mmmm home

i've been home since wednesday, and it's been really lovely.

the flight home was a breeze and my family took me out to a new italian restaurant, Tresca, near stone oak. there is actually a website now dedicated to night spots in stone oak here. But Tresca-it was wonderful--i had fig and goat cheese white pizza with prosciutto. and some wonderful shiraz. if you're a san antonian, it's the same family who started Piatti.

thursday i was completely lazy, and it was great. i went for a run in the rainy-ness and was a muddy mess, and it felt amazing. then i cleaned up and went to meet elizabeth, an old friend and kindred spirit from forever ago, at Copa, another place that definitely charmed me and has in the past. we tore through two bottles of a really superb pinot and had "La Verdad" pizza, chocolate cake, and baked goat cheese. so worth it. then ran in to scott from high school and we caught up on each other's recent antics. was a good ole time, and ended it with a few drinks at the Back Porch. then drove home and as i was getting ready for bed, put my blackberry down on what was, unbeknownst to me, the lid to my sister's home waxing kit. that stuff doesn't let go and must do its job with no mercy. in the end i saved my blackberry; it was very heroic, and i cursed alot, and my sister ran out of the bedroom and slept somewhere else, but i did it.

today i had my first eye exam in like 6 years and they got me a new Rx--apparently i've been blind for years, and am not a candidate for Lasik ugh--and i discovered i have corneal vascularization. it's reversible, so we shall see. or maybe i WONT see.

get it? yeah that was a great one.

later adare and i went to las palapas, maybe the greatest tacos in the world, and it's all i had to eat today, and am still kinda full. i went to natasha's awesomely bad holiday sweater party after some impromptu shopping, and alongside getting to see her and catch up, i was really happy to see her be a hostess--i want to do that! i will plan a party in 2009, for sure.

i just finished packing for tomorrow; we leave way before the sun comes up and will drive to baton rouge, straight to a holiday party, and then probably out with the cousins.

so far this has been a very, very, happy holiday. and i can see again.

let's start simple all over again.

today i am getting done those last few things i needed to before my holiday-im sitting at one of my usual starbucks, watching everyone else do their christmas thang--writing cards, checking facebook, emailing, having what looks to be a cocoa-tasting club, people having an AA meeting...it's happy holidays in los angeles.

since getting the macbook, i have been super into being control freak organized, but it's yielding good things so far. last night i finished cleaning my closet and gutting the contents that i really do not use--i took eleven large bags to goodwill this morning and had a really weird encounter at the first of two locations. i pulled in the loading dock, after calling to make sure they were accepting donations, and they turned me away--it was really awkward and i couldn't really tell why they were sending me away? for some reason, following that, i had a minor panic attack because my car was full up to my eyeballs and i drove a few miles east and found another on santa monica blvd by the 405.

and that worked out fine, and that's what's important. i hope that some of what i brought finds its way to those who could use it. i am so sick of STUFF...

but what i am excited about is:

my roomate melissa and spending more time with her
HOME and Baton Rouge and Croatia over the coming weeks!
My new bangs
clean closet
all my christmas cards were sent out, save a few that i'm delivering in person
getting back into what i consider acceptable training shape
saving $$
seeing my dog!
my cashmere scarf
cancelling accounts and services i no longer use (yeah so WHAT if i'll be pale from no tanning and will only have one cell phone not three...simplify!)
cooking tonight
my tiny tiny christmas tree in my apartment

after i finish writing im going to sprint to cancel my ancient 323- account. after that, all that's left on my list is to transfer over new music to the iTouch for the plane ride, and laundry, and cooking dinner. and packing. only thing that kinda worries me is that i'd like to pack superminimally but it's so hard to tell--it's colder in eastern europe and im gone for weeks. but why worry! i feel blessed and happy right now.

i would like to use my blog for more themed entries moving forward.

love xo
a

countdown?

well...my last evenings/days in LA are upon me, and i've got a whole host of good healthy personal affairs to tend to that I haven't been able to for years. YEARS.

tomorrow's going to be a good day, and i leave for SA wednesday.

there is a lot brewing in my head tonight, and i like it. not really anything crazy to report, and maybe that's the good part--when i get to slow down and listen and look at what's around me and in me.

