Maui Mayhem

I’m sitting in my car. The sun is beaming down on my head, forming a non-holy halo of heat. It’s hot, I forgot to put deodorant on today and I can feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead. I hope I don’t smell. I wish I wasn’t wearing jeans. It’s almost 4:00 and this is the first time I’m leaving the house all day. I swear, I’m not that big of a loser, I’m not sitting in my car blogging. Well, OK I am, but I’m waiting for my friend at the BART station and I had some time to kill. I haven’t blogged in a while and I’m gonna be honest, I miss it. I miss you lonely blog world.

Today, I spent hours on the computer in my bathrobe looking up apartments in Maui instead of doing any actual work, or dare I say, looking up actual apartments that I may actually live in, in London. I decided that I'm moving to London for grad school and I'm excited but have extreme anxiety ... daily. Needless to say fantasizing about living a perma-vacation in Maui was a fun little break from reality. The thought of being in Maui for any period of time makes me feel elated, at peace, and so much less depressed that I’m fairly certain I should daydream about Maui whenever I feel any sort of anxst. It should be my happy place that I go too, in my mind of course, whenever things in my head start going loco. Maui is my xanax. As I craiglist searched three bedroom apartments overlooking the ocean, with beach front balconies, and hard wood floors, that cost the same price as a studio in San Francisco, with crack addicts outside (and next door), I really started to ponder why I don’t live there. I fantasized of running around in a bikini (15 lbs skinner, of course) on the beach, and then dunking my entire (rock-hard) body in the ocean. I miss Maui. It’s been almost exactly a year since I was there for Amy and Peter’s wedding. When I think of Maui I remember eating papayas for breakfast with lime juice. I remember lazy days by our hotel pool and lazier ones on the beach drinking sangria and snorkeling. What I remember the fondest is my romance on the beach—with the perfect and hottest vacation fling man in the world. Perfect in the “you’re the hottest man I’ve ever met and you surf and you are sexy and perfect and I’m on vacation and I am fairly certain I am in love.” Perfect in that way. Yes, he was a caterer at my friend’s wedding. Yes, he doesn’t drink alcohol. Yes he doesn’t eat cake. But it was all just perfection in my head. Oh Maui. That’s what I think of when I think of Maui. No wonder it is my “happy place.”

But in reality I'm moving to London. My trip there was awesome. I fell in love with the city and as much anxiety that I have, I know the end result will be worth it ... so here goes ... off on another adventure, yet day dreaming about being on the beach. Story of my life. I promise, I'll keep in better touch blog world.

London Calling

I leave for London in four days. Four days! I'm going to go check out City University for the grad school program I might attend in the fall. It's crazy, I could be making another big move. Another move. Another city. Another life. Another adventure. It's so weird how much life can change in just a short number of months. A year ago I was working my ass off at DivineCaroline, living in San Francisco. Who would have thought that life would have turned out this way a year later--a four month jaunt around Asia and now graduate school for Journalism, in LONDON of all places.

I remember when I visited London for the first time when I was twelve. I was enchanted, in love. I remember walking through the park near my cousin's place, brightly colored peacocks wandering around aimlessly, going to Harrods, and taking the big-red-bus ... I told my self then that some day, I would live in this city. I've always wanted to get to this point. Now I am actually here. I have that feeling in my gut, that one I get before I make any major move or any major decision. It's a strange yet very familiar amalgamation of fear and excitement. It's knowing that I am about to embark on an amazing adventure. Without thinking too much about the what ifs, the what nots, the what the fucks am I doing, my heart feels like it's going in the right direction.

People close to me have told me that they are proud and envious that I am so passionate about writing and traveling that I am willing to constantly sacrifice any sort of stability to have these adventures. If this is what I love, how could I be happy doing anything else? Sometimes I'm envious of them for having their shit together. The husband, the steady job, the perfect apartment, a home, the life that I am supposed to want ... but somehow don't. Not yet, maybe not ever. Who knows. All I know that my wants change daily. Sometimes I don't know what I want. Sometimes I wonder why the mainstream, the normal, the 9-5, is what I am supposed to be content with. Maybe I just don't want to grow up and face reality, but I just want my reality to be something different. Only time will tell where I end up.

I stumbled upon this quote and I think it's beautiful. Anyone who has ever really traveled knows it to be true:

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” - Cesare Pavese

Nothing is yours except the essential ...

