Plant Killer and Dog Lover

I LEAVE FOR A WEEK AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS? THANKS A LOT, DAD. HOW HARD IS IT TO WATER A PLANT? NOT HARD, THAT'S WHAT.

On a more positive note, look at all of the canine love I'm getting.

SO FUGGIN' CUTE.

They're gonna be the 3 best friends that anyone could have.

PicNik Photo Editor

I recently discovered the PicNik photo editing program from Picasa. These are some of the pictures I've edited so far. They were my favorite pictures to begin with and now they're even better. :) Yay.

My friend Corrin at my birthday party last year.

Me and my friend Angie after we had breakfast last week.

Gratuitous picture of myself last Wednesday, also my current profile picture.

Me and my dad the day that I moved into the dorms. I love this picture for so many reasons, this is just another way to love it.

A piece of my birthday cake from last year, this is the part that said "Seehoises 4 eva"

Spring Break

Yay! I'm going to Missouri to visit my aunt and bring back dogs, and then I'm going to Nebraska for speech nationals. I'm super excited. A well deserved break.

Meanwhile:

Read it. Or don't.

"So let’s say you do the dance and meet Ms. (or Mr.) Right. You fall in love with her. But beneath that, you realize that old habits die hard. Fears begin to surface. You believe that you’re hardwired to act a certain way, and that it’s expecting too much for someone who doesn’t owe you a goddamn thing to wait around for you to change. You’re going to hurt her and she doesn’t deserve it. You want to do the right thing, but you keep shooting yourself in the foot. You’re a fuck up and you don’t deserve the kindness that she’s showing you. You act ugly."

GPOYW

gLeek alert.

p.s. I edited this myself. Doesn't it look awesome? I thought so too. :D

Have you ever wondered about my love life?

This is it.

I'm just going to copy and paste the article here so you'll actually read it. If I put it as a link, I know no one will.

I Love You. I’m Hungry, Let’s Get Something to Eat…
By AMY VAN VUUREN

Fuck unrequited love.

The gnawing. The possessive desperation. The ache of unknowing, worsened only by the slow-dying thud of knowing for sure. The over-commercialized but no less real feeling that you will die, you will just DIE.

Now before we go on, let me clarify whom I’m talking about here, for the sake of the ‘piece’. I am not talking about those poor sods that sit scribbling over spell check nightmare love letters, little devotee tears pooling in their love-lacquered eyes. Spewing forth all the emotions (every little itty-bitty one) from their mussed-up heads down to their radiating feet, only to be so callously rejected with an inarticulate, “Um I just don’t see you that way.” Oh no. This is the case of the sadder. Whoever is in the path of this gushing love. The withstander of the adoration.

I am talking about me. (Or you if you feel the need to implant yourself into the story to enjoy it).

But the poor sods, I hear you puzzling, with that head tilt and bottom lip stuck out, “Are the ‘lovers’ not the ones who deserve our consideration, our condolence?” Shit no! No sympathy need be shared. They’ve got love in their hearts and fire in their bellies! Enough emotion to pen seven moleskine journals in one summery park afternoon! They are living the goddamn dream! Beloved me on the other hand…

Well, I may be that dream, but I am certainly not living it.

And this proves to be a pickle.

Because, well, although the initial splash of ego-boost is rather glorious, the incessant run of saccharine words get old and soggy and all that is left has gone rather dry and sticky and is peeling off around my eyelids.

And it is around this point that you start to wonder about your admirer. You are uncertain of their sanity. You scrutinize the loss of lucidity in their glassy, idolising eyes. You doubt their downright sensibleness. Your gorgeous, brilliant amazingness has become… their crazy. Squinting at yourself in the mirror you try to understand. You are quite passable. Pretty even, in the right light. You are intelligent and can make a decent joke. You have ‘style’. But… no, it’s not quite possible, this extent of adulation, you think, fingering the light hairs around your belly button that may even be in need of a pluck if you gave a bit of a fuck. Uneasiness pools as expectations grow. Anxiety swells. Your unsettled tummy balloons with apprehension as you realize that no one is as excellent as the woman that is being described to you as yourself. Bloody hell, you don’t even flush the toilet after making a pee anymore!

