Category Archives: Ruminations

Ruminations

“There is no phalange!!!!!!”: A phrase for life.

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve blogged for my own personal want. Well, like a little less than a year. Not because I don’t want to, I’ve just been really terrible with balancing the whole “writing for work” versus “writing for pleasure.”

Anyway, I’m about to start writing for work stuff, but thought I’d channel my thoughts to warm up my brain a bit.

I’m sitting on my couch watching the last and final episode of Friends, “The Last One.” Specifically this clip:

Two things struck me simultaneously:

1. Realizing that Jim Rash played “Nervous Male Passenger” feels like soft kittens purring around me.

2. “There is no phalange!” grants more meaning outside of a funny quip bridging a longtime, sitcom-satistfying plot point. And I didn’t recognize that ’til right now.

“This plane doesn’t even have a phalange!” Cue the actors running away in fear while the audience laughter ensues. Rachel throws her hands in the air and calls the freak out ridiculous. Why are people rushing to the exits over something non-existent? Why is their naivete taking over their rationale and submitting to the worry of worries when there are bigger things to worry about?

Folding it all into the real world though, I admit that I’ve been a bit of a “phalange”-crier myself. I’d worry about silly shit, like “OMG how the fuck will I make it to the grocery store if I don’t get gas? How am I supposed to make dinner?” Or, I’d worry like any good helicopter cat mom would, circling around my Dany girl, pondering if she’s going to become allergic to a food cause I keep feeding it to her or if she’s okay with staying in her room. I’d worry about my future plans, my future travels, my future, still-non-existent IRA. I just constantly allowed my mind to dip into anxiety for absolutely no reason.

That is, before I’ve faced real troubles, before life has shaken my body a little bit, before I understood that hardships are the hardest when they’re actually rubbing on your face like a cheese grater.

And then your simplistic thoughts are hammered down into a shallow heap on the floor. Forgettable. It’s replaced with reality.

Following the series’s finale, Nick decided to air the Friends‘s pilot episode. Lo and behold, there’s another phrase that makes a stage for itself. See if you can catch it:

Thanks, Mon. We all needed that.

Don’t submit or get caught up in the tangled “phalanges” of  your life. Don’t fear the petty. Really care for, fight for, worry about what really matters.

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Ruminations, Writing

Post 100.

This post is #100. Yup—one, zero, zero. With the updating track record I’ve been running with thus far, I never would’ve thought I’d reach three digits. So ring in the New Year or something. Hooray?

Let’s be frank for a second. Or fifty. I Skyped a college friend a few months ago, and after catching up on maybe half a year of life updates, we verbally tumbled into talking about the concept of trust. Trust in the cracks and crevices of not only romantic relationships, or troubled friendships, but your own self-trust. A slight disclosure: I have fickle trust issues. I mainly blamed the failures of past -ships (again, both the friend and romantical kind) for this. But something my friend told me really stuck with me. He said, “You know, the amount of trust you have isn’t just molded by others’ fuck-ups. Every time you let yourself down—when you don’t take time to work toward a goal or you put a project to the wayside—you lose trust in yourself and your abilities.”

. . . Okay, so he didn’t say it exactly like that, but that’s the gist of it. This must explain why I have a lingering feeling of disappointment in myself for not updating this blog as much as I planned. My own trust in accomplishing my personal goals deteriorated because as much as I wanted to make this a priority in my spare time, I haven’t been. Sorry, self. I will loathe you for a few more seconds.

Okay. I’m done now.

I turn 24 years old in 8 days. So that means it’s time to set the bar right. More writing and reading, less watching and browsing. Practice staying focused, and focus on what I should practice. The latter: structuring sentences that strike a chord with someone, or at the very least, with myself.

—M

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Ruminations

My Baby Cat is Sick.

The love of my life, Dany, has uveitis, which is apparently a common eye disease in cats.

After a hefty (I’m talking 400 fucking dollars) bill from her visit to the vet, I’m to give her two different eyedrop medications and two oral medications twice a day. All of which Dany hates with a fiery, fiery passion. So much so that I’m pretty sure Dany is the reason one of the eyedrops went mysteriously missing after two days.

I was also instructed to go to an animal opthamologist, which I certainly will do once I can afford to drop another very large sum of money. Ugh. I’ve read the uveitis could lead to chronic eye disease and maybe even blindness—it feels terrible to not be able to afford to go to a specialist right away. Can we all take a moment to pity my poor, poor kitty? (I could not restrain myself from that rhyme.) In all seriousness, I’m very worried. But I’m hoping the eyedrops and medication will do the trick.

See that cloudiness in her eyes? Ah. Breaks my heart.

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Ruminations

Gamit thoughts while sitting on my balcony . . .

