Stepping back for a minute…

Talk about inconsistency.

I haven’t updated this in over a month. In all honesty, the past month has given me a ton of material to write about, I just haven’t been able to articulate it. Last night, while I was driving home from our beloved Hashbrown Networking and my car was engaging in foreplay with the wet streets of Richmond, I realized how much I’m going to miss this place if/when I decide to leave.

I can feel a strong pull from a world outside this town and it leaves a lingering taste in my mouth. I’m not sure why, but I have this unshakable feeling that when I leave, I wont come back. Then again, maybe people change once pleasure starts to spoil. My current plan is to move to Boston. I’ve never really lived there, visited when I was a little girl. I have faint but charming memories of catching falling snowflakes in my mouth and breathing in the cold air.

That’s not Boston though, not the real Boston.

Maybe I’ve seen too many movies but I picture wet, grimy streets and thick smoke coming out of street gutters. Flickering lights and signs, dark alleys, men in trench coats walking with their heads down and half-naked women leaning against bar walls, faking smiles and waiting to share their twenty-something invincible years of experience in bed with the next unsuspecting passerby.

Suffice it to say, I would not last a day in that Boston. Though Richmond has taught me a few things like: with a white lie and quick sprint, you can get out of almost any situation involving a cop, stories can be traded for cigarettes, sitting next to a gentleman on the bar stool closest to exit will usually get you free drinks and, if you’re looking for a human touch, well….hoping Boston won’t be another let down.

 I digress.

 I guess I’ve just been battling with my own thoughts lately. January 1st is when I sign the lease on an apartment in Boston. I would be leaving my relatively secure job, my family, all the sons of bitches I call friends and love so much and the somewhat satisfactory life I took close to six years to set up. All for what? No job, no family, a handful of friends and half-assed promise of a better life. That’s what. All the waiting is making me curious though. It’s always tough starting over, especially when you have no idea what to expect. I can feign my “worldliness” and gloat about my ability to adapt to any given situation, but the truth it, Boston has the capacity to swallow me whole in a matter of days.

I have less than two months to clean up after myself and tie up the loose ends. If you had asked me a month ago how I feel about getting out of this place, I would have grinned and let out an emphatic, “Can’t wait!” But now, today, if someone would pry open my ribs they would certainly see an “I love RVA” banner across my heart. I cannot pinpoint exactly at what moment my thoughts went from “this fucking city” to “this appetizing city.”

All I know is that someone might have to peel me away from Richmond now. Come December 31st you may find me in the corner, knees to chest, rocking back and forth, weeping. Maybe I’m just scared things will never be the same. I’m trying to avoid any regrets, even though I believe “regret” is just perception. Just thinking out loud, really.

Forty eight days and counting…

More Honest Honesty

I’ve finally come to the conclusion that human beings, as a species, are inherently selfish. Now, this realization of mine may not come as much of a shock to most of you because a lot of you are self aware enough to realize just how selfish you really are. To a certain degree I always accepted the fact that people really only look out for themselves, but in the past month or so I have realized just how much people are living on this earth only to move themselves ahead, stepping on toes, hurting feelings and using people.

It’s a liberating realization actually. I think I’ve spent too much time asking myself why a certain person is acting a certain way, how they can manage to behave so callously and completely disregard the feelings of others. In reality, there is really nothing wrong with these people. They are just doing what they are genetically predisposed to do – worry about themselves. Survival of the fittest. I think in everything and everyone there is a certain desperation for attention. We gravitate towards the people who give us this attention and stray from those who lose interest. Isn’t this why friends and lovers drift apart? No one can live in a permanent state of fulfillment. Boredom and the subsequent need for something new usually creeps up after a while.

I’ve had friends who I’ve known since high school, been best friends with and don’t even speak to anymore. If we were all just living for each other, I don’t think circumstances like those would come about. But as we live and love for ourselves, we realize just how much the other person is worth. In most cases, we conclude they’re not worth very much at all. So we move on. I’m kind of embarrassed at my own naiveté in this matter.