Love, you conclude, has turned the boy mad.

But still, you question yourself. Your reasons. Your doubt. Your straightforward ‘no’. This silly man’s obsession has now made you challenge your legitimate feelings. He believes it is because you are not ready. You are frightened of intimacy because of your childhood rejections. You aren’t allowing yourself to love. Maybe now is not the right time but… it will be.

The interrogation begins:

Should I..?

Could it..?

Maybe..?

A chance..?

Just high standards..?

No.

No.

No.

No.

Yes, but God won’t be happy if you settle for less.

There are sit-down talks. (They are tiresome.) There are separations. (They don’t last.) There are tears. (They aren’t yours.) There are awkward reconciliations. (They are selfish and stunted.) There are ultimatums. (I thought we weren’t in a relationship here?)

The friendship that you thought somewhat durable is now not only showing fault lines but has actually collapsed quite completely beneath you, and you are left hunched on the passionless heap, your unimpressed hand squashed into your unimpressed face. You have to prudently back the fuck out, it seems, because your charming presence is just too much for your admirer to bear. The real you must withdraw just a little bit; not talk about your body or your feelings on your pseudo bisexuality and definitely no song-playing with lyrics that can be misconstrued as a hidden message, no mention of any actual or possible past/present/future conquests and especially no passing comment on that guy in the next car’s beard. (This is if you care of course. You could do nothing and just be AWESOME.)

Another lover gained. Another buddy lost.

End it all now! Take me back take us back let’s be friends and confidantes and eat sandwiches together and speak about everything our jobs our imaginary careers that book we should write together how this film is so kak who we’d like to kiss how that girl looks like that weird one from that thing about my itchy skin allergy that no isn’t contagious where we should go next Sunday afternoon how I don’t like that one friend of yours about how boss nineties movies are about how cool the word boss is why isn’t it used anymore let’s bring it back that you prefer my hair reddish now that it’s dark how that Nandos by your house has really gone downhill why this sort of music is even made should we get tickets for that thing you never wear your glasses anymore is that shirt new weren’t we supposed to be doing something tonight instead of just sitting here in your house.

End it all.

Because all we talk about now… Is us.

And it’s killing me.

The worst of it is this boy’s outpouring of tumultuous passion, this jet stream of lust, his grand proclamations of perennial love that are beautiful and inspiring and are sometimes too much but sometimes just right are just a constant, torturous reminder that You. Just. Aren’t. Feeling. Anything.

Wait a minute… Hold the phone. Could it be…? Wait, here it comes… It’s coming! An epiphany! My epiphany! Do my ratty feelings on this whole subject all just mean that I… dear me, I… just want… to love..?

Of course! Should I just give in then? Just go for it? Oh, to requite! The pleasure! The cheek-numbing joy! The mind-deadening, brain-fucking bliss! How easy it all seems! How happy we would be! You are quite lovely really… We could move past my insecurities, we would be the most beautiful couple. We would go to braais together and all our friends would shake their heads and smile and say Ah we knew it and we would get an apartment after a few years and we could even eventually get married and have little kid-lings of ourselves who would have the best taste in music because we’d make them that way and we could grow old together and watch our granddaughter get married and then we would die, happy, sighing in each others arms, spent from our magical life, because that was what is and always was meant to be.

…

But, um… I just don’t see you that way.

If you're wondering, I found it on Thought Catalog, my new crack.

Songs that I listened to non-stop on repeat throughout my childhood

I distinctly remember listening to this on my brother's walkman on our way to and from Hawaii (the first time). It was track #2. I was six years old. To this day, I still know most of the words. Until now I had never seen the music video and the funny part is, it's exactly how I pictured it would be.

