Today is my blogiversary.
Four years ago today, I started blogging in earnest. First it was over on blogger, then a domain name that is no longer in service (and I don’t have the backups for 
) and then two years ago I moved here to unsympathetic.net.
Today, I am the most unsympathetic person on the internet. Search for unsympathetic, you’ll get me. It’s a small goal, to be sure, but it’s nice to have achieved something without trying.
Tonight–but not to celebrate–my sister is driving up to Chico with her boyfriend. We’re going out with Am and E, and seriously? I’m so excited. I haven’t seen her in more than a month, and she’s never been up to Chico to visit me.
Tomorrow, the blog will look different. Change is in the air, and hopefully a new look will inspire more writing.
Tonight, though. Tonight is all about fun. And this time, I’m not going to forget my camera.
I absolutely should not have gone with Am to see “Sweeny Todd” last night.
True, it was a good movie, and true, there were bits that made me laugh and others that made me cry. True also that I knew going in that it was about a barber who kills people, and that they serve them up as food.
However, I just didn’t expect it to be so… so… gory. There is something personal in watching someone get their throat slit that just doesn’t come across with a bullet. I’m an intensely visual person (odd, since I can create no visual art) and have an active imagination, and so thus could place myself in the position of one who was killed. And watching Johnny Depp slit the throats of people, including my beloved Alan Rickman, was just to much for me. And the way they slid out of the chair to break their necks on the floor below was… worse, in a way, even though they were supposedly dead when they hit.
Am and I both watched the gory parts through our fingers, saying to each other “is it done, is it done?” and I seriously considered leaving the movie because I knew how it was going to end, and didn’t know if I would be able to handle it.
Oddly, the part that was the worst for me wasn’t the throat-slitting. No, it was when Toby is locked in the basement eating meat pies, and pulls a toe out of his mouth, realizing then that the meat is people. That is the image that was haunting me as I fell asleep last night.
I think it’s because the night before (Monday night) I dreamt that I was a cannibal, eating the brain of someone who is still alive–a scene from a Hannibal Lector movie that I haven’t seen in ages.
So, “Sweeny Todd” was good, if nearly too graphic for me. Can’t say I’ll be renting it, but I would definitely get the soundtrack.
I’m not a huge partier, which is a known fact to those who know me. So much so that when I informed my little sister of my intention to go drinking on a Friday night, she condescended1 to give me some advice to make sure I didn’t screw things up. The advice: don’t get shit-faced. Which is actually more useful than my mom’s advice (given many years ago upon my 21st birthday): don’t mix your dark alcohols with your lights. Which doesn’t help when you’re drinking something green.
So, last Friday, I went to the bars with a friend from class, and ran into other people I knew. And had a blast. Way more fun than I thought I would have.
You know you’ve done a fair bit of partying in public, though, when you think things through to the end of the night, before you’ve even left the house.
- Dress. It’s February, but the night is clear, so a tank-top and sweatshirt is proper attire because I get warm when I’m drunk, and I can wrap a sweatshirt around my waist, which isn’t possible with a jacket.
- Hair. I’ll be drunk, which means my hair will bother me. Especially if somehow I over do it and need to puke. It’s too short for a ponytail, so headband it is.
- Shoes. Lots of girls go to the bars in sexy high-heal shoes. I’m a klutz when sober, so heals probably aren’t a good idea when drunk. Cute little flats it is.
- Purse. I can’t keep track of a purse when drunk. Better not take it. Besides, all I need is my ID, some cash, and a credit card in case of emergency. I’ll clip those together with a binder-clip.
- Keys. Don’t want to lose the keys. Better remove the keys I won’t need (which eliminates all but one), and make sure to have the key-ring clipped to a belt loop so they can’t work their way out of the pocket.
- Phone. Vibrate because I know I won’t be able to hear it, and back pocket so that I’ll be able to feel it. Will continuously touch my butt throughout the night to ensure that it is still there.
