dude. talk about a long silence.

a lot has happened in the past couple of weeks. good stuff!

i just got back from my trip to LA, and it was awesome. it couldn't have been better. i got a chance to really relax, to get away from new york city and experience space, nature, and quiet. i also had good food, met good people and really connected with them, gained perspective on me and my life, saw the beautiful sights that california has, and spent quality time with my sis and got to witness firsthand how happy and well she is. nirvana, truly. i won't have to worry about romanticizing this experience, because the actual was far better than any dream.

before i left, i told my parents that i'm not graduating this year, when they thought i was. they flipped their shit and then came back to earth, only to surprise me that they didn't die of shock or disappointment or anger. completely unexpectedly, what my parents were most upset about was the fact that i didn't feel like i could trust them enough to tell them the truth. that i thought it was better to hide and lie and force myself to eat the lies that ripped apart my insides for [5] years, rather than face them with the truth. man, i'm still such a little kid. and this is true evidence that i haven't grown up yet. but it's ok. i'm realizing how far negativity and fear and lies can be recycled. i'm realizing that bad karma has to be broken. bad karma can be broken, once it's recognized.
i thought after telling my parents that i'm not graduating this year, it'd all be over-- the five years of lies and pain would be over. but it's not. i have so much more to tell them, and so much more to come clean about. my best friend helped me realize tonight that the love my parents have given me could help me so much more if their love was honest and real and inclusive of all things Me. contemplating what it would be like to be truly free, truly clean of all past lies, and to have my parents know me the way my friends know me, and to understand all that's happened... i've imagined how things could be, and now i don't want to turn my back on it.
i've been clear to my parents that i haven't had an easy time since college started for me (and actually before that). they know that i went through a very long period of self-hatred, self-doubt, and intermittent depression. but i've never been clear as to why. i know they don't question it-- they could sense that i wasn't happy, wasn't stable... but they couldn't for the life of them understand Why, because i've never clued them in on what's inside of me. i know-- I know, that everything would all make sense to them if i just told them the truth. if i went thru all the series of events and emotions that led me to the point i'm at now, they'd undeniably see the progression and the result. and i know that then they'd finally understand. i know sometimes it's not necessary or beneficial to rehash the past, but in this case, i think it is both necessary and beneficial. for reasons like not wanting to recycle karma, and also to learn from mistakes that went previously unmentioned. they've made mistakes with me. i've made mistakes with them, but i've been in the 'know' whereas they've been in the dark, so, really, how can they learn from mistakes they don't really know they've made? i have to give them that chance.
they've never done anything without the best intentions in mind. i know that more clearly than i know that about/for myself. and i know there's no use thinking of how my parents could've been different, because they weren't. and i'm trying to tell myself there's no use thinking of how i could've done things differently, because i didn't. if it's not my fault then it's not my parents' fault either. and if it was my parents' fault then it's my fault too.

i guess things'd be a lot more clear if i were more specific. i will... i need to pen it.
not now though, i'm really tired.

what was once there just isn't any more. i'm speaking of brain waves here.
all i know is that i gots problems. family, health, school, money, image, romantic, social, career, work, blah blah blah.
fuck man, i know i'm in bad shape when i hear myself sayin things like, "i wish i could be a professional food taster." there are just so many things wrong with that sentence, in subject, spirit and structure.

i'm going to la next week, pretty happy about that. i've been so lazy going to the bank with my checks, i've managed to save up a grand so i'll have loot to toss when i'm on the left coast. amazingly sometimes laziness pays off. so anyway my sister called me yesterday on her cell and left me a message, i guess she was driving to go meet someone and drove past some beautiful beach spots, so i am instructed to bring my bikini so we can get baked on the beach. maybe the sun will activate some of those brain waves i just mentioned.

it's depressing to have a list of "To Do's" with nothing checked off. it's damaging to the psyche, really. for my own sake, i think i should write some things i've done in the past just so i can cross it off. heehee.

so my latest project has been to write a letter to my parents, telling them that i'm not going to graduate this year. so far the letter is 6 pages long, and surprisingly it doesn't consist of, "Mom and Dad, i'm not graduating this year. i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry......" you get the idea.
it's really the first time i've looked back at the past 5 years. and you know what? it wasn't as bad as i feared.
i was afraid the only thing the last 5 years would say about me is that i'm a fuckup, cuz i fucked up without reason, cause or purpose. but actually, the revisitation of my past allowed me to see that i understandably fucked up. there was a path that i followed [that led me to the shitter], elements and currents which influenced me to take the steps that i did. and now i'm here, looking behind me going, "so that's how i got here!"
the hilight of my week.

