Tag Archives: Writing

Ruminations

Where Have I Been These Past 8 Months?

Last year, I made a promise to myself to continue writing—tangential to work stuff and instead create content solely for my entertainment, focusing on topics that I actually give two shits about. It felt so important to me, but in retrospect, I guess that wasn’t enough. Sure, creating, writing, and producing my own projects have been a goal of mine since I graduated college in 2011, but after examining my life these past six years, I’ve never really followed through with it. I felt stuck in a hamster wheel this entire time—always chasing wild ideas and never actually putting in the time to put words together to tell the stories I wanted to share with the world.

God, that’s depressing.

Writing has always been my go-to outlet and I’d like to think I’m half-decent at it. But someone recently shared a piece of insight that basically led me to re-explore my own priorities and goals: “I want to do it, but I guess I would’ve done it by now. It’s one thing to want something, and it’s another to actually take strides to make it happen. If you haven’t done it by now, do you really, truly care about it?”

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Ruminations

Shifting focus.

I’ve had this blog since the summer of 2009. In the summer of 2009, I was an almost-junior in college living in Austin, Texas. I was a journalism major dreaming of working at some New York women’s magazine, writing for The Daily Texan, listening to The Doors and Lady Gaga, and dating a guy I thought I’d end up spending the rest of my life with.

When I first started this blog, I was knee-deep in commentary about music, what-ifs, and that-fucking-celebrity-over-there. My biggest worry was finishing up interviews for a end-of-term story, studying for spanish finals, and deciding what end-of-year party I’d hit up first.

As understated as this may sound, things have changed after 7 years.

I’m a person that’s finally settling into her own skin and feeling comfortable doing so (at the moment, anyway). I’m a woman who loves food, feminism, cats, and the brilliance of incredible writing on any medium. I’m trying to move forward from past fuck-ups and into resolve. I want to start writing about what I value most:

  • Women’s rights, women’s education, and the amplification of women’s voices.
  • Excellent writing.
  • Compelling books.
  • Amazing events in Los Angeles that I’m lucky enough to attend (I do live here after all).
  • Cats, cats, and more cats.
  • TV shows and movies that are pure entertainment, no matter the brow level.

What I’ve listed above is a transparent list of what I should be writing about, and what I’ll start writing about.

Oh mel, gee . . . is still my stomping ground for my own thoughts. I’m just rearranging the furniture.

—Mel

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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

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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