Look how fucking downcast it is right now. And look at the two broken pixels on my phone’s camera lens—perfect.

This post’s title makes my current setting a lot more bohemian than reality: I’m outside on my balcony, yes, decked in my favorite long-sleeved shirt (Texas Football across the chest) and in my top-notch, pink-checkered pajama bottoms. I’m sipping on the finest of cheap wine, Yellow Tail, and wanting the SoCal sun to please shine with its familiar brightness. It’s hiding today, which always subsequently makes me very, very sleepy. The wine probably doesn’t help.

I am, however, not wearing shoes, so I guess I’m acting mildly “boho”. But I am wearing Adidas socks, mind you.

Like the majority of posts on my good ole’ blog, I never really have a point to them. My thought process constantly moves like a river bank faced with a thousand courses, but writing does allow me to focus a bit more. And no, I don’t have ADD.

I do though, have to write blog posts that MUST have a point to them—as in work blog stuff. So I thought I’d write in my personal dormant blog so I can jump-start and re-oil my writing skills. Why does that sentence seem so contradictory? Whatever.

Last night I went to a good friend’s place, where a bunch of my close, post-college friends gathered to watch 2012 in retrospect, via 12 shorts he taped and cleverly strung together. Throughout January – December, these videos captured all the random, fun, party and non-party times we had, like a visual yearbook. These are memories to be filed under our “hip, early twenties,” when Los Angeles was still oh-so new and dancing to strobe lights on a drunken high with strangers was just as fun as playing a third round of Settlers of Catan. I hope that my thirties, forties, and fifties still feel like my twenties. But again, I’m a sucker for wishful thinking.

As I always do with in-retrospect posts, I can’t even begin to start on how my life has changed so much. Even if it was just a year ago. And it most definitely has: I still work at the same job and have the same title, but I do feel like my role has expanded, and I love it. I do live in the same apartment, but I’ve started a new romantic relationship majigger, and the standstill butterflies in my stomach are fluttering once again. (Okay, barf on that last sentence, but seriously, I’m knee-deep in like with one of the greatest guys in my life, and that’s a really good feeling.) And yes, I still drive the same car, wear the same clothes, and hang out with the same people. But there’s still a freshness to it, which I’m blessed to feel. And I rarely use the word “blessed” in writing, since it’s way too Hallmark and meaningless to me, but I can’t think of another word right now, so there.

Whew. I think the non-sun ray soaking has gotten to me today. Or maybe I should really get started on my “serious” writing tasks. Or maybe I’ve had more than a cupful of cheap wine.

Nevertheless, I hope you all are having a great February so far and that you won’t find yourself in a Bill Murray Groundshog Day repeat experience. Or that you’re getting attacked by wolves that make you listen to Lindsay Lohan’s covers of Prince’s hits. That would be the absolute worst.

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Ruminations

Bye, 2012. I Will Kind Of Remember You.

I’m in the midst of packing up my giant suitcase and make my way back to Los Angeles tomorrow in the wee morning. Whenever I leave my room in Orlando, I always go through my old drawers and my closet to see if there are any items from my past that could possibly weave its way into my current lifestyle. And there usually is. Tomorrow I’m bringing home fake Wolverine claws and my Spice Girls watch. Spurts of childhood visit me often.

My face throughout the majority of 2012.

I’ll be up in the air as 2013 commences. And that means its brother (sister?), 2012, is giving me the deuces.

I’d recount all of my best times and lowest lows from 2012 on here if I could. Problem is that I have shit for memory and can’t really remember anything past what, September?

But do know that in retrospect, the good outweighed the bad in 2012 and I’m hoping 2013 will be just as mildly memorable.

My “resolutions” for 2013. FYI, they aren’t anything out of the ordinary:

+ Read. Just fucking read anything. I need to find my rhythm back into reading books and magazines on a daily basis. My writing needs more oomph, as it lacks inspiration.

+ Write for myself. Short stories, poems, songs. I miss writing for me and only me.

+ Give more. I really want to volunteer more consistently. Just haven’t found that right org yet.

+ Cook more. And I mean beyond what I already know how to cook.

+ Run more. Would be fun to train for a half-marathon or something of that calibar for the summer. Gotta get on that now!

+ Stress less. I feel like I said “I’m SO stressed out!” almost every single day. Calm the fuck down, Mel. You’ve been through worse.

What’re your resolutions this year? Let me know in a comment! Dig it.

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Ruminations

Oh god, my throat hurts. (And other after effects of vacation.)

Got home last night from the big theme-parking trip with the roomies. I’m still feeling exhausted, and my throat feels like dry rocks layered with sandpaper. So wonderful.

I won’t go into detail about my trip, since I don’t have the energy to dive into or explain that wild time. But do know that I can now cross “Get super intoxicated at a Disney park” off my bucket list, and we’ll leave it at that.

