Choose your thoughts. March 31, 2009

A college roommate of mine just sent this to me and I had to post. So whether you hate your job but can’t leave, hate your boyfriend but don’t want to leave, or just life in general, enjoy.

From Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love”:

“There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under the jurisdiction. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I can read and eat and study. I can choose how I’m going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life-whether I will see them as curses or opportunities. I can choose my words and the tone of voice in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts.”

What would you do? February 2, 2009

What would you do if you saw a train wreck approaching and yelled for people to get out of the way, but they ignored you?  That you just could see the future and all the misery it holds, and the train wreck that will become your reality, and yet, no one does a thing???

Today, this is my predicament. (figuratively…not literally)

There is no I in team… November 13, 2008

…which is probably why there is no team, because there are too many I’s in kitchen of my reality.

Ugh.

Sometimes I want to just live on a horse farm in Kentucky and forget about life.  But I’m pretty sure I would get bored.

I miss being part of a team, and in a world that owes you no recognition, it becomes increasingly annoying that I still want it.

Note to self: must grow up.

Grr.

High School Never Ends When People Keep Showing Up On TV November 8, 2008

This week has been full of high school weirdness. As in, every where I look, I am running into people I knew from High school, or seeing them on tv, or hearing them on the radio. It’s just weird!

So I watch a lot of tv. Like a lot. An unhealthy amount that I justify by saying I work in TV. But anyway. So I am watching TV and I see Sam Witwer. This guy I went to high school with. Major player in the first season of Battlestar Gallactica. Then he appears on my favorite shows like NCIS, CSI and Bones as the same creepy character-type. He’s awesome. He’s always been awesome…first time I saw him act was in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in high school, and even at 17, he was amazing. And you root for people like him to succeed. And he is. So that’s awesome.

Then I see Katie Cleary invade my CSI: NY. Sure she has one line. Sure I’ve seen her in Playboy, America’s Next Top Model Cycle 1, and that Verizon Wireless commercial where LC tells Brody he’s a pig for staring at Katie Cleary’s ass. But I was watching CSI:NY, and was like, wait, I know this girl. She went to my high school, and here she is, on the TV, in one of my favorite shows. So go her.

And then, just now, I was watching Gossip Girl, and this girl runs into the screen and kisses a boy and says her two lines, and I’m going…oh, my, god, I know this girl! It’s Christina Hogg, now going by Christina Hogue, who I was in high school musicals with. And again. It becomes, I went to high school with you, and here you are invading my Monday guilty pleasure that is Gossip Girl. So go you.

And before now, I would try to compare myself to them, and try to see who has become the most successful of all the people I went to high school with. This might have something to do with the fact that it will be 10 (!) years since high school next year, and I am always curious to see who ends up where in life. Like if the drama kids actually ended up as accountants or something. I would contemplate if I took the wrong road in life, if I should’ve stayed in LA and worked my ass off in film, and sold my soul to the Hollywood devil, would I be rich and famous with no soul in a Malibu condo…I would sit and compare my life and say, yeah, they made it to the TV, but I have an Emmy, yadda, yadda, yadda (btw, I did win an Emmy. Yay me). I would then usually feel bad for myself. Then put them down and say, whatever, at least I own a condo and have a steady paycheck with benefits…

But not now. I mean, sure, I think as humans we all want to be successful, and appreciated, and recognized now and again. But when I see these people that I went to high school with on screen, I can’t help but feel proud for them. Happy for them, even. Cause I know that’s its been 10 years since high school. I know that they have probably worked 10 hours bartending just to make the rent so they could audition for that role that just might be their break. I know they probably have cried a couple times from that business and contemplated if this is what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Who knows, maybe they are a lot stronger than most of us, and have never cared about anything else in the world, have never wanted to be anything else but actors in this world. And you know what, I am geniunely happy for them. Because now I have bragging rights when they are on screen. I get to say, “Hey, that’s so-and-so, I went to high school with them! How about that?” It might have taken them 10 years to be visible on national television, but I am sure that it is 10 years of blood, sweat and tears. Because each of these people, and every actor (who is a real actor) that I have ever met, has had the passion, the desire, the blood, the sweat and the tears to do what they love. To embody what they know. And they have that feeling that this is the one thing they were put on this earth to do. And how could I be bitter over that passion?

So to Sam Witwer, Katie Cleary, and Christina Hogue, I wish you much more success. I can’t wait to see you pop up in my shows again.  And to Scott Burman, Andy Gersh and Kevin Miller…where are you?

