for lunch, or the nostalgia of Valentine's Day, when those are not things that come naturally to me.

I've been keeping a secret blog (I am Dear Old Love! Every post is me! - No, that's not true. But God, wouldn't that be a funny joke?) for the past few weeks and having so much fun with it. I've decided to clear out all of the incriminating stuff and go public with it. I like tumblr better as a platform, and um, yeah. That's kind of that. So, yes, every so often I will use swear words. And there will be weird, vague posts about failed relationships and things that you maybe want to know about and maybe really don't. And I'll get occasional lectures from my mother about how the internet is a public place and some day soon grad schools will be Googling me. And then I will ask her not to tell me to censor myself.

You can find it all here.

Becoming More Jewish

Soon I might have to start an "Adventures in Frugal Living" type blog.

Again? Really?

On Dear Old Love. This one's too easy.

I Hate This Blog

My secret blog is so much more fun.

Not Protesting

3 weeks ago when that "25 Things" list was going viral on Facebook I complied and dredged up 25 pieces of mostly useless trivia about myself. Thing number 12 was "If Sean Penn doesn't win the Best Actor Oscar for Milk I won't watch the Academy Awards next year." I'm really glad I don't have to carry out that boycott. When they announced Best Actor I screamed "Yes! Yes!" at a volume usually only reserved for Notre Dame games. In fact, I was pretty pleased with the outcomes of almost all of the awards, and especially glad that Benjamin Button didn't win anything important.

I Wish

I were lying in Sam's bed at Oxy again, with the window open and the California sun beating on my outstretched arm. The air smelled so different that I knew I was far away from all of the bad people and that I was safe.

That I didn’t constantly struggle with my need to share everything.

That I ate better and had the energy to make myself eat better.

That I was capable of motivating myself about those things I consider the minutiae of life.

That I was capable of giving myself criticism and praise in equal doses.

Srsly?

Oh, yes. Please.

Word Search

I am posted on Dear Old Love. Can you find me?

Before the candy goes on sale

Even if you are the worst blogger on earth, it's kind of obligatory to do a Valentine's Day post, right? Right. This year I'm trying to ignore Valentine's Day. Not hate it, just ignore it. To that effect, I thought it might be worth looking back to a time before V-Day was encumbered with expectations.

In kindergarten at my elementary school it was customary for parents to make valentines for their children, which were then displayed in the hallway around the classrooms. At some point during the week of the holiday each child would present their valentine to their classmates. My mom would get all creative on these things with fancy paper with dried flowers in it and those lethal gold ink pens that people totally get high off of and those weird scallop-edged scissors. I thinks she might've even gotten them laminated. For one year my younger sister and I were both in kindergarten at the same time, and that year Mom decided to work off of a Beatles kind of theme. Both my sister and I have Beatles songs with our name in them, but where Martha got a big "Martha My Dear" heart, "Eleanor Rigby" or "All The Lonely People" or "Died In A Church And Was Buried Along With Her Name" didn't fit as well for mine. I think it ended up titled "Oh, Eleanor..." and the theme stopped there. In the 14 years since I have tried to track down other songs with my name in them and I'll be damned if they aren't all about shitty ex-girlfriends. Except for "Elenore" by The Turtles, which is not how you spell my name.

Also in kindergarten we would have a buffet style ice cream social on Valentine's Day, which always ended with a teacher telling a child "Your eyes were bigger than your stomach."

Game Rules

On Mother's Day in 1944 or 1945 my grandfather sent my grandmother a note from Australia, where he was stationed during WWII (or maybe it was New Guinea, either way, go figure) that said "You're not a mother yet, but you will be some day, so happy Mother's Day." When she told me this, I cried. I cried because it was so sweet, because my grandfather is still rather recently dead and it hurt to think of the similar gestures we now have to do without, and because I was afraid that no one would ever send a note like that to me.

When it comes to dating, at least in my age group, the last thing you are ever supposed to do is express interest. If I wrote a letter to a boy like Sylvia Plath wrote love letters to Dick Sassoon I would probably be locked up. It's usually not okay to communicate real feelings until you're deep into a relationship. And yes, okay, my grandparents were already married when the aforementioned note was sent. And my grandmother has admitted to playing hard to get while they were dating by telling him "No, I can't go out tonight. I have to wash my hair." But still. I am not a sociologist and I am not at all interested in being one, but when I look at the state of dating it makes me wonder: has love changed or have we?

At my college orientation I had to listen to a lecture that warned all of the incoming freshman to differentiate between skepticism and cynicism as they approached life and higher learning. I fear that in this particular arena (the modern love arena) I may have slipped into cynic mode. I want things to be magical and right (and let's not even get into how culture and media reinforces these wants) and they just never are. I had one boyfriend who really loved me and I broke up with him and I had one boyfriend who I really "clicked" with and I broke up with him too and now no one I date really even likes me and no one is writing poetry or songs about me and clearly I am just not the kind of person who any other person will ever be infatuated with. Besides my mother.

I think I am perhaps the most sensitive person on earth. I have Osteogenesis Imperfecta of the heart.

In The Library

I've spent the past 8 hours avoiding. Downtown, Starbucks, here. It works fine. But I have to go back. Soon.

For Sale

The world works in mysterious ways, no? Look at what I found on the front page of the StarTribune this morning. As my good friend Bubbe would say, bimee1 (buy me one).

Stop Pushing

Going to the inauguration felt like this.

More To Say

Yes, I took you to the restaurant where you had the best steak you've ever had. Even better than your mom's.

Yes, I was there when you learned to drive.

Yes, I saw a pig give birth while standing next to you.

Yes, I don't care.

Sky Away

Minneapolis has the largest skyway system in the world - more than 8 miles if you add it all up. For a long time Minneapolis had the only skyway system in the world. I've never particularly liked the skyways, but then again I've never had to work downtown in the dead of winter. What the fuck? Skyways? Who cares? Well, I do, after I heard Skyway by The Replacements last night.

I don't want to go back to DC.

This Is What I Did Last Night