Expectedly Heartbroken

I'm on the plane to New York City. I sit restless, my laptop on my lap. The only thing I want to do right now is write. Just write. It doesn't even matter what I write about. Maybe, a part of what makes me a writer is that when I don't know who or what to turn to, or feel desperate in my life, I turn to writing. I write it out. Whatever it is that I'm feeling--confused, sad, happy ... lately, usually the first too, to be honest. It's easier to write when you have issues. Luckily, I always have issues and unresolved emotions. I'm human. Lately, especially lately, I have begun to realize that life is hard. I know people say it all the time, but I never really realized the harshness of reality until I graduated from college. My twenties have been a fucking mess. A fun mess, but a mess none the less. This is what I've done for the past 5 years, since I graduated from college:

YEAR 1
1) Road trip from Seattle to San Francisco with my two girlfriends, to start my new life back home. No plans. Just a room at my parents house and an able body and mind.
2) Confused as fuck, apply to random corporate jobs, while secretly wanting to be a writer and move abroad. Fed up with looking, get a job at a random coffee shop.
3) Meet my ex boyfriend, my boss--a tumultuous affair.
4) Fed up with my ex's lack of commitment and my life at home, working at a coffee shop, I apply for a job in Tokyo to teach English, something I always wanted to do.
5)Ex finally commits, a month before I move to Japan. How fucking convenient. I should have told him to fuck off.

Year 2
6) I move to Tokyo anyways. Teach English for a year. Stay with my boyfriend (perhaps, regretfully). Make new friends, fall in love with my Tokyo, find myself piece by piece, and slowly learn what it is to be happy again.
7) Eight months later, move back to San Francisco for my boyfriend. Bliss for a few months, then disastrous after.
8) Get my first writing/editing job at DivineCaroline.

Year 3
9)Ex boyfriend breaks my heart in a devastating way. I lay in bed and cry for weeks. Every single part of me felt like it was dying. I believed I would never love again.
10) Slowly move on, like a fragile bird with a broken wing ... who will eventually learn to fly on its own again. Cheesy but poetic.
11) Move to my North Beach Apartment.

Year 4
12) Have a blast in my new apartment spending time with my friends. Date multiple douche bags in a row. None of them have a lasting impact. Singledom is my game. Wake up one day and realize I am over my ex who I thought I'd never get over ...
13) Meet Denny, he tells me about his backpacking trip to Asia he's planning. I tell him, jokingly, if I get laid off, I'll come with.
13) I get laid off. Call Denny. Start planning trip ...
14) Save money for 2 months working random jobs to travel around Asia for 4 months.
15) Actually do it and have the best four months of my life. I learned life lessons, met amazing people, had some amazing romances, and awe inspiring adventures.

Year 5
16) Return home. Again for the millionth time it seems. From another trip. From another bout of running away from myself, only to find myself here ... in the same position I was in years ago.
17) Try my hardest not to meet a guy to date. My life is too uncertain to fall for someone. Immediately meet someone I really care for--the most I've cared for someone since my ex two years ago. That's a long ass time.
18) It ends ... unexpectedly, with my heart broken, expectedly. Story of my life. A recurring theme. My fate it seems. Every time I open my heart, even reluctantly, it gets wounded. How many times can a heart be broken without piecing itself back together again? Who knows. Maybe at one point, it just doesn't. It just can't and it gives up. I'm not there yet. At least, I still truly believe everything happens for a reason. Reasons unknown to me now.

Looking at my track record, one would ask .... who the fuck is this girl. She must be confused with life. I am. But then I look at it again closely and I think, I've done some pretty cool shit. Really cool shit. I've loved. I've lost. I've been sublimely happy. I've been devastated. Now, I'm just confused. I still love life ... heartbroken, but still ready and willing to move on.

The Debt of Happiness

I'm trying my hardest not to think about the debt that this recent trip has put me in. I've never been in so much debt in my entire life. Currently, the only way I have to pay them back is via unemployment checks, which are so small, I can't even live off them. Concurrently, thinking about moving to London and going to grad school brings my mind into an even more stress full yet excited place. Instead of a few thousand, we're talking 50,000 dollars or more. I feel like money has never been a huge issue in my life, but I'm finally feeling the stress and weight of debt in my life. I'm an adult. I no longer get to write about finding solace on tropical beaches, hiking up temples in Cambodia, or spending nights in sketchy guest houses while having the time of my life. At least for now. My life today, at home in California, is all about being poor and dealing with the debt I put myself in by having this time of my life. Experiences are amazing and I've had a shitload of life-changing ones that I will be forever grateful for, but maybe, just maybe I've reached a point, where I need to start making monetarily smart decisions instead of just spontaneous ones that provide me with amazing memories. I've always thought the latter, until I got to this point.