And just today, I met a couple friends from high school for lunch in Evanston, and it was like we’d never left. In a good way. In the way that you walk into a restaurant where everyone knows your name, and you don’t have to explain yourself to anyone, and you can just sit and have a conversation and it doesnt matter that you haven’t seen these people in two or six years…it’s that kind of familiarity that I crave these days, and I can’t help but smile. So comfortable am I that I agreed to a Dublin trip in the near future with these two. So we will see what happens.

High School for me was fantastic. I didn’t know anyone the first day of freshman year, and I left knowing just about everyone. I was friends with everyone, I was that girl who everyone knew, I was the freaking homecoming junior attendant for god’s sake. But I feel like in high school, I had too much to prove, I put on too much of a facade, and no one really stopped to get to know the real me. Hell, did anyone know the real them in high school? The point of this rambling is to say that high school for me, has never gone away. I feel like the world is just one big high school. There will always be cliques. There will always be the Prom Queen, the Most Likely to Succeed, and the Loner. But no matter what, whether you went to it, loved it, or just plain loathed it, high school is one of those formative things that never seems to leave your life. At least for me.

I love how seeing people from high school on TV catapultes me to a time I thought I had it all figured out.  Sometimes we learn so much from the past. Sometimes we learn that we have learned nothing at all. And sometimes, the past brings us one step closer to a future trip to Dublin.

Work Ethic vs. Worth Ethic October 16, 2008

This is my question. Because someone annoyed me today. And the only way I deal with that is to write. Lucky you.

Why are words like “work ethic” and “common decency” foreign to the generation after the baby boomers?  They scream and yell that Gen Y’ers have no respect and no patience for today’s work environment, yet us go-getters still have to wait for our superiors to show up late to work, complain about their pensions, and have the “just enough to get by” mentality.  And they call us slackers.

We may be annoying with our impatience, but that’s just because we refuse to waste our valuable times on situations that don’t work. We may be annoying with our constant inability to sit still…and all of our overcontemplation on how the world works and what we can get out of the world at large, all before our 30th birthday. But maybe all of these neurosis come because we know we live in a world that guarantees nothing, doesn’t care where you’ve been or where you’re going, and ultimately, just wants the finished project done on time, with little cost–no matter what quality may be lacking.  Disagreements fall upon deaf ears, and no one takes the time to even know your last name.

The bottom line is robbing the bottom feeders of energy–something we strive to have, but somehow gets zapped from the mundane experiences of a job sort-of well done.  We have no mentors, for no one will take the time or energy to train the next generation–they are too busy worrying that we will replace them.

It’s a constant struggle for this Gen Y’er who’s determined work ethic gets her in trouble, and who’s worth ethic doesn’t account for much.

It becomes increasingly frustrating to work for companies who don’t take the time (and don’t seem to care enough) to nurture their employees.  And it makes me bitter and jaded. And I start to see myself in those employees that I loathe, who are also bitter and jaded, and it makes me want to scream.

And then I remind myself I have a job, but what job is worth a hard work ethic but no worth ethic?

Am I overthinking this re-socialization project? July 13, 2008

Like many of us hot-blooded Americans, summer brings out the hot weather and the need to escape the hum-drum existence that had become your daily life.

Couples with kids suddenly find their routine jilted into reality when they realize that they, not scholastic institutions, must now entertain their spawn.

Athletes (and those that like to watch athletes) hit the Lincoln Park trail for some much needed Vitamin D shot of the sun. The frat boys of Wrigleyville break out their cornhole and Buds and make childish remarks to the passerby Cubby Bear Chicks in their jerseys and miniskirts as they strut off to the bleachers of Wrigley Field.

And in an effort to conform to societal norms (because as much as we say we are different, we really just want to be accepted, right?) I have decided that my social life needs improvement, and contrary to popular belief, as much as I love sitting in my condo with Ollie reading a book listening to swing music, solitude can only get you so far. Sure, you become so comfortable with yourself that if anyone remotely looks at the TV remote they are doomed (that is assuming people are invited to my studio…where would they sit?)…and yes, I can now successfully give myself a manicure AND pedicure while watching reruns of House, at 3 in the morning, no less…and no one is around to say that’s weird.

