Thursday, July 31, 2008

Vista

Well my father has installed Vista on my computer and it is now running like a slug...well I wouldn't even say a slug. A slug would probably beat it in a foot race. Hopefully I can get things working better in a little bit. On the Michael front, he's made it past denial and moved past Anger and Bargaining into Depression I'd say, so as far as the 5 stages of loss are going, he'll hopefully hit Acceptance soon. I however am feeling at least a little better, and things I suppose can only get better since my parents must really not have liked him, because they're basically rewarding me for breaking up with him. Dad did all this computer stuff (which we'll see how that turns out) And mom's taking me shopping Friday. I know things are still going to be sort of crappy between me and Michael now, but I suppose I'll just deal with that when I get there.
-Lia

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The End

Well I did it yesterday. I broke up with Michael. I don't think either of us have completely come to terms with it. I think what I'm most upset about is the fact that he's upset. I don't like hurting people. I mean I like him, but like I said, I love him, I'm not in love with him. It's just funny what your mind does to you. All leading up to it, I could only think of all the things that annoyed me. Right after you can only remember all the good things. Change is just scary in general I think, and I'm so bad at making decisions. Part of it I think is just the fact that things were comfortable as they were. Dating is crap, now I'm back on the market again. I truly wish the perfect man would just drop out of the sky and everything would be perfect. But life isn't that easy. Part of the problem I think is that for years I have been writing my perfect man into existence at least in my mind, and I'm still waiting to find him. I don't even know if that's possible or just a romantic fantasy. I'm still young. I suppose I'll find out. I'm just sad right now. I think I just need to let myself be sad.
-Lia

Monday, July 28, 2008

Illness isn't fun

I suppose I had no reason to worry, like I said, I don't have the highest readership for this blog. Though part of me wonders if part of my irritablity comes from the fact that I don't feel very well. I'm just less than inclined to ever move again. Still we're going to old town in a little bit, so I suppose I'll just have to survive. That's what tylenol is for I suppose.

Renivations are still going on on the house. If I never hear another jackhammer it will be too soon. It's sort of sad to think that I'm looking forward to going to school for the piece and quiet.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

The Weather

Coming from Southern California, weather was something I grew up experiencing purely through movies, and now while at school. However since I have left California the weather has been a little meaner to me. My first winter at school, outside was the sort of cold that I could only liken to a refrigerator. Apparently even in the summer the east coast has its share of bad weather. River has been stranded here for another couple days since a thunderstorm moved in and her flight was canceled. So tomorrow we're going into Old Town tomorrow. And Tuesday night she is going to try to fly home again.

I'm trying to talk to Michael now, and a part of me wonders if he read my last post and is mad now. I hope he didn't, I hope he isn't. The last thing I want to do is hurt anyone, but I suppose with matters of the heart there's always hurt. I cried earlier when talking to may mom, I just hate people being upset. I suppose I should stop talking about all this here, for if that's the case me typing here won't help any.
-Lia

The Day

It has not been a good day. Well I suppose the day hasn't been that bad, just my mindset isn't very good right now. I woke up feeling crappy and I have a splitting headache. So far I haven't written much as way of my current friends. As far as readership goes, they are probably the only ones to ever read this, and should I have any passing angry moments I would rather keep that to myself than leave something behind that they'd one day stumble across and start a new riff. I do my best not to think poorly of people, and there are very few people that I really don't like. Even the people who I have had problems with in the past, I do my best to pass the olive branch, or at least let the grudge go. They say holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. It can hurt other people, but hurting others hurts yourself too.

Anyway what that entire long set up was about was, I suppose the boyfriend, Michael. I don't think I've actually ever mentioned him before, which I suppose could be seen as strange since the whole "significant others" thing. But I never have been able to get my mind straight. Anything I was thinking came and went so strangely, that I never wanted to put anything in writing. But this morning I woke up and I just realized, that I loved the man, but I wasn't in love with him. I don't know what I'm going to do with that, but my mind has finally settled down long enough. I don't know, maybe I'll feel different later, but I really don't know what to do. I just feel like I still want to be his friend, but I don't think that would be possible so everything is all or nothing...I suppose I'll just have to keep thinking about this. What else can I do?
-Lia