The only thing I hadn’t worked out before I’d left the house was how I was going to get home. Mostly because I hadn’t talked to Am about it, but I knew she was getting dropped off at the Bear by her roommate, and I could probably get a ride home if I wasn’t comfortable walking back alone.
Luckily for me, E is the most awesomest guy I know in Chico, and came out to join us at the bar, and he walked me home, to protect me from whoever might be lurking in the shadows. I did feel bad that he had to walk himself back through campus and across downtown to get back to his car and his place, though. It’s a good thing that I don’t live very far from downtown at all.
However, I had a blast. We spent most of the evening at LaSalles, with a live band that sounded suspiciously like Green Day–which took awhile to figure out, being drunk and unable to remember band names.
AM is just as dorky a drunk as me, and just as dorky when sober. And well, E is the best, whether drunk or sober. After all, he let me buy him a round first, before he reciprocated. I like a guy who’ll let a girl buy his drink.
Mostly because I’m odd.
– “Miracle!” Riot!: Paramore
- i’m using the 19th century definition here, not that my sister was patronizing me. [back]
Why is it that we will keep numbers in our phone long after we will ever call those people back?
Last night I went through my phone and purged, getting rid of old numbers and old contacts to people that just don’t have a place in my life anymore.
As you scroll down the list of names, you give yourself a reason whether or not to keep the number. Them? No, I’d like to go a year without them please. Him? I didn’t return his calls the last two times he called, and really am not planning on it in the future. Her? I’ll probably email her before I ever call her.
It’s a hard decision for me to remove numbers from the cell phone, especially because I so rarely have those numbers anywhere else. Once they’re gone from the phone, I’ve got no way to contact most of them, because surprisingly I’m not so up on getting everyones email addresses. If these people don’t call me, I’ll likely never hear from them again.
Now is a good time in my life to reevaluate the relationships I do have; I’ve been in Chico for six months which has shown me who I want to keep in contact with, and who wants to keep in contact with me. If I can’t remember the last time I talked to a person, and have no desire to talk to them any time soon, it’s a good sign that it’s time to let them go.
It’s hard to let go though, to think you might never talk to a person again. Their number in your phone is a tiny hold you have on them, the potential to connect at any moment. By deleting a phone number, you’re deleting them from your future.
it’s time I look to the future. I’ve been living too much in the past, trying to pretend I wasn’t growing up and growing apart from a large number of people. I’ve tried too much in the last few years to hold on to what I thought was important, only to find out I was holding on to a idealized memory that has more of a home in the fiction I write than the life I lead.
Deleting phone numbers from the cell phone is only a beginning. The true purging comes when I can delete people off of my IM lists, remove them from my Facebook, and stop carrying the extra baggage from a life I no longer lead.
– “That’s What You Get,” Riot!: Paramore
Three times a week, I spend a good amount of time getting ready for classes in the morning. This is because class doesn’t start until 11am, and if I wasn’t attempting to doll myself up, I’d spend all that free time… blogging or something.
Last week, like the computer addicted person I am, I had the laptop in there with me so I could chat with Shep while I was getting ready. Logic says voice chat would have been ideal, but we’re not that high-tech that early in the morning. In between caking makeup on my face, Shep and I were talking about my lack of blogging.
I keep finding reasons for why things have been slacking around here–ME would say it’s because I can’t help but to analyze things.
One of the main problems I have is the fear that my blog posts are going to be too “emo” for people to want to come and read. I don’t have much to blog about, other than being single for the for the first time in five years, and what it’s like to be lonely, and how I feel guilty reading something that’s not assigned, because it takes me three times as long to read something for class when I’m marking it up.
Guess what. I’m really lonely.
Guess what else. This blog will probably be going emo. It’s time I got back to my blogging roots, which happens to be all about me, all the time.
All. The. Time.
Now, if I can find time to blog in between all of my assigned reading is another matter…
– “Love Song;” Little Voices: Sara Bareilles