So I’m sitting here and thinking, I am no longer fighting for that job because I currently have the one I wanted…so I don’t have to spend all my free time thinking about how to get ahead (although, let’s face it, we are a capitalist society, and we all must think ahead)…and my social life is kinda, well, stale (let’s just say I have more friends on Facebook than I do in real life..but who doesn’t?) So I started thinking, I need to join things…so first I join things where other people I know are involved, because frankly, to get me out of this rut, I need familia motivationa… So recently, not only did I join the Blue Ribbon Glee Club…but I also signed up for a swimming league with a friend of mine, not having swum in like, oh, a decade? Hey, I needed to venture outside of my comfort-zone and I’d rather be clueless in Punkville and too busy swallowing water to talk to anyone than wallowing in my own thoughts of how bored I’ve become…swimming starts tuesday, so if there is no post, I’ve drowned…

So I’ve joined these things and today, I was so inspired by my newfound need for society that I drove to the Home Depot in Lakeview!!!! I know, right? Well, here’s the deal…I know everything that is north of me…work, the Target on Peterson, the Walgreens on Wilson…these are familiar to me. So before today, I would have gone 5 miles out of my way to go to the Home Depot that I knew near my work…but NO! I decided to live a little and venture down Halsted to the Home Depot in the heart of Lakeview. Not only did I find it, but I almost hit a car in front of me looking at all these places I didn’t know existed off of Halsted! Granted, the Home Depot was small and had nothing that I was looking for, but still…the effort there was key.

So my next “become one with society” thing is to do something different everyday…be it taking a different way home from work, walking a different route with Ollie, or just eating at the other side of my table…its all about changing it up to avoid the routine rut.

Even if I have nothing to say, I am still going to post my “the world from a different view” commentary. So stay tuned.

Carpé…huh? June 24, 2008

So in my continuing (ok, really, just started) efforts to be a well-rounded citizen of the earth (ok, really, just be more social than I currently am), I strayed off the beaten path and joined a club. A glee club. But not just any glee club. The Blue Ribbon Glee Club. Why different, you ask? Well, they sing punk songs. And drink beer. AT THE SAME TIME! It was my first “official” out-of-comfort-zone thing I have done all year (besides chop my hair…with a new stylist!), but this one was free and just required me to show up…and I said, what the hell?! I’ll try it and see. So let’s just say I’ll be back next week.

But it wasn’t even so much going the THE GLEE practice, as it was doing something different everyday. The practice was on Ashland and Adams, like, SOUTH LOOP! and I was driving halfway down there, and suddenly became aware of where Lincoln Park was…Where Lakeview ended…where the West Loop began…and it was just kinda like, hm…look at all these places. I have been so preoccupied with wanting to move out of the city, that I realize I have yet to explore the city. Granted it helps when you have someone to do it with, and I would not like to end up under the el because I turned somewhere wrong…but I digress. I suddenly realized how lucky I was to have a car that can take me to places I’ve never been…be it Ashland and Adams, or just downtown….it was nice to get out of my comfort zone…because I think we all become too comfortable with life…like me, I have a condo in the city, a dog who is relatively trained, a car, a job, and nothing about any of these things is new…and I became stale. Day in, day out, just doing what needed to be done, then coming home and watching TV (although I can justify that because I work in TV)…but I just realized that life is not going to come to you, you have to come to it. As cliche as it is, once you start doing something new, no matter what it is, every time you try something new, it becomes easier. The nerves go away. The awkwardness dissolves, until you are so comfortable with new surroundings that being a stale blob is unacceptable. And now that I have taken that first step to “new discoveries” I find that I am a little less stale and a little more substance than yesterday. Now if I could only use this new found knowledge to find a date…

It comes down to this: Stale blob or interesting human being? Like my mother always said, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Which I read as, “I can always quit”. You can always quit experiences, but you should never want to quit life.

Seize the day and all that jazz…and on that note, to bed I go.

Short, sporadic thoughts during commerical breaks June 11, 2008

The Cubs are in first place, so I must watch every game for the rest of the season so I can make them win with my positive thoughts…watch Fever Pitch and welcome to my obsession. (btw, I’m watching the Cubs game, so my thoughts will be schizo at best!)