 See, I initially thought that going out of my way to help people and being nice to them would make me a good human being, someone to look up to, make me a permanent fixture in their life. So that’s what I usually did. I tried to help people whenever I could, sometimes I would secretly take on their stress. It could be as simple as someone not having a pencil to take their exam with. The whole time I would be sitting in class wondering if that person ever got a pencil.

I concluded last night that I’ve never had anything but selfish motives for doing all those things. That I craved glory, attention, maybe even a certain amount of adulation for it and that by doing so, I have become nothing but a permanent doormat for some people.

So what’s the solution? Do I just stop worrying about people who don’t matter? Okay, sure. What’s the deciding factor in who matters and who doesn’t though? Is there a time frame? More than two years of friendship means I’ll share my cookies with them, less than two years and they can burn in hell? That doesn’t seem right either. It’s true though. No one hurts anyone else’s feelings. We do it to ourselves.

This is big. I mean, HUGE. I don’t think I’ve had this kind of ground-breaking epiphany in quite a while and I consider it brilliant and crippling at the same time.

A Fall Mourning In RVA

Just as I was beginning to get comfy with the gloomy weather and the couch had molded itself to take the shape of my body, the weather in RVA took a dramatic turn for the better. I really love fall. The crisp air, the clear blue sky, the rapidly increasing number of nausea-inducing, googly-eyed, puppy-love promoting couples everywhere. It seems that all my manic-depressive, slightly unhinged single friends disappear into a black hole as soon as they see a single leaf change color and fall to the ground. Regardless, I consider fall my favorite of all seasons and had to kick if off right. What better way to do that than to attend a funeral!

My lovely mother informed me of the sad death of her friend’s cousin’s uncle’s something something very important person something and told me that she had been cordially invited to the funeral + guest. Well, as you can imagine, I leaped at the offer and begged her to take me along, promising her that I would behave and make very few Billy Mays jokes. Truth be told, funerals make me really nervous but I will take any opportunity to wear a black dress and pop some anti-anxiety pills. Also, my mom is afraid to drive on Sundays, not sure why, never really cared to ask, I assumed there was some secret I wasn’t privy to.

Anyway, we arrived late to the host’s house after the burial had already taken place. I took an extra long shower and blow dried my hair one strand at a time so I would ensure maximum delay. I would have felt really awkward doing a Risky Business slide into the cemetery as they were putting someone to rest, introducing myself and feigning sympathy in the middle of the “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” part. As soon as I entered the house I was hit with the pungent scent of misery, pipe tobacco and Chanel no. 5. My mother introduced me to her friend who looked high as a kite – I’m assuming from crying but we’ll never know. She hugged me and thanked me for taking the time out to come see her. She also told me that once the food was served everyone would be asked to say a few words about her deceased uncle.

You want me to do what?! I just stood there, frozen in place. All of a sudden my palms got sweaty and her little face got blurry. I looked around the room at all the sad looking people and the thought of having to speak in front of all these strangers was enough to ensure that my eventual throwing up from nervousness would be eternal.

Exit stage right.

I maneuvered my way through the crowded room which had now turned into Marlboro country because, evidently, the best way to deal with grief is by setting your lungs on fire. I made it safely to a bathroom, drew the blinds, locked the door and precariously positioned myself atop the marble sink. I sat there for a good 15 minutes, tweeting, texting, smelling shampoos and conditioners. Whoever lived there had very nice smelling hair, that’s for sure. Things were going quite well and I was sitting there wondering if the host had a son I could drug into marrying me. Judging by the bathroom I was in, I would have quite a cushy life and could easily stay at home and carry out my dream of becoming the modern day Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I realized finally, after many twitter exchanges with friends, that I could not stay holed up in that bathroom forever like some sort of fugitive.

So, I did what any normal person would do when in a stranger’s house and confronted with boredom – Idecided to snoop around and check out the rest of the massive house. I planned on going into every room and pilfering something. A keepsake. Something to remember the experience by, to put in my scrapbook, to use at the next hashbrown networking event for show and tell.