Finding this video proved to be a little challenging, because all of the "official" videos had embedding "disabled by request" so I was forced to pick this crappy lyrics only one. Anyway, I remember listening to this song (again) on my brother's walkman, but this time on a car ride. I was blasting it through my headphones and singing along, quietly, I thought, but when I was asked to turn it down, I screamed "WHAT?" at my brother and proceeded to be lectured about the volume of my listening. I also remember that we were in the ugliest part of well, anywhere, I had ever seen. It was all desert-y and brown.

Another sound track to my childhood friendships, was this song. My friends Michelle and Mary (they were sisters) and I had a lip syncing band that sang Shania Twain and Smash Mouth. I remember running in circles around their house singing this song. We also had a real band that we called the "Doot Dot Babies". We were into playing babies. That's where that came from.

By this time, I think I inherited my brother's walkman for my own good. Right around the time of my 8th summer, I got this CD for my birthday and I listened to it nonstop in my new walkman. I remember sitting on the floor of the playroom and blasting it, telling Tim "It's a good thing I got this since otherwise I would be forced to sit in my room and listen to this. Now I can do it here!" I also remember looking through the glossy lyric book at the 4 beautiful people I wish I was. At the time, I didn't understand the ABBA reference, I just thought that it was cute how they came coupled.

That's right, two in one. When I looked up Simon & Milo I began to wonder how Tim and I stumbled upon this band--and then remembered the actual movie, Get a Clue. Oh, Lindsay. I wanted so badly to be Lindsay Lohan and figure out a real-life mystery and wear those white pants with over-sized cherries on them. This was around the time that Tim got an actual CD player, and I remember sitting on the floor of his room listening to this CD nonstop.

I got into No Doubt right after I read Meg Cabot's American Girl. I wanted to be exactly like Sam, and when I read the book I had no clue who Gwen Stefani was--in fact, I pronounced it like "Stephanie". Then I saw the music video for "It's my life" and fell in love with No Doubt. I immediately went out and bought their Greatest Hits CD. In about 5th grade, my Dad went on this skiing binge where we traveled to a TON of ski resorts, just for the weekend. No Doubt was my soundtrack for that. Spiderwebs remains one of my favorite songs today.

Around 6th grade, I discovered the radio, and consequently, Fall Out Boy. Instant classic. I bought the CD and was fascinated by the titles that held absolutely no meaning to the song (with the exception of Sugar We're Going Down and Dance, Dance, coincidentally also the popular radio songs). The lyrics were also a challenge--"We're going back down and you look like a man"? It wouldn't be until my junior year that I discovered their very first album, which is probably one of my top 3 albums, ever.

Fall Out Boy's 3rd album came out my freshman year, and they were the lyrics to me and my friend Hannah's friendship. I was going through a phase when I colored lyrics or sayings I liked during class (amateur calligraphy, if you will) instead of taking notes. This was (and is) by far my favorite song off the album, specifically for this one lyric: "I'll cast a spell over the west to make you think of me the same way I think of you, this is a love song in my own way, happily ever after below the waist."

I picked this song because it reminds me of chocolate covered pretzels with pink sprinkles. I ate them and listened to this song on repeat for like, a month straight.

Garden State

Would be one of my favorite movies if it wasn't for the ending. That's what I hate about it. It's all about being unique and special and shit, and then it goes and has one of the most unrealistic endings that's so stereotypical Hollywood. Shit like that doesn't happen in real life, and it makes me mad every single fucking time. I would know, I had one of those break ups. And yes, I wish it could've ended so fucking happily, like long live us and shit like that but it doesn't. It just straight up doesn't work like that. People go back to their lives, they don't fucking stay in one place for someone. He wouldn't have just left his job like that. He wouldn't. Fuck Natalie Portman. He would've left that bitch in the dust. And he would've regretted it his whole life, letting that girl go. But she would move on, she would find someone good enough to live with. She would be happy. But Zach Braff? He'd be SOL.

Bottom line: Love the movie, hate the ending.

This is the 3rd day in a row I've had popcorn for lunch

GPOYW