I hate that I just said that. I think I take it back. I've always been a firm believer in traveling for the sake of traveling. For the sake of opening your eyes to other cultures, other beliefs, other people, other views on the world. It's been amazing and I don't regret it. The debt is shit. The debt stresses me out. But, at the end of the day, I have those memories. I will always be able to say when I was twenty-six years old I tubed down a river in Laos and met some of the coolest people I've ever met, I fell in love with some Cambodian children on a beach in Sihanoukaville and wished I could take them home with me, I felt chills down my spine and salty tears down my face at The Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, I spent my twenty-sixth birthday in Saigon amidst new friends and old ones, I've been on more overnight buses than I care to admit, stayed in shit holes that I never thought I could handle. I wore the same outfit almost everyday for four months. I learned to appreciate the little things in life, I learned that I don't need a fancy outfit and makeup to feel beautiful; I actually prefer to be in a sundress and flip flops on the beach than in heels any day. I learned to find solace in myself, by myself. I learned I am happiest when I am free. I am stronger, smarter, more worldly, more confident, more spontaneous, more independent, and for the rest of my life, I will take this experience with me, wherever I go. As I sit in front of a computer in another cubicle, in another office, I will know and understand what it feels like to truly be happy. I learned so many things that money can't even attempt to quantify. I couldn't buy these experiences. The debt that I am in will someday go away, these memories will hopefully never. Just because my trip is over doesn't mean I ever have to stop learning from it, or believing in my ability to be happy again. I know I can be, I know I will be, and that gives me hope, if nothing else. Things can only get better and I'm grateful for what I have received. I've gotten to travel more than most people I know. I've experienced completely different worlds and I don't think I'm ever ready to truly stop.

I know I have a hard time being happy in where I am at, but I'm trying. I'm grateful and thankful for everything that life has given me. I have an amazing life. I have the most amazing family, my friends are the best friends in the world. There isn't a day that goes by that I take that for granted. I know I'll be OK. I am OK. Hopefully soon, I'll be more than just OK.

Debbie Downer

Someone once told me that not writing in your blog daily is blogger's suicide. I guess that means I jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge months ago. I've been home for about two months, maybe longer. To be honest, I've lost track. It makes me feel better that I have no idea what the date is, or what day of the week it is, or even, what time it is. When you don't have a job, time really is relative. I know that might be the most cliche thing I have ever said, but it's true. I no longer wait for the weekend, because, everyday feels like the weekend. When waking up at 11:00 a.m. feels early, that is a bad, bad sign. This unemployed lifestyle is starting to take its toll on me. I'm bored, restless, depressed, somewhat unmotivated, lazy, and lacking in inspiration. I feel like I'm starting from scratch ... again. I feel like I've done this about twenty times. Scratch that, about fifteen million. Ever since I graduate from college I've been moving, then coming back home to figure my shit out, then moving again on some adventure, then coming back to figure my shit out. It never gets easier. Why can't I just figure my shit out like everyone else? Looking for jobs is never fun, especially now, with the economy in such shit. (How many times can I say shit in this entry?) Everyday I hear of someone new losing their job--one of my friends, someone at my friend's company, blah blah. It blows.

Snap out of it Debbie fucking downer. I really am trying to manifest positivity in my life. I've had a few really great things happen in the past two months since I have been home. I'm not going to go into major detail right here as I'm currently trying to be somewhat discreet about my personal life on this thing, but it seems to defeat the purpose of honest writing. I've already revealed too much anyways, might as well give up on having anything personal these days. I'm a member of Facebook, enough said. Anyways, it's not like the two people who read my blog (thanks Anita) will give a shit. Let's just say I have some sweet things going on that aren't necessarily career related. Well, one of them is.

My wanderlust has led me to apply to grad school in London for Journalism. This is an option. A very viable one. It's an option; I like having options, even though I am the self proclaimed, most indecisive person on the entire planet. It takes me about ten times longer than the average person to make a decision.

This is a step by step guide to my decision making process:

1) Stress out/have an anxiety attack
2)Ask everyone and their mom what they think I should do
3) Listen carefully to everyone's opinions and think about them in detail, wavering
4)Smoke 15 cigarettes
5)Drink 15 vodka tonics to accompany 15 cigarettes
6)Eat a pint of ice cream and think some more
4) Daydream about both options and think about how my life would be in either situation
5)Follow my gut ....