I made my way up the winding staircase to the second floor and opened the first door to the right. This is what I saw: A middle-aged man lying next to a young-ish girl doing his best Jaws impression in trying to swallow her face. As soon as she heard the door open she whipped her face around and looked at me like I was room service there to clean up the excess saliva left over from their attempt at baby making. Awkward silence. Followed by….more awkward silence. I blinked a few times in quick succession and all that really came out was, “oh, s-sorry” and all I could think was “thank you for not being related to me.” Blank stares. I shut the door, leaned against it for a minute and thanked all that was holy that I didn’t walk in a few minutes late. I probably would’ve been witness to his Mr. Peanut and her Britney ::shudders::

I had pretty much had enough at this point and abandoned the idea of lurking around the rest of the house and made my way back downstairs. All I really wanted to do was shower, repeatedly and throw acid in my eyes. My mom made the executive decision to skip the whole “please say a few words” portion of the event. I was kind of bummed because I saw it as an opportunity to finally use my knock-knock jokes. As we were about to leave the host grabbed hold of me, violently I might add, and asked me where I had been the whole time. Awkward moment. I tried to distract her by hinting at the Joni and Chachi lovefest going on upstairs but decided against it. I thanked her for inviting me, apologized again for the loss of her uncle? (Still don’t know who died) and told her I hoped to see her again soon, under different circumstances of course.

And man I got into my car fast. I’m talking Mr. Sulu-esque fast and almost left without my mom. No more funerals. I don’t care who dies. I’m sticking to weddings, barmitzvahs and Bananarama concerts. All my condolences are going out in the shape of cards, fruit baskets and mini muffins wrapped in pretty plastic.

All The Cracks In Shattered Glass

RVA had been gloom city for the past couple of days and all the rain had brought my exceedingly monotonous life to a complete standstill. Since I’ve been on the anti-social path lately, I decided that I was finally going to catch up on a bit of the movie watching I had been putting off for about five-ish years. The only problem I ran into was nailing down a start and end point. As somewhat serendipitous circumstances would have it, I came across a movie called Shattered Glass. Even if I had not heard of this movie beforehand, the enormous picture of Hayden Christensen on the cover would have provided enough of an incentive for me to pick it up (not a fan of his acting at all, the allure is purely superficial) and shamelessly carry it, face forward, to the charming Clooney-esque gentleman at the checkout counter. Either way, this movie ended up in my DVD player and here is what I thought.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional movie reviewer nor do I consider myself an authority on anything regarding acting, directing or producing. However, I do have functioning, eyes, ears and, on this day in particular, was not suffering from any cerebral constipation.

Shattered Glass, which would have surely received wider critical attention sans Hayden Christensen’s (visual appeal is where it all ends with him) somewhat effeminate portrayal of Stephen Glass, still succeeds in its basic premise. The title, which is a clever play on the main protagonist Stephen Glass, chronicles the rapid rise and equally abrupt end of a young journalist’s promising career. Based on true events, Stephen Glass was a journalist who worked for a highly reputable magazine called The New Republic but who was eventually fired amidst credible allegations of fabricating nearly all of his articles.

The movie, directed by Billy Ray (no Cyrus, no relation), though well crafted and written, fails to capture the viewer’s attention until about 45 minutes into it and all the way through one bag of 100-calorie popcorn. For the first 30 minutes, it was difficult to determine whether Christensen was method-acting or merely being creepy. During this time I managed to make a credit card payment, alphabetize my CD collection and semi-clean the toxic waste dump that was my room.

Here’s my main complaint: Ray failed to set the movie up in a way that captured the scandalous nature of the entire affair and almost seemed to have realized, too little too late, that perhaps it was time to tie up all the loose ends.

Peter Sarsgaard, who played editor Chuck Lane, carried the movie along in his usual, brilliantly understated way. His reserved interpretation of the character countered the somewhat irritating affect that Christensen’s character was starting to acquire.

