Answer Forthcoming

Yesterday, we took a drive up through the Hollywood Hills (yest, under the sign). Winding and climbing up to the Hollywood Res. It was AMAZING to find this find this lush piece of nature in the middle of stucco structures and starlets. It really felt like somewhere else.

I really have had so much happening out here.

And I have never been so excited about so many things happening at once. I guess I should start from the beginning.

WEDNESDAY

- before I even got on the plane to head to LA LA land, I got a call from my boss's boss urging me to apply for a buyer position at home office. I was shocked. This was the opportunity I had been waiting for, for so long. I was beyond stoked. I was totally preoccupied with the making the proper updates to my resume to send off as quickly as possible.

- the flights (stops in El Paso, and a layover in Phoenix). Were beyond exhausting. And the people I was traveling with were ok, till the last leg. The two harpies I sat next chattered entirely about their pending wedding/engagements. SO much talk about flowers, food, seating charts. I really wanted to die. It was beyond boring. Maybe that is because, currently, I have absolutely no aspirations for marriage.

- after landing, a quick trip to Trader Joe's (seriously, this place is amazing, everything is delicious) to load up on supplies we came home for the evening, settled in and made a night of food, tv, and cocktails.

- Dinner was a DELIGHTFUL array of grilled cheeses and soups from The Oaks Gourmet.

THURSDAY

- a quick trips to Target, Trader Joe's, and the plant store for more supplies. You know, the shit that you're afraid to take on an airplane, aka razors, medications, and aerosol hairspray.

- Thursday night was the a night out in the 'hood. Prowling the local (block length) of bars/restaurants for a proper drink.

- At La Poubelle we had fantastic drinks and company of my friend's friends. Chatted about their upcoming travel plans (one way tickets to Ireland) and our plans for the remainder of my trip. This is also when, on round 2 of drinks we found Jon Lajoie. Whom we shared a drink, a round of shots and hilarious conversation about himself (his comedy, his Canadian-ness), fantasy football, and our various homelands (Canada, Hollywood, and Texas respectively). This chat lasted till last call.

- After last call we wandered back to the apartment, only to cross paths with more friends. Which only meant, hilarious "afterhours" at the apartment. Drinks were had, music was discussed... it was fun even with the copious amounts of man bonding happening (boys band together, apparently). Who cares. Moments of note: Radiohead v. Coldplay, to love or loathe Mumford and Sons, and why 90's rap is so damn catchy.

FRIDAY

- Shopping all day for birthday presents. Space 15 Twenty, Urban Outfitters and The Daily Planet.

- Found said perfect presents.

- Party Bus to the actual party @ Cafe Was. Fabulous drinks, delicious food and all the burlesque dancing one could hope for. Oh and even a few celeb sitings. Drinking, dancing, dining and a party bus back home... sooooo many bottles popped.

- Big bonus: networking and submitting my resume to be a PA for a couple of artists. I absolutely love that is how things work out here. You meet and greet, drink and chat... then BOOM someone gives you an email address and the invitation to submit your resume for consideration.

LOVE IT.

SATURDAY

- Sleep. Only venture out of the house for food. Sleep some more. Crash out at 1030.

- I see this is a bit lame. I mean, Saturday night in LA/Hollywood, and I stayed in. I couldn't help it. I really outdid myself on Friday... and fuck, I am on vacation. I will do whatever the hell I want.

SUNDAY

-Brunch at Prizzi's. Quite literally the best French toast and mimosa combo I have ever had. Beating out Paris in Las Vegas (there were suspicious bananas bits in the Vegas toast).

- Driving. LOTS of driving through the Hills, to the Res, to Los Feliz, to Silverlake, and even cruised Sunset like a total asshole.

-Hit up happy hour at La Poubelle. 3 dollar Poubelle lagers, dollar oysters, and lavender creme brulee.

- A brief trip home to recoup. Only to go out for last call and food from Aroma Cafe, a delicious treat courtesy of my friends paramore.