i got a new haircut, which i love, and these small happy things that i feel are surrounding me, so...i'd say im full of christmas spirit, plus some.

oh, and also, am waiting for people to capitalize in various ways on the shoe-throwing as of late.

more to write soon, especially from the road!

love
xoxoxo
(is that what love feels like? being able to give it freely? nice.)

biding my time

just hanging out with the new computer and actually finding it more productive when my computer doesnt take 45 minutes to boot up...i love this thing :)

i hope that everyone is well...i am well, good times with friends, family and most importantly, with myself.

i cant take anything seriously anymore except for appreciation and well-being.

not taking things so seriously will probably save my life.

amen.

new year / new gear / things are lookin' up...

I'm sitting in Austin about to depart for LA, coming home from a wonderful week with family for thanksgiving...

I needed to see them so much and am glad I did. things are about to change in a major way and 2009 will find me in a new pattern of things, new job, new direction, and with an ultimately better outlook on life. it's in my hands; i accept that now. i've let this "situation" (well there are many) compel me to play a victim. can't do that anymore.

so i'm looking forward to who knows what.

oh wait--croatia. i'm going to dubrovnik, a coastal mediterranean village bordering serbia but facing the adriatic sea. i cannot wait, and i cannot thank T enough for the idea and for the suggestion that i do something good for myself and come along. gotta get out of this country, especially if i want to have any perspective on it.

things feel...better. i had las palapas for breakfast while A and i drove back from san antonio and had girl talk, which was awesome and i miss it. we watched as many episodes of the office on her iTunes last night and i had a blast. i missed seeing a few people but will be back in a couple weeks and would love to catch up with as many TX kids as possible!

peace and love

i hope to write again soon...am

damn sam / you love a woman that rains?

i am so looking forward to getting home tonight to cook, and remember what music i even have, and to maybe share it with some guests...

all i know lately, whether things have looked up or down is that the baseline is pretty dismal, and THAT's what i'm trying to work on--i should be at a place where i can feel healthy, rested enough to do my job, and at peace with people in my life...i don't need a vacation (well yeah i do) but i need some right to have an unobstructed, say, 10 hours even where i'm not rushing out of, say, the presidential debates with friends so that i can go drive home and load content that could've been taken care of during decent hours....say.......

it blows my mind that this concept doesn't even register as important--i'm physically and mentally sick, and my body is shutting down, telling me to, say, SLEEP and EAT MEALS but i will never understand how people won't structure their demands on an employee with the basic principle of "let me recover / then you can run me down and i will be at 100% for you" .....how is it ok that i'm at 20%, and i am very seriously bound to make errors (costly ones) affecting my company, bosses and myself, if i can't get to work without being sick to begin with? sick for obvious, containable, reasons that can be remedied in short amounts of time.

maybe it's the relative pressure that each items carries (i.e. hard to prioritize when i feel like my life and career depend on everything i do) and it's even more stressful when i'm told not to be so strung out...you can't tell a person on their last leg to relax. not physically possible. all i know is that i'm in panic mode and i know more than ever that i am without the comfort or security of a person or persons who will catch me when i fall.

maybe that's why i'm the most afraid. i have to do this, and get through this, sick or not, and if i fall it's going to hurt and i will have only myself to catch me.

so yeah, im gonna go now, and figure out how to do that.

i figure that if i have nothing to look forward to, i better start at least inventing small dates with myself like cooking dinner. and you'd better believe i will be a perfect gentleman.

i don't know what changed

i can't help but feel, although i did make it to church and to plenty of things this weekend, that a part of my spirit is a little crushed.

it's a few things, i mean i know what they are, and why they accumulated this way... but i don't know why it's a recurring thing. i guess i tried very hard and with all my heart to avoid this eventual feeling that is rather low.

shame, really, i had so much life and so much to say just a couple of days ago before all of this.




s.d.i.a.b.r.