i've been smoking entirely too much greenery, goin to bed at 7am again, and rather surprisingly, going out every night. unsurprisingly, it's mostly local stuff.
i do need to find a way to extract myself from AV though. i realized the other day my primary role in social situations has been The Third Wheel, cuz her sometimes-boyfriend-and-always-roommate frequently accompanies her. not to mention that she's always down on her knees for him.
but, work is going well, i've gotten into the favor of the general manager so i'm riding pretty high. i figure by may i'll be waiting tables, which suits me fine, cuz as it is i can barely manage going to school and doin my host thang. by may the coats are back in the closets, my pay goes way down, and school will be out.
shit in my mind i've been postponing my life until may. not just with work, but other things...

oh yea, i'm addicted to ebay. the cameras i bought arrived and i've done nothing with them because upon first glance i couldn't figure out how to work them. i did some research and asked some photographer friends and the cams both have funky features that to some may be novel, even possibly cool, but to me they just made me re-bubble wrap them and put em aside. i'm now in the market for a pentax k1000 and a minolta srt. how like me to act first, and then ponder.

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Moderate
Schizoid:	Low
Schizotypal:	Moderate
Antisocial:	Moderate
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	Moderate
Narcissistic:	Moderate
Avoidant:	High
Dependent:	Low
Obsessive-Compulsive:	Moderate
-- Click Here To Take The Test --

3 nights off. niiice.

i bought my plane ticket to LA on wednesday. i'm goin in a month, pretty much, march 21-27. i'm excited, especially because i bought the ticket myself. and since i bought it with plenty of time left, i can plan my trip well. my sis moved into her new place and she's lovin it, so this time i go it'll be a much more comfortable situation. something to look forward to...

recommendations: the movies scratch and pinero.
http://yesmoke.com for cheap cartons of cigarettes.

i bought 2 cameras off of ebay recently, and i'm waiting for them to be shipped to me. they're both old school vintage cameras, so who knows if i'll even be able to figure out how to work em, but i'm looking forward to being able to learn. ever since i was with rice and we played around with cameras, my interest was piqued. i took a photography class in high school my freshman year which was kinda neat-- we did the whole pinhole camera thing and developed our own pictures, but i ended up barely passing the class with a 65 or something like that cuz the teacher hated me cuz my friend and i would always go into the darkroom with the senior boys and fool around. not sexually, just stupidly and playfully. haha, but the teach was a paranoid pervie who thought we were doin worse things. anyway, i enjoyed the class but at the time my attention was more devoted to boys than taking pictures. not now though, aint got no boys to distract me.
one of the cameras is a zeiss ikon ikomatic f camera.
and the other is a graflex graphix 35mm rangefinder camera.
none of the fancy words mean anything to me, but the pictures make the cameras look promising. shit i'm a sucker consumer.
i was thinkin of giving one of the cameras to my sister, but now that i think about it, i think it'd be cool to give one to my dad. he's got an amazing eye for framing and composition, and he loves taking pictures. that would be a great xmas present. haha, i'm still collecting stuff for my family's xmas presents. i've been collecting for so long now they're all gonna get some goodies...

anyway, time to start my day.

woohoo. good karma.
i was scheduled to work thurs sat (of last week) and tonight, but then picked up a shift on friday, and then worked 5 hrs last night in the lounge cuz it was extra crazy due to the no-work holiday today. i'm also scheduled for tomorrow, so that would be 6 consecutive days of working. i was doing alright but tonight i really really didn't want to work-- it's my 1 night workin upstairs which gets boring, especially on monday nights, plus i have a full week of school starting tomorrow, and i have massive cramps of the female kind. so i grudgingly went into work after having called everyone to see if anyone would cover my shift, and of course no one would-- i swear i always pick up other people's shifts, but can never get anyone to cover mine. anyway, there were 3 hosts scheduled tonight and we really only needed 2, so i asked if i could go home. but the other host tiffany also wanted to go. i begged and begged, without shame, but she wouldn't relent, and we couldn't come to a decision so the GM (general manager) cut a straw and the other host who didn't want to go home said the shortest straw meant the ticket home. i really didn't want to draw straws cuz i never win those stupid games-- flipping coins, rock paper scissors-- but i agreed, hoping i have good enough karma to win the stupid thing. i picked blindly and i won! winning the game felt better than the prospect of going home... well, almost.
so i'm so excited to have the night off. i'm gonna go to the Pink Pony and loiter and do my reading.

i took the straw home with me. i'm gonna tie a flag to it and write "victory!" on it. jeez i'm jubilant!

i feel a lot better today. went to class, enjoyed learning, then went to work and enjoyed working, more or less.
i'm trying to give up my anger for lent.
being nice, being "good" makes me feel good. and happy.

gotta pee.