The supporting actors semed as though Ray hired a few people off the street on the way to a burger joint to act as filler for scenes that did not involve the tense interactions between Glass and Lane. After a while the redundant back-and-forth scenes were enervating and the “skip scene” button was hot to the touch.

Hank Azaria, after the debacle that was “America’s Sweethearts” and every other movie where he has been forced to rely on some ludicrous accent, somewhat redeems himself playing the former editor Michael Kelly and is perhaps the only additional character whom one might care about.

Despite being crammed in the last 15 or so minutes, the movie’s true strength lies in the eventual showdown between Glass and Lane. Sarsgaard’s excoriation of the fact-checker and Glass sympathizer Caitlin Avey (Chloe Sevigny – positively hired only for the “cute” factor) on journalism ethics is in itself worth the price of the proverbial ticket.

All in all, if you’re willing to suffer through a somewhat laborious plot-line and Christensen’s alternately creepy and diva-like acting, there’s something for the thinking man to take away from this one. If you’re a writer, journalist or a closet plagiarist, I would recommend watching this if you’ve already completed all other things on your bucket list.

Mindless Ruminations at X p.m.

My inability to comprehend simple concepts is glaringly obvious today for some inexplicable reason. I was sitting in my financial management class this morning hoping that by the end of it I would at least walk away from class with a modicum of information about capital budgeting. However, I spent most of my time staring intently at the back of an older gentleman’s head wondering how his hair follicles strategically placed his bald spots in a way that they each looked like well-designed crop circles. It all went downhill from there. Questions like: “Why doesn’t he just back comb the hair he has left?” and “Why not just pluck the rest of them out and audition for the role of Lex Luther? and “How does his head look so light yet not float away?” started distracting me from my intended purpose: learning.

I finally realized that I would’ve been better off staying home and in bed. That idea may seem good in theory but I would later realize how it would rapidly grow in its stupidity. Truth be told, I haven’t been able to get a proper night’s sleep since I was about 12. No particular reason, I don’t have some fascinating story about how someone dressed as Cher came flying through my window one night and scared the ever living out of me with their tear-jerking rendition of “Turn Back Time.” Regardless, I never truly sleep well. At this point, I could start babbling and since my babbling capabilities are infinite, I’m going to steer clear of any non-sequiturs.  Read the following instead.

Disclaimer: This post is a little dated, but everything still holds true. I wrote it about a year ago. Doesn’t speak much for my supposed “growth” over the recent months, does it? Enjoy.

Lately, I’ve been suffering from chronic insomnia. I couldn’t, for the life of me, fall asleep last night. At about five in the morning, I was staring out my window at the frozen streets and cars and all of a sudden it hit me. Look at how decidedly complacent I have become about life. It has taken me an uncomfortably long time to get here too. In retrospect, these past two years have been hideously comical and, for some reason, sitting alone at 5 a.m. brought that into disquieting perspective for me.

Let’s address the issue of having not even been able to secure a formal graduation date for myself because VCU insists on making my life as difficult as possible. It’s been four years. I’ve paid my dues. I’ve written the papers, taken the exams and even gone along with certain professors’ rationale for making me take a final despite having an A in their class. It’s nothing short of disgusting. Every time I want to move ahead in my life, or my job, the fact that I’m still “in school” stands out like some glaring anomaly in the linearity of my transition into adulthood. I’m well beyond every established age limit ranging from the trite practice of drinking to what used to be a rather formidable task of trying to get into clubs without big black Xs on my hands. But I am confounded still, by my circumstances. In the social circles that I’ve started to venture into, everyone seems to have been conferred the noble privilege of being able to work full time at a job they love, without having to worry about going to a 9 a.m. class the next morning. The idyllic notion of walking into work, cradling a cup of coffee in my hand and settling down in a big leather chair for the duration of the day, remains on ice for now.