And here it is Monday. I am fueling up to go shopping... not a hundred percent sure where yet... I mean, there are so many great places to choose from! Robertson, Melrose, Rodeo... ugh. It is a bit overwhelming, totally indulgent and beyond words... and I haven't even gone yet.

Left on a Jet Plane

Sometimes, you just need to get away. Sometimes you need the division of 1500 miles.

Not running away. Not avoiding. Just a vacation away from all the things that were driving your fucking bonkers.

Traveling all day yesterday was beyond exhausting. I changed planes, I changed seats, by the end of the day, I need my drivers licence to tell me who I was. Hazard of travel, I suppose. But with each stop, each change, I felt lighter. Like the Burden of My Daily Life (BMDL) was slowly but surely being lifted. My thoughts and worries lifted and left behind. Clearly, they checked out when I checked my bag.

I feel so much lighter out here... maybe it is the air, the atmosphere, or the altitude.

So, here it is, most of the day into my first full day in LA and I have done... a bit of work. I mean, it is really amazing the things I cram into a day. Thus far, today, there was a successful trip to Target, and important business matter that I handled via email. It is amazing what one can do after a 1/2 pot of coffee.

Separation can be freeing. I am so far away, so removed from all the BMDL that, not even the slight overcast to my sunny-breezy-78 degree day doesn't bother me in the slightest. Being out here is doing what I thought it would.

Under Construction

I realize I attempted to make myself strong on something that didn't exist.
I made myself strong on the idea of my Ex being gone, with the way he removed himself from my life.
And when he came back with the force that he did... the foundation crumbled. I mean, something built, literally, on nothing can not survive. So, it crumbled.
I am now surrounded by the pieces of something that once was, and now, I don't really know what it was. I know at one point (before this last reunion) we were two people who really loved and cared about each other... and some how, because life happens, it all just fell apart.. "We" tired to put it back together, patch and repair, but it wouldn't hold. So, things fell into a state of disrepair and we disbanded. And whatever... I've told this part of the story before. You should be up to speed... if not, go back to blog 1.

So now, surrounded by the rubble that was a relationship and back at square one... I begin again.

I begin the healing process again... And now, must resolve to do things a bit differently this time around. Face the hurt and the pain head on. No matter how much I don't want to. NO matter how much I think it would be easier to forget it, go around it or avoid it.

Well...

How the hell do I do that??

New step one: Seriously through thyself into work.
It is the only thing that fully takes my mind away from my personal life.

At work, my full attention is required. I am forced to fully focus myself on the art of slanging tees. And my other work, creative, flourishes. Granted, something has kept me from picking up my cameras... I have however been writing more. And no, not just here on the blog. But otherwise. I have been diverting my energy into something more productive and rewarding to me... a solid creative product.


I'm a bit worried though. Worried that things wont grow back. Or rather, grow back fully. I feel like... I have ice in my veins. Like the, somehow I have stranded myself on an Arctic Tundra... And all I can feel is the icy wind whipping around me, beating me through my clothes. Like, it doesn't matter that the stars seem bigger yet further away, or that there are musk oxen... I don't see it. I don't feel it.
I'm afraid that wont change.

Little Victories

I should have known this would happen.
I am, on some level, a slow learner. And for me the process is normally a few steps forward and a few steps back.

Well. This was my million steps backward after only made a handful forward.

I guess this is where I admit I am starting over, and getting back to getting over it. Because attempt one was an epic fail.
I will conclude it was an epic fail because my desire to be out of pain and back safely in a loved ones arms massively (wrongly) out-weighed my desire to heal properly. Properly being the operative, because I wasn't healed hardly at all. I thought launching headlong back into something would heal it or fix it or alleviate the pain. And it did, for a little while. But really brought back a flood of questions and insecurity that I was unable to cope with, due mostly to the fact that I was not getting the answers I needed. Answers, also, that deep down I didn't want.