-john mayer

guns + pizza/beer breakfast = total class

so this weekend was pure hedonism

lovely dinner with T on Friday *pasta and wine and more drinks,
UT game with the UT kids on Saturday and thus began the drunken haze *beer, nachos and more...

sunday was begun the way all sundays should, with shooting at a gun range and cabo cantina *jack in the box for breakfast + margs, beer and whiskey and nachos

continued with promenade and movie and more hijinks *whiskey and beer and cotton candy, chocolate pretzels and popcorn

WOW

with a grand finale of beer and pizza for breakfast monday...and more pizza later at night?? christ reading this makes me sick. but it was a great weekend and had good T-times. haha how in the world do i balance that out? all i know is it's endemic of a severe need for vacation time--i went overboard purely because i didn't have to work. and i indulged, believe me.

all hope is not lost, however, as i feel more eager than ever to press on, and hit the gym like a nut, and share with the world my hidden hot chick.

honestly...i have no deep thoughts in mind, no observations, no epiphany other than that i enjoyed my fat cat time.

and my glock time!!
peace.

REPO: The Genetic Opera

click here for new repo trailer; darren just released. i am so proud.

Just the daily...

...affirmations.

-I will learn to cook a steak.
-I will visit Monterey, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Carmel by the end of 2009.
-I will keep up this healthy kick. I will lose 10 lbs.
-I will start looking for music for my choreography in a few months. NOT the night before the redeye.
-I will budget. Not stupid-strict but enough to keep the savings growing.
-I already paid off all my credit cards--plan on keeping it that way.
-I will begin to learn French and will brush up on my Latin/Greek and Irish Gaelic.
-I will plan a vacation for Melissa and me.
-I will not XXXXXXXXXX anymore. Not ever. Never. No.
-I will set more drinks and dinners at new places.
-I will go to Harvelle's and back to Foxtail.
-I will take more pictures.

That's it!

Oh on a sidenote...have been brainstorming ideas for a book. I want to start writing, and am FIGHTING to not go front to back, cover to cover, from title to last sentence. I need to do more thinking but am ready to lay down a structure. I have a couple ideas I'm mulling around but I think the one with promise would be:

a collection of my observations on moving West, staying put, or just general self-promotion for this generation. Looking at my peers, it is abundantly clear to me that we are spread across the country, some of us started West, some Mid, some East...no matter the birthplace, we have the option of choosing a trajectory and in the fame-game you must move West.

Some of us are held like a dead deer in a barb wire fence (or pulled up by the conviction to start one's own "settled" family...whatever your perspective), in any-city-USA where people in their early twenties start a family and shed some selfishness. If you don't end up wrapped in shrapnel--ok happily married--somewhere, you finally arrive West and realize that if you don't KILL yourself and stomp on the shoulders of others in order to climb up and up and up to FAMOUS/SUCCESSFUL/BEAUTIFUL....you don't run into any more barb wire fences. You fall straight into the ocean.

And then you wander the rest of the world and focus your "self" inward, not propagated outward. You learn about communities and cultures that are not indulgently USA-ish. You live with less. You stop eating preservatives and although you drink more, you are the thinnest you've ever been because you actually walk. You see history from not hundreds but from thousands of years ago. You have lovers and friends and new families that you leave just as easily as you met.

You understand that success is self-realized, and can never come from other people...Then you either return to New York and start the journey West again, if you have the energy. If not, you peacefully surrender to fall into whatever fence will love you back and provide stability. You're stuck there but at least you know where you are.

So for those who stay West, who need need need to see and be seen by Important People, a platform that is different than from any other time in history exists. We viral and blog and advertise what we are willing to sell the world. We try to be thinner and more interesting than we really are. It is the responsibility of the West to be difficult, fatal even.

And I am not sure yet what the West or the world gives back. Am reflecting on that and would honestly like to develop what I can about this pattern, but I have a horrible tendency to generalize and pigeonhole. All a part of my process though.

Hm. That was a lengthy footnote.

More later...

On Horizon-

staging recording artist showcase for June 21st
intensive and competition choreography Aug 2nd-3rd
Crossing the pond in September,
Ryan's wedding in October,

FINALLY some stimulus.

STOP just stop.

Wow. Really? MONTHS go by and I forget to write?
Shame on me.
I owe myself the courtesy of at least letting ME know what's going on with ME.
That makes little sense but none of it really does.