Saturday, July 26, 2008

The Doctor

Well it's official. River has gotten me somewhat addicted to Dr. Who. At BBC's booth at Comicon they were selling the DVD series of Dr. Who so she's dropped me right in the middle of season two. Still not a huge fan of sci fi, but David Tennant plays the doctor so well. I understand why River is obsessed with the show. I can't say I'm really obsessed, but it's a good show. Right now River is working on our webcomic. Can't imagine that has much of a following either, but it's there. We have a very bizarre sense of humor as a group, and even now I don't completely understand some of River's humor, but I personally think it is a good comic, and I know at least a couple people who have looked at it. Don't know that they actually follow it. But they've looked at it. It's dangerous to have me typing away when I feel on the edge of a depression. I suppose not feeling wonderful is generally the reason I write anyway. I'm not great about writing when I'm in a good mood.
-Lia

Friday, July 25, 2008

Comicon

Technically ComicCon I suppose, but whatever. Biggest Comic/Sci Fi Convention in the Western Hemisphere. How did I end up there you all may wonder? Living in a sci fi family with a roommate who's addicted to Sci Fi visiting is pretty much my answer. So this morning I was woken up at at 8am, thrown into a packed car and then onto an even more packed trolley to the convention center. I can't say of all the convention I would like to go to, Comicon is not one of my favorite. I don't read comic books (DC or Marvel). I watched Star Wars, but I'm not enough of a fan to want to meet all the people in it.

I don't know why they don't split up the science fiction and comics. I mean, I suppose they think they'll hit two birds with one stone, and it must have made sense in the early days of Comicon (39 years ago) but now that over 300,000 people flock to San Diego for Comicon, you think things would survive splitting the two up. As it is, even the San Diego Convention center is too small for all the people flocking to it. At 10am it was difficult to move around the main hall, by noon it was impossible. The combination of booth upon booth upon booth, with thousands and thousands of people made it feel claustrophobic to a level I have never felt before. By the time we left at 2:30pm, stepping outside the convention center was the first fresh air I had felt for four hours, and there were still masses of people flooding inside. Every single day at comicon has been sold out. I suppose they have a fire code for the convention center, but knowing how long it took us to get out, I can't imagine that that helps much.

River and I got to see the Joss Wheadon panel, which was good I suppose, though I still find it hard to find a difference between listening to a panel talk and watching people on screen. Unless I'm being introduced face to face, I don't think it's that awe-inspiring to watch people talk. Truly, there are generally enough people in a popular event that you can't even really see people on stage, so you have to watch the screens. So instead of sitting in your comfortable living room, popping some popcorn and flipping a screen on, you go into a packed ballroom, after sometime waiting hours in line, sitting on a uncomfortable chairs with thousands of other other rabid fans all screaming about the people on stage. Never been the type to get star struck. I don't really seem to care much. Furthermore, River was the one that knew the majority of the people. When you don't know who the "famous" people our, you don't tend to get as excited.

Not the most exciting day in my opinion, but at least River had a good time. She was on cloud nine the entire way home. I just never want to be in a building with that many people ever again. I have no patience to wait for events, I don't like crowds, and not nearly enough freebies.
-Lia

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The Church of Logic

"Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see. It's getting hard to be someone, but it all works out. It doesn't matter much to me." -"Strawberry Fields Forever" The Beatles.

Song lyrics I think sometimes say things better than you otherwise could. I get a lot of my thoughts from song lyrics. I suppose Strawberry Fields isn't completely logical a choice since it's a little more apathetic than my views on the world. However I couldn't agree more with the first part of that line. So many people do go through life with their eyes closed, just because it's easier. I don't know, but I feel like if life we're meant to be easy all those people would be much happier. I suppose they say the best things in life are free, but there's a difference between simple pleasures and laziness. I think the only way I'd really be able to describe my thoughts on the divine would be to make my own text. So if anybody really cares to follow, the thoughts are below.

Intro
Though there will be many opinions in this text, it is important for this to never be taken at face value. The only way logic can advance is through constant debate. If a thought is correct, it will stand up to and only benefit from constant thought about why it is correct, if a thought is incorrect, argument will only help correct the error to the benefit of all man kind. If History has proven anything it is that for every step we take forward there are many steps back. Advancement is the ultimate goal. Without constant thought there is no progress. This text should change and adapt to the knowledge future generations are destined to receive, not be stuck in the past.

The Divine
The information we have at this time is not strong enough to make a definite statement about whether or not there is a god/gods/goddess/etc controlling the universe let alone whether he/she/it/them is involved in our daily lives or an impartial observe. It is important that many different opinions are held on this topic until such a time that there can be a more certain conclusion drawn. As far as my own logic has brought me, it seems in my opinion that there is a higher power, androgynous and infiltrating all life on earth. What we do effects every thing around us, thus the universe is much like a body. There are millions of separate and distinct cells, but they all function together as one. What is referred to as God/Allah/Jehovah/etc, is the brain. Thus it is not all powerful but so much more cognizant and powerful than us we are dependent. As we are all part of one body, it is thus important to take care of everyone and everything around us. Hurting others does nothing but destroy everything. Damaging the world around you or anyone are you is acting like a virus and ultimately will do nothing but kill what you have turned into your host and thus bring about your own destruction along with that of everything around you. Everything is a part of everything else and dependent on everything else. When you are at peace with that, a calm will wash over you. We are meant to be connected.

How to live your life
As far as commandments on how to live your life, there is only one. As long as you harm none, do as you will. Moderation is important. Life works all together on a balance. As far as you can see, it is the extremes that cause hurt and pain. Too much food causes health problems, but at the same time too little food does the same. There is a perfect balance to life. If you can reach this balance you will be happiest and healthiest, but should you rather indulge in one or more areas of your life, it is your decision, as long as you hurt no one else, you have the choice to be allowed to hurt yourself. Life is a learning process.

The Afterlife
Once again, there's no information to logically say what happens after death, but most importantly it is important not to be to eager or too scared of death. If there is nothing after this world, the only reason to agonize over their not being an afterlife would be to make your present miserable. The idea of giving yourself up may be difficult now, but if there is truly nothing else, there will be nothing to agonize over being nothing after death. If there is life after death, I can not bring myself to believe that there is a christian version of hell. If Justice is a universal truth, obviously the evil must be punished, but there are different views of what is evil and thus I find it hard to believe that there is a set list of you break these rules you will suffer. You have no one but yourself to answer to. If you are happy you are doing something right, if you are unhappy you are doing something wrong. If you die unhappy, you still need to work on becoming happy. You have control over yourself and your mindset is the most important thing. We create our own heavens, and create our own hells. God does not do that for you.

-Lia

The Week

Well, this week River has come out from the East Coast to stay with us. I think she's having a good time hopefully. Basically we're doing all the touristy things we can, along with plays and stuff. For the most part we seem to be having a good time. At least I hope she's having a good time. It's always awkward when you're staying at someones house. At least I always feel awkward. Luckily it has given me the excuse to go to this great international gift shop why my mom was working. I spent over $30 there buying things from England, Germany, China, Italy, and Tibet. It did let me get a jump on how I want to decorate my room for the Fall. I've been feeling very oddly spiritual lately, but in no way religious. I'd rather just be surrounded by things that give off good energy in general than that are specific to any one religion. I'm not really a big fan of organized religion of any kind. Anything that gives you a book that tells you what to think, telling you not to question it under implying that blind faith is a virtue I could care less about less than zilch. If the son of god was born in the desert 2000 years ago, maybe I can't say I know. If there are gods that rest in everybody and everything, that live on a mountain in Greece, I don't know, and I don't care to. History is pretty much all guess work, trying to piece together accounts and making the best guess about what's right. I can't logically claim that there was or wasn't a Jesus, a Zeus, a Vishnu. That's really where faith has to come in. The figures aren't important.

Truly, if I were to look into my religious beliefs I would have to say most of all I'm a Buddhist, but not completely because that would rule out quite about what I could do for my own spirituality. If you want to understand my religious relics I plan on using in my room, I have a Mary Magdalene pendent (which I have been wearing all day), a Tibetan prayer flag, a jade energy bead, a Buddha board, and am planning on getting a Saraswati Statue. Eclectic mix I know. As far as I am concerned, as long as a religion promotes peace and harmony, I like it.

Really I think I'm just a Spiritualist. Part of my own mix of Religions and what I would like to call the Church of Logic. Oxymoronic I know, but if you don't at least try to think things through...the universe for the most part seems to operate on