i am the holiday cheerleader.

Ahoy. Here I am, pleasant Sunday night--capping off a really wonderful day spent sleeping, watching football, brunch, trip up to Malibu (R.I.P. multimillion dollar homes and hills of the rich and famously coastal), domestic recreation, cooking, truffles, work, booking flights home for christmas, new sweatpant-wearing, and about 70 episodes of Law and Order (what? it's always on!)--and i'm really happy. Don't know if it's because i'm finally feeling in control of things, or in control of personal things, but i'll take it either way. noticed that other than a recent september blog, i haven't kept up with this during the past YEAR so i need to, even if no one ever reads this (a likely scenario). i need to reflect and wax sentimental because i need to. and the holidays are upon us, which more than anything means, to me, family, clinging to inside warm temperatures to dodge the cold, time spent with old friends, and sensory overload. the past year has gone as follows--job eats my life, i love my job, therefore i accept the job and know how much opportunity it affords me. which is certainly at the expense of time spent with friends, doing nothing, and keeping up with personal affairs, but it's my job to learn balance, and teeter-totter i shall. pictures attached chronicle my lovely roomate, my dreamy neighbor, good friends, my boss' dog, hollywood friends and combinations of those elements. all that's grinding my (seasonally) cranberry/pinetree-scented jingle gears is: -my credit -my desire to finance new car, severely impaired by credit -my inability to hang my damn clothes up -my deficient alacrity to keep in touch with non-LA friends. and even those who are here. all of the above are a work in progress. oh and i love the time between halloween and february 14th like nobodies business, so dangit if i'm not SUPER FREAKIN CHIPPER lately! love your favorite elf

Advert Nauseum

ohhhhhh my goodness it's been a while

Not sure really why I'm blogging again but something in me really wants to get out?
Jesus that sounds violent.

Life here in Hollylikewood is not really even in Hollywood. Let's be honest folks. If we say we live there we actually live in this amorphous blob of GoogleEarth called the west side, or in a "beach city" if you're lucky. And thus I consider myself really really lucky. I love, more than anything, coming home to my apartment and...well, just coming home to my apartment. After the mess that was my previous two living areas after the Oakwoods (D111 will live on in an infamy never to be experienced again!), i.e. the debaucle of living in a converted garage, and the misery of an expensive apartment "near the Grove" but actually nearer to Wilshire and Walgreens, this is heaven! I love everyone in my building and actual laugh tracks can be heard when any one of the colorful neighbor-characters walk in my front door.

I have a beautiful wonderful roomate, Melissa, and she knows my job and life inside and out. Really helps. And she's a great cook. And is awesome.

Mostly though, it's work. I am SOOOOOOOO SICCKKKK and tired of telling people that I'm inundated with work, consumed with work, "slammed at work" is my downright favorite for things I hate to hear coming out my mouth. But yeah, I am work's bitch these days.

A few exciting things to come this fall, going to Virginia later in October and back to TX in November to teach workshops. Honestly I've been really emotional lately about not dancing as much. Like as in I bawl and sob and cry when I watch performance. Telling, no?

I suppose part of being "out here" is the compulsion to compartmentalize EvErYtHiNg into work-friends-love-family-finances-??? or into packets that are easily dealt with one at a time, when you have a "moment" free from work. Because of course work trumps all. blech.

I need to write more. Or something. Need to vent, need to articulate, need to spell words other than:
pls
thx
unfort
avail
best
pls find attached
pls fwd

Those are the only ways in which I am now brainwashed to communicate with people. I can ask you to perform menail tasks like fwding and attaching, I can beg or thank you for your time, I can send a halfhearted "sorry we can't" and send my lukewarm greetings that I really and truly send YOU my BEST. whatever the frick that means.

Best,
Alanna

rhetoricali

i have to write. been reading too many other blogs of differing types so things are definitely mulling around in my head.