Work is the same. I am trying to figure out where I fit. I am happy most of the time with it, and am challenged/motivated but am at a point where it's almost been two years, and I'm a little fuzzy on the direction of things. I also don't respond well when I try to make other people's general situations better, i.e. make life easier for my bosses when it's hard enough for them as it is....and their response to that is being irritated because I ask ONE question a day?? I sit here and don't interact with a single other human being for 8, 9 10 hours a day, with no breaks, and I refuse to fall into that martyr-y place where I feel like poor me, poor victim...ANYWAY I'm just done with the way things are going but not giving up on this job yet, I see too much potential growth and it matches me so well.

JOB ISN'T EVERYTHING

Got a bike, have made some new friends, am trying to get back in the dance of things.
Have some projects on the horizon.

Am enjoying very much the weather and geography of my little Santa Monica.
Wish I could exist in that few-mile radius of SM and surrounding areas.
Maybe I'll just start a "work from home" job cold calling people to sell them porcelain dolphins and miniature windmill pencil holders.

COOL!

Say it: "say-lah-vee"
C'est la ME!

An Update of False Importance

So it's almost April 2008 and this is what's been going on and on and on:

Work is good and silly. Peaks and valleys but I've gotta get it out of my head to take things personally and let them wear on my sanity. Always comes down to...best opportunity I'll ever be afforded at this age for career and anything that continues to be this challenging is worth it. Trying to learn...actually hardest part right now is working alone but that's what I get for getting into this. It gets rather lonely and I find myself really wanting to interact. I'm home base and everyone else comes and goes, so I try to keep excited and self motivated by watching the product of all this, and the tiny part I have to play in all of it, play out globally. Etc.

Since taking step one at reclaiming parts of life that I'd let fall by the wayside, step one being visiting the family in Baton Rouge, the next step that needed to kickstart and remain in play was the health/diet. I've adopted the Abs Diet plan for eating and it's been working really well actually--everything they advise to include are my favorites anyway. In some silly way this is my control and what I get to decide during my day--6 small meals and adding the strength training in. I make it a priority that no one is going to ruin that plan. As it is, too many parts of my life/time/heart/money have been trampled upon and so no more of this wasteful victim shit. I'm stronger than that and this is one way of putting that into practice. So that's been feeling better, and I'm incorporating good ole DANCE back in--CHRIST that was my LIFE and I cannot believe how things have turned out. It's for the better but WOW. I really need step two in this to be--once the body feels mechanical again in the way it should--setting some pieces that I have on my mind. And I need to see Mina more than I can say.

So for me, if my fitness and working out and not being a fat useless slob are taken care of, I tend to perform better all around. I move forward next to...finances.

They are getting better, am saving 4 figure amounts at a time and am paying off debt in large chunks while financing the car. It's my pride and joy at times and I don't need anyone's validation to feel proud of myself. I just do. It was a big step even though it was hard to let the Camry go. Ok that's a lie--it did nothing short of committing full on suicide and it hated LA. RIP.

Next comes relationships--I think because of the moving around and feeling these things over and over:
loss of old home and friends and lifestyle
fear
who will be my friend
who do i need to be to get friends
i got them...
but i guess i didn't need to try that hard anyway, to keep the good ones around that matter.
...
What, we're moving AGAIN??

I'm realizing through phenomena such as facebook that people are locatable and playing the voyeur becomes a bit boring--people post how they feel, where they travel, parties, weddings/births...and I'm happy for them, but have people around me who I can see in real life, so back to that--I will be incorporating more time in the old sked for Stephanie, UTLA folks, dance friends, Allen, and misc. kids all over this horizontal gotham. Trying!

**Note--whenever I find it difficult to carry on with said "lifestyle changes for the better," i notice that one of them is a stress upon the other, i.e. working out getting in the way of socializing, socializing getting in the way of keeping up with projects...but no shit. Everyone deals with this. Am I five years old and just now realizing that life is a balancing act and not automatic?

More on these topics soon--gotta go:

pop culture
culture a bit more obscure
love (as a general sentiment, as something I want, as a commodity, as necessary but as very very hard to control)
politics and the world (small and minor topic best discussed herein as a mess)
sarcasm (see above topic)
puppies...ha
MUSIC

Goodbye.