Basically, if I just followed my gut at step one, I would make decisions in half the time. I even have to ask someone's opinion on what kind of snacks to purchase at the grocery store. Do I want Flaming Hot Cheetos or Nacho Cheese Doritos? Do I just want some White Cheddar Cheese It's, or go healthy with some Quakers? It's a hard decision. This little, unimportant, minuscule decision takes me about five minutes to make. Now, think about how long it takes me to make life-changing ones. Really, think about it. My head feels like tangle-weed. I don't even know what tangle-weed is, or if it is an actually thing, but that's how it feels. Indescribably confused. Indecisive. This is me.

San Francisco Love

My lack of inspiration these days is palpable. I started writing the book I have always wanted to write and it's coming out exactly how I don't want it to come out. I don't know what I'm doing. I write because I love it but I sit down to write a book and I start doubting myself. Does anyone give a shit, who doesn't have to give a shit? I know my parents and my sister read my work because they have to, but what about all those millions of other people out there who don't? Am I really that compelling? Fuck if I know. Still working on it though, still writing, still looking for a job in San Francisco, still trying to figure out my shite.

Its been over a month since I have been back from my trip and it's gotten a lot easier. Traveling will never really go away, but the urge to pick up and go right now, is slowly fading the more I hang out in San Francisco and feel connected to my friends. I'm having a blast. Yes I'm broke which is a constant issue and I don't have my own apartment yet, but I still have so much fun going out, and as of late, been meeting some pretty cool people too. Sometimes I feel like the social attitude I had when traveling has now been translated to my life at home. I'm more confident, I can talk to anyone, and I love connecting with new people the way I did with randoms all over Asia.

I saw this really awesome set of djs, Flosstraudaums, on Saturday night at Mezzanine in San Fran. It rocked, I don't remember the last time I danced my ass off like that or had so much fun. I got trashed of vodka Red bull and boogied my ass off. I'm fan Flosstraudamus, I am a fan.

Ok, I have lots of fun. Next step on my life's train: a job ...

Oreos on Valentine's Day

It's really, really cold. I'm wearing a pair of sweatpants, a flannel shirt, a sweatshirt, and a fuzzy, blue robe while the heater is on at full blast in my house. It's freezing and it's pouring rain. Non-stop, all day. It's OK though, it's not like there's a beautiful beach at my doorstep or some awesome, mammoth, architectural wonder that I want to see. This is Piedmont, California not Siem Reip, Cambodia. It's the town where I spent way too many weekends getting wasted of Mickey's forties and bacardi limon in my friend's basements or from red keg cups filled with cheap beer provided by our high school kegger--usually in the cemetary, someone nonsensically named Donut Shop. I don't know who thought of that, but it was a code word so cops wouldn't know what we were talking about. Cops weren't dumb--we were. They knew about our cemetery antics--there wasn't one that I went to that I didn't have to run away in a frantic, drunken, panic hiding behind random trees and scaling fences while laughing and whispering with my friends. Oh the days of my youth.

I can't be in Piedmont and not think of my high school days. Everything is reminiscent but it's not fun anymore .... it's not high school and all my friends have grown up and gone away. Is it sad that I kind of miss it? Typical that I'm back here again .... it's temporary and I have to remind myself of this on a daily basis. My life is really in San Francisco. All my friends are there, my social life is there, yes, my bed and my clothes and my parents are here, and I love them, but I find myself, on most days in San Francisco, as a temporary guest in my sister's or friend's beds.

The last few days i have been semi-content sitting on my ass at home, cuddled up with my body pillow in my bed (which is coincidentally, also blue and fuzzy), and stuffing my face with random things in my parent's house. Yesterday while it was also pouring rain, during a commercial break of Dream Weddings on The Food Network, I found myself perusing my parent's usually empty pantry. To my surprise, I found a box of Oreos. This is strange yet fantastic for a number of reasons. My parents, have never, ever, ever bought Oreos in their entire life. I was one of those kids who only had health food in their house--fruit, whole grain bread, carrot sticks--the types of things you hate when you are young. I would be the kid who would go to their friend's house and eye their pantry with envy. Theirs was always full of more delicious, unhealthy things my parents wouldn't let me near--fruit roll ups, cheetos, twinkies .... So, naturally, finding Oreos in my parents pantry, even at the age of twenty-six was a treat beyond treats ... an unexpected and fabulous surprise. I ate them and I watched Dream Weddings, and it was awesome. Ok, seriously, mid that last sentence, I just came to the realization that my life as I know it has gone on a downward spiral. The most exciting thing to happen to me in two days was finding Oreos in my parent's cabinet. Oh, and what makes it even more lame, is that yesterday was Valentine's day. Wow, my life has taken a turn for the worse and I still miss traveling. It's ok to get a kick out of Oreos and The Food Network, isnt? It's temporary ... really, it is.