On an aside, I’m slightly troubled by the state of my social skill set. In light of recent events, I seem to have developed a crippling reluctance to speak my mind- something I never had even the slightest issues with. I’d like to blame it on a lack of material as a basis on which to relate to people. However, even with people I consider friends, I seemed to have become quieter, more reserved. How unusual for me. My family is zero help in this regard. What on earth can I converse about with any of them? My cousins swoop into my personal space like tempests- shrill and overwhelming. And of course, one is hard pressed to rise to the precedent established by my brother. I writhe in my chair as I watch his social awkwardness get the best of him and yet, can do so little about it. Family dinners are such lovely affairs. Rarely do I get the privilege of being related to such an august company of people. Regarding the thorny and questionable issue of being a well-rounded person as my cousin Hope so emphatically proclaims, let me just say that proclamation issues forth from a person who declines watching television or reading any book not of a spiritual bent. I, therefore, am quite skeptical as to the amount of worldliness being brought to the table. I can only conclude that the people in my family are either chaplains or scam artists. Further, the way they gush forth emotionally with each other is mildly disturbing and induces nausea fairly rapidly.

I would like to expound further on my observations before time clears my mind cache so to speak but, for now, I’ll just say that I really am quite annoyed with the way 2009 is starting. With the school schedule I have, the proverbial ass kicking I will be getting at work, the steady decline of good friends in my life and the growing concern with my own inability to conform to mind numbing social niceties, it would only take one more thing to push me over the edge and be the requisite straw on the camel’s back.

There you have it -the Reader’s Digest version of my life for the past nine months. Hope it sheds a little bit of light on where I’m coming from and why, when people look me in the eye they are greeted with a blank stare. Here’s to hoping things will get better.

Greetings from AnaRVA!

For years I have penned my cynical rants on coffee shop napkins, bathroom toiler paper and various assortments of office stationery in hopes that one day, a sudden epiphany will help me figure things out. My efforts have been futile so far. So here I am, at 22, creating a blog to help make sense of the world around me, one farcical entry at a time. 

Currently, I am in a marriage of convenience with the city of Richmond, Virginia. It has shamelessly given indemnity to my desire to be a quasi hipster and a suburban housewife all at the same time. I ask you- what city in the world would be able to handle such a formidable task? I have lived here for over six years and in about one more I will be taking my business elsewhere – Boston, Massachusetts to be precise. Why exactly am I leaving this beloved town after all it has done for me? Because I only receive, I do not give. Eventually I will consider RVA (as I so endearingly call it) a volatile lover – one with whom I had a rich and potent affair, one that will always remain close to my heart and one that I may return to one day. But for now, I must end the tryst.

I am also currently a prisoner at Virginia Commonwealth University. One of two things will happen within the next year.  A major chapter of my academic career might finally draw to a close. Or I might slowly begin to waste away sitting in the bullet-riddled desks and chairs of any given auditorium, inhaling the pungent smell of mold mixed in with the scent of the rotting corpses of other VCU students who never graduated. For the sake of everyone’s sanity, I really hope the former is what comes to fruition. I do admit that the time and effort spent hatching plots to evade academic responsibility could have been invested more fruitfully in getting the actual work done. It seems as years go by, I have become more adept at approaching academics in an “underground way.” This is to say that I have been in an alcohol-induced coma by day and staying up by night, Googling assignments hours before they are due.

I digress. The point of this blog is to basically chronicle the events of my life from the standpoint of someone who has been left somewhat disillusioned with almost everything. In doing so, I seem to have lost myself along the way. Consider this blog as somewhat of an experiment in self-discovery – one that I am inviting everyone to be an active participant of. I want to be able to share with you the days when everything runs smoothly and all is right with the world, days when I wake up with the sun shining out of my ass and go to bed thinking about how lucky I am to be alive. I also want to share with you the days when I believe all of that is a crock of shit- days when I want to torch VCU or cause a school bus to jackknife over a group of unsuspecting freshman. I want to share all of this with you because I genuinely believe, despite my deep-rooted cynicism, that people in this city care and will respond accordingly.

So here it is. I hope you enjoy reading my somewhat cogent thoughts on life, love and attempts at being a lush as I remain disenchanted in the city of Richmond, Virginia.