I went running yesterday. Well, more like jogging…who am I kidding, I jogged for a block then heaved a lung out onto Marine Drive…but preceded to fakerun-jogalk to Montrose Harbor, where I saw lots and lots of sailboats and dreamed of the day I would own one…and learn how to command one…or know someone who had one…but back to running…I was never an athlete. I played volleyball in high school for one year and found out that a 5′1″ Filipino was not going to be able to spike or block, so I turned to dancing, which I miss, but it was never like, run five miles and then we will do jazz runs across the floor. I have never been a good runner. Or athlete. So what made me want to run yesterday? Probably a lack of quality TV or sports on…and you ask if I ran today when the weather is beautiful and perfect? Hell no! There’s a cubs game on! (plus my quads still hurt, but that would just be complaining…)

Someone recently asked me when I think I will get married. I told them I wasn’t sure I ever would. They looked at me with sad puppy eyes and said, “Aw, don’t think that way…it’ll happen!” To which I proceeded to roll my eyes and explain (for the umpteenth time) that I was sure I would end up with someone of the opposite sex as a life partner, but I didn’t think I needed a piece of paper to justify that commitment. To which the person proceeded to again quip with puppy eyes, “Oh, you’re just being pessimistic. You just haven’t found the person you are going to marry yet.” To which I proceeded to poke out my eyes with the chopsticks I was holding and then took those chopsticks and shoved them into this person’s jugular…
then I snapped back into reality and discovered that my chow mein had arrived. “Would anyone like some chopsticks?” the waitress asked us. And thus, a story was born.

I downloaded music yesterday from iTunes (don’t worry, Mom, I had a gift card). The playlist is so completely random that I must list them here:
Colbie Caillat’s album
Rihanna’s “Shut Up and Drive” (got me running yesterday, didn’t it?)
Kayne West’s “Stronger”
Madonna/Timberlake’s “4-minutes”
Gavin DeGraw’s new album
The Last Goodnight’s new album
Ingrid Michaelson’s new album

My dog is looking at me right now from the couch wondering what the hell I am doing. A friend of mine asked me why I keep a blog of all my thoughts. I kinda think my friend looks at me like my dog does when I am spewing my guts online. My thoughts just go faster with a keyboard. I kept a blog when I was studying abroad in London, and I loved it. It was more to make ex-boyfriends who were online stalking me (pre-twitter) feel jealous of all the fun I was having without them, and also to update my family on my whereabouts in my “cultural” studies. Then when I came back, I decided that living in LA was enough to fill millions of pages of books, so why not digital intact them online?  That way I could feel validated later on in life that I lived…since my thoughts were online. Now I blog because it is a healthy outlet for my sporadic thoughts of life as a twentysomething, and because people read it, and because its cool, and I can say things like, “oh, I am so writing that in my blog!” (its cool, people, it is!). Why do I blog? Because I like to write. I have something to say. And all my friends are sick of me talking about my unhealthy obsessions with TV dance shows and contemplative thoughts that borderline pessimism. But mostly I blog because it gives me something to do during commercial breaks of Cub games.

Things you may not know about me…which will constantly be updated so my future boyfriend can know what he is getting himself into BEFORE we’ve even met (!)…and are now listed in the About Me section:

I am obsessed with the History Channel, especially Digging for the Truth and Mega Disasters, which is hilarious because I hated both my history classes and my Earthquake class.

I have a weakness for Baskin/Robbins Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream. Have been known to eat half the carton in one sitting.

I want to own a theatre company so my actress sister will always have a place to perform.

Ok, Cubs are up two in the fourth. I just saw this shirt and I should’ve bought it. It read, “Curse? What Curse? with a picture of a goat, and the back read “This is our year!”….but notice how it didnt have a date on what year…haha…I heart the Cubs.

OMG. I just logged off without publishing this post, and I thought I had lost it. Almost had a coronary there. Especially since I know this post is Pulitzer Prize worthy…hehe…and I forgot to spellcheck

Non-motivation…the new procrastination? June 4, 2008

I got rejected from USC twice – first as a bright-eyed high school senior craving the bright lights of La-La Land, and then again as a weathered transfer student, trying desperately to seek my dream school from the opposite coast at the University of Miami.  All I could think about for two years was going to USC. I lived it, breathed it, and I wanted it. 2 years later, I was accepted as a transferred theatre major, and thus my “dream” had become a reality.