WELL I got enough answers now.
And all I can feel is the icy calm of low-grade hatred.
The problem. It is the only thing I feel. I am so full of hatred, betrayal, and hurt that I am beginning to wonder if I will anything outside of that.
The answers I got, pointed to the sad fact that everything was a lie. EVERYTHING. Every well meaning gesture, every "I-miss-you-I-want-you-blahblahblah" was a sham.
I feel like a fool (fitting, seeing how it was All Fool's Day when I started writing this).

Soooo.... now, I fight back.
I take care of me.
I do the things I neglected to do before because I was trying to be the bigger fucking person.

I shut off the Netflix.

Oh yeah, I've been paying for it, for an eternity. And I blow through the DVD's, but ah, the watch instantly device was all him.
WELL... not any fucking more.
I disabled that shit.


Is it childish, yes. Is it pointless, probably. Can it be turned on again easily, sure. Will I keep turning it off... ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY.

Traitor

Nothing like a bomb (figurative) being dropped to a) ruin a day, and b) change your course of action.

I mean, I will replay today over and wonder, if I had woken up when my alarm went off-- would have answered my phone? Will something as small as that have changed the way today went?

I realize now, that today has already happened and well on it's way out (I mean it is 6pm my time). So there isn't a way around that. BUT I can however be completely proactive about my future.

I can say with 10000% certainty, that I saw my Ex too soon, let him back in too soon and from here, I can see the error in my ways.

I guess I wanted to get around the sadness and the anger, so, I let myself do it. I let myself let him back into my life. Against mine and everyone elses better judgment. I did it. I guess I thought it would be better. I guess I thought things had changed. They hadn't. I am finding myself in a situation I was in before. Only, different. Like... We are not together, and there are no allegiance to one another...

And you know maybe it is better that way....
No one wants to a friendly fire incident... so just eliminate the friendly, keep the fire.

More. Now. Please.

OK... I have been majorly slack in updating. For that, I apologize.

Let me catch you up on what I've been up to:

Making friends:
Rather keeping up with friends. For the first time in a long while I feel like I have a little network of people that I can kind of rely on. I've also been prepping for my trip to California. Which I am beyond STOKED about. Frankly, I think I need to get out a little bit. I've been trapped in TX for a while with no break from the norms of family and work. I've been feeling trapped. I need to get out, find an ocean and find my perspective and creativity... ohhh and my BFFE and important things like girly nights and potent cocktails.

Making enemies:
Now. I am not a a vicious person, unless crossed. And well... Someone crossed me, ok well, 2 people crossed me. And it is A LOT easier to target all that anger at on person.
This guy I was seeing, just stopped seeing me. I chalked it up to losing his job and complications with his family. To me, that is a legit set of reason to cut some one out for a bit. However, that was not the case. He started seeing someone else, and cut me out. I shouldn't have been upset. We had made no claims to one another... but I really felt I was owed at least notification of his new find. But that's just me.
WELL.... I ran into him and his new her at a party I went to with a friend. Well, while he thinks he is quite charming and possibly musically talented... she is sleeping around. This does not surprise me. It amuses me. So much so I started taking bets on which boy she would bed that night at the party. I drew up a clever chart using letters and shapes and complicated algerbraic looking formulas to thinly hide what I was doing.
I surveyed party guests, but took no money. When I was done... I taped it to the fridge for ALL to see.
Lesson: Don't fuck with me. I can ruin you. *kisses*

Working like a dog
I have been working like crazy. Hence the need for the California trip. I'm feeling a bit run down... and I don't want to resent my job.

Dating.
I am dating(?) my Ex, still.... Dating is the only term I know. I refuse to label it, because I don't know what it is. But I like it. It is really comfortable and exciting. Things have been better then the last 2 tries we had...

So... yeah
That's what I have been doing... That's been what's keeping me from you.