THESE ARE NOT RHETORICAL. if you have the answers, pls provide.

1) why is it that we will avoid "making the first move" in order to appear less available to a potential partner? unless i'm drunk, i am downright ironclad and will not surrender my feelings, even though i will watch someone alllll daayyyyy on instant-message-service-du-jour. [jessie knows...]
2) why do people avoid accountability?
3) can you go cross-eyed staring at a computer haphazardly?

that's it for my questions. life is going well, new job is swell. rebecca is here visiting, so i'll post pictures as soon as they're loaded. should be good--i put some good hard planning into her trip here and it actually paid off! usually i over-hype things but timing and traffic and everything worked out well. she leaves tomorrow, which will be sad, but i hope she and others come back to visit--sure, i have the apt/shoebox to offer, and not a sprawling estate, but you still love me, right?

this was a dumb blog. i will write another later. am i getting dumber?
dig it.

the peach analogy: a new theory on value.

Take little naps where the roots all twist
Squished a rotten peach in my fist
And dreamed about you, woman,
I poked my finger down inside
Make a little room for it to hide
Nature's candy in my hand or can or a pie

Millions of peaches, peaches for me
Millions of peaches, peaches for free

Look out!
-"Peaches," Presidents of the USA


LILAH
My name's Lilah and just so you
know, this isn't a car lot
baby...no lemons here.

Lilah leans in and whispers into Jimmy's ear, her lips just
brushing the edge, her breath warm.

LILAH (CONT'D)
...only peaches.

-Centipede, some dude's original screenplay


"I got a real peach this time." --Aidan, on Gia


On this particularly awkward morning (I dunno; one of those days), I am processing a conversation I had yesterday with Mina. I brought up my current state yesterday via the descriptor that things were just rotting--how's that for an update, folks!!--and she proceeded to follow that simile for life and how things might be. so here's how it goes: instead of life getting increasingly better and better with age--i.e. a cognac analogy--it's actually a matter of growing, peaking, and then slowly wrinkling and bruising until you fall off the tree and get stepped on or made into a pie...ok so it's not that dismal, but totally resonates with how things feel. being out here is also a constant reminder that superficially, things only go downhill from their very best. you can't really preserve the surface. i don't know if i'm scared more that i peaked already or what, but literal rot is the way things are feeling these days. work is a blast and i'm learning, but work for me has never rounded out those parts of me that need to be stimulated. i don't need constant bells and whistles or some crazy social life--god knows i don't really want that--but it's almost like sometimes i feel like i'm in this cell with everyone's phone number and an outgoing line. i can't get out and see things, but i sure as hell can reach out and stay connected.

but i digress from the peach--i also feel very much like being a woman is being a peach. it's this juicy wonderful soft beautiful part of nature that primes for like a DAY and then you move on to others. there's always another one hanging on the tree; there's always another one just a little younger and newer and smoother. [totally sicking myself out here by comparing myself to a fruit] this is point where i am totally interested in people's feedback on yuppie courting rituals in places other than Hollyweird: is it truly the case that a potential mate can hold your attention only as long as until the next--and better--thing literally walks by? or is it possible to be captivated enough to be done shopping around, at least for a while. kind of like rent-controlled apts? man i'm tossing the stupid analogies all over the place.

just needed to get all that out so as not to ruminate the day away. i think i'll stick with bananas for a while...thicker skin.

ok so seriously...

all other things aside, i have one big bitch for the day:

if i hear ONE more person explain that they were, and i quote directly from many of you, "slammed at work," i will scream and cry. you are supposed to be working at work, and you aren't being slammed; rather, you are WORKING at your JOB which apparently interrupts your CYBER NETWORKING with people you don't even see in the flesh but stare at all night long hoping they'll check out your "new pics" from last weekend's impromptu kissy-face self-portrait photo shoot. mm hmm that's right.

**and i'm not writing this during work, stupid. that's what lunch hours are for.