I’m betting on this October to be a solid month. And here’s why:

• I’ll be starting to prep for NaNoWriMo. Okay, I am aware that NaNoWriMo is during November, however, the planning period is now! And since I’m terrible at plot development, I need all the planning time I can get.

• Halloween is on my mind. Last year I went all out and was Daria, and about 30 percent of people understood my costume. To prevent being mistakenly called “Ugly Betty” again, I’m thinking about wearing/being something less meta. Like a panda or monkey or peach. Maybe I’ll go as a sexy slug or whatever. People suck sometimes (actually, the majority of the time).

• I plan to buy this, and really, really, smash writer’s block with the intensity of Bruce Lee’s left fist.

• I’m going to catch-up on Downton Abbey. Hopefully.

• I’m excited to bake a bunch of random fall pastries, because it’s colder in Los Angeles now, and drinking coffee and eating a pastry is automatically romantic to me. My “romance” threshold is horribly low.

• I’m going to sleep.

—M

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Literature, Ruminations

Oh, remember that time I wrote a post, and it all got deleted?

Yeah, I love when that happens.
Sadly, my musings aren’t enticing enough to re-write. Plus, I was in the full-on writer’s zone, and now, I’m back in no man’s land, kicking my chair leg and biting the collar of my tee.

Oh well.

In other news, I want to purchase this:

Word.

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Ruminations, Travel

I’ve never seen “Sleepless in Seattle.”

It’s safe to say that I’ll be updating this here blog at least once a month. That’s the goal. I’d love to post twice a month, but I’d also love to have a pet monkey. Owning our liking doesn’t always make sense.

Anyways, can I just say that this past birthday (which I celebrated last weekend) was probably the best birthday I’ve had, maybe, to date? (Or that I can remember.) And my birthday wasn’t even listed on Facebook! Imagine that.

Why it was number one:

• Went to a two-day music fest to nourish my live music addiction. It’s a real thing, people! Look it up!

• Chatted with my bff who lives all the way on the other side of the world. And even got calls from three out of four of my immediate family members!

• Had a power hour with good friends, and frivolity definitely ensued. Also, our apartment wasn’t half-trashed and I didn’t get sick. It was the best!

• Coworkers made me feel like a million bucks, just because. Just because they’re innately amazing.

• My lovely cousin flew me out to Seattle, which is one of those cities that you nearly fall head over heels for to the point where you don’t know what to do with yourself. Went on a wine tour for the very first time (in a limo, nonetheless), drank coffee at the first Starbucks, explored what has become one of my favorite museums, and attended Brandi Carlile’s annual charity show. I even side-hugged Brandi after the show. It was awkwardly intimate.

• Received seasons one and two of “Workaholics.”

• Dany didn’t pee on my bed!

Case in point: do not display your birthday on Facebook.

Now here’s a series of rad photos from Seattle:

Hopefully my 23rd year will be filled with more friend time, “Battlestar Galactica” reruns, novel reading, pros writing, music seeking, and randomness. Especially the last one.

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Ruminations

What it feels like to own a “real” pet for the first time ever

My roommates and I adopted a kitten a few weeks ago.

We made a pact that if and when we do part ways, one of us will take full ownership of the cat. And that person is me.

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I’ve never had a “real” pet. (I’m defining a “real” pet as one that you can literally pet. Goldfish and Hard Rock teddy bears do not count.) So you can imagine my intrigue and apprehension that came with jumping aboard this pet-owner train. Questions I asked myself: Is it emotionally worth it? Becoming attached to an animal, who could possibly not give a crap about me in return or inevitably pass away in due time? What if I totally mess her up due to my noviceness? Does this mean I can’t have chocolate out anymore?!

All of this aside, the past two weeks felt like I’ve been reliving my childhood and shaping it into the starry-eyed version I saw on the Disney Channel (I’m referring to the Zoogs Disney Channel, which is pre-Even Stevens and Lizzy McGuire). More Dunkaroos, please.

Captain Daenerys Phoebs Tonks Bluth. (The nerdiest cat in the world)I was never really a huge fan of the felines, as I always preferred playing with dogs. But when I first played with Dany, there was something to her aloofness, curiosity, independence, and random spurts of affection (she snuggled up on my leg the first time I put her on my lap), that made an instant connection. She kind of reminded me of myself, only in cat form. (I tried to put that in a non-creepy, non-douchey way, but there’s really no way around it.) And she never meowed once. Actually, it’s only been recently that she’s become a tad bit vocal, and that’s only if she wants to come into a room. And it’s really hard to ignore it.

But aside from select peeing incidents and gassy upsets, Capt. Dany is incredibly sweet—at least for now.

Here’s to hoping I don’t fuck this up.
—M

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