Hopeless... Romantic

I am resigned to admit that I am a hopeless romantic.
Not so much that I desperately fall in love with every boy I meet. But, more so, that I think that every boy I fall for could be the one.
I realize just how silly it sounds. I realize how naive it makes me. I realize how lame some of those boys were.

I think I am the feline equivalent of relationships. Cats have 9 lives... I've had 5 relationships (serious, important relationships). I am am either luckier than that... and will continue to have more... or this is the end of the line, and shall start adopting cats and become the youngest spinster known.

Relationships Road Less Traveled

JS
He was my high school "sweetheart". I deff file this under the "young and in love" umbrella, in the "i-was-new-in-town-and-knew-no-one" subcategory. I wont get into the specifics... but it was a good starter relationship. Even though we were totally different. However, I knew then that he wasn't the one I was going to marry (if I ever married). This became even more apparent after reconnecting with him AFTER graduating collage and AFTER bouncing around the western half of the country. I firmly believe if I would have stayed with him, from high school or upon reconnecting... I would be barefoot and pregnant in a trailer park in the town I went to high school in.

AR
He was my "big love- big mistake". We met in college, fell in love and got engaged (like we were supposed to, right?). I was hell bent on being some brand of noted writer-photographer-PR extraordinaire. He was going to be a rising track star-band front man- photographer-tattoo artist. Together we would have cemented our lives in some little artist community or something in Austin... taking full advantage of the artists, the music scene.... everything. This probably would have worked, and possibly we would have been happy... IF he hadn't screwed every "model" he worked with and fucked every "study partner" all while keeping me on the line and engaged to his philandering ass. Needless to say, this did not end well... and subsequently, I graduated and left the state (not entirely a coincidence).

NC
After changing states... this guy and I met. And despite some ups and downs and some... hang ups. We were happy. We survived 6months of poverty. We both worked multiple jobs. We had friends, a life, and we had each other. I could see it with him. Getting married in some hippie style mountain ceremony, and continuing our tattoo'd and pierce'd adventures. But somewhere between, the death of my dog, losing my job and finding another one in California. We slipped apart. He wanted to stay, and he was my only reason for staying. And, with no commitment from him, I didn't think that was reason enough to stay; I asked him to come with me to California, he declined. And... with that, we parted ways. I was a little heartbroken. But it wasn't because he had broken my heart... it was because I had lost my partner and my best friend.

JR
This was the worst thing ever.
It took up a year of my life... and I just block it out.

NN
This is the ex I keep referring to. I knew we were different. I mean, he is from another country for Chissake. But, in the beginning, we were so happy together. Respectful, considerate and literally could not get enough of each other. I got a passport for this guy, thinking, literally, we were going somewhere. And that's what I saw us doing. He would graduate and go on do work for the UN or some other government agency using his language and conflict management degrees... and I would go too. Either keep slinging tee's like I am now, or man up and pursue writing and photography. Or something. But, in trying to grow together, we grew apart... and then broke apart. But to be honest, I really it saw it with him. I really did think he was the proverbial "the one." I saw us happy here (in TX. But in a more urban setting), or on the west coast, or somewhere in Europe (to which I would saw screw work and I would attempt to enjoy all Euro offerings because I have never been.).

And... also, admittedly, we've been dating(?). I've mentioned this before in the Date with the Devil blog. I've been on more dates with him... and it is now, like it was in the beginning. However, I am not letting myself get swept away. I am not letting myself get swept away (again) or too starry eyed (again). But rather, just trying to enjoy the moment (advice my BFFFE has given me).

Now, again, I can feel you eye rolling me. I can feel you "tsk-tsk-tisk"-ing me.
But, in the dates and discussions he and I have had... Things feel better. Things feel different this time (yes, that is cliche, yes it is naive), and yes that is what they all say.
But, I will give this disclaimer:

NO ONE needs help navigating the good of the relationship. EVERYONE needs help navigating the bad. That is why you go to friends for advice, and subsequently paint your partner in a less than flattering light.

So yeah... Clearly, I am hopeless. and a bit of a romantic.