I would eventually end up leaving theatre because I couldn’t justify my parents spending $40,000 a semester so I could paint sets and act out one-acts with football players who needed a fine arts credit to graduate and get drafted. I ended up with a Communications degree and a film minor. But that was hardly the point. When I got to USC, I was so excited. I had finally achieved my goal…the goal I had wanted since I was about 10. USC. Wow. I got in, I did what I said I was going to do. And now I was here. And now that I was here…what do I do now? This is the thought that plagued me. I was finally at the endgame, and now I had no idea where to go or what to pursue. I had achieved my goal, and now I was done. The only goal left to do now was to graduate, and that really didn’t take motivation…that took financial status. I had lost my drive to push myself to “the goal”…and I always wondered if I would ever have another goal in sight.

I didn’t have another goal until I left USC.

Point of story? I am at that crossroads again in my life…where I find myself attaining my goal and start to become lacks-a-daisical…unmotivated…basically a blob. A cute, content blob, but a blob nonetheless.  My first “real” job (aka health benefits provided) led to my current job, which is basically the perfect job for me at the moment. Yes, all jobs are not perfect, there are times, yadda..yadda…but it combines my love for technology and creativity and actually justifies my days at USC, and I just feel great and comfortable in this current job…and therein lies the rub. I have achieved my “goal”, and now I am not motivated to do anything. I am…comfortable. I own my own place, have a dog, drive a car, and can still afford a dinner out every once in a while (depending on how much money I use on gas!!). For two years prior, I have pined for this job. I have wanted this job. And now, it is my job. And I love it. And now, six months into it, I find I am completely comfortable…and also unmotivated, with nary a goal in sight. Sure I want to lose a few pounds, and I would love to start a band, but these are not the “goals” that I pine for. I am, for once, totally content with my condo, my dog, my life…although my social life could use improvement, but who’s can’t? I have no 5-year plan, no immediate, life-altering goals…NADA.

And I feel like I should be motivated – I’m 27, unattached, I have the world at my fingertips…I feel like I should be conquering the world, falling in love, etc. etc… – but I’m not, and have no interest in doing so. I have no motivation for goals…way too much work.

I guess I need a new goal, but besides watching crappy summer TV and dance shows (SYTYCD!), I appear to be an unmotivated, but highly content gal. Which is strange. Cause I’m never content. And I’m always trying to figure out what to do next. But suddenly, I feel like doing nothing….its not like I am putting my life on hold…I just have no immediate goals. And in this world of immediacy and our rushed society, and the fact that when I was 10 I wanted to be 18 and was in such a rush to grow up, have I finally learned to take a breath?

So the question remains: can an unmotivated existence be the answer to a good life?

It’s my party…oh wait, no it’s not… May 15, 2008

I wasn’t invited to the party.

Or, I was, but it came with a price (both figuratively and literally). A party that I had planned for the last two years is taking place as I write, and I can’t help but feel nostalgic…and also bitter at the same time. Not because I wasn’t invited, but just because everything that is this party has my stamp somewhere on it. I helped prep everything, I did all the designing, the planning…and to step away from that this year…it was hard. For two years, this was my life. I knew everything that was going on, who was going where, and I felt important…no, scratch that…I felt irreplaceable. But when I left, I suddenly found out…oh, wait… you are replaceable. In fact, this party will go on without me, and it will get done, and it will probably be great, and I will have had nothing to do with it. And a part of me is sad about this. A part of me wants to believe that I was the reason this party was as great as it was. A part of me wants that validation and praise.

But another part of me realizes it was time to move on. A part of me knows that it was the right decision to leave.  And a part of me knows this might be…dare I say…another life lesson to add to the book.

And yes, I have no obligation at all to this party…I owe it nothing. I was the golden child one day, and the outcasted bastard child the next. I owe it nothing, and the party owes me nothing. And a part of me hopes someone misses me this year, but another part of me knows no one will.

Because, even though our mothers grind into our heads that we are not replaceable, the truth of the matter is that every single one of us is. The bottom line is that this party will go on without me, and it will go on without a hitch (although a part of me secretly hopes that something will be amiss…I am human, after all…), but at the end of the day, it will get done the way it was supposed to get done…and I will have nothing to do with it. I will be replaced. Hell, I’ve already been replaced. And it’s a bitter pill to swallow, because I like to think I am irreplaceable.

But at the end of the day, we are all replaceable…but not everyone is unforgettable. I’d much rather be the latter.

So the moral of the story is… everyone is replaceable, don’t think for a second that without you there, something won’t get done. It will…perhaps not in the extraordinary fashion that it once was, but it will get done. But don’t let this depress you. Be replaceable. But leave your mark. For even though everyone is replaceable, not everyone is unforgettable. And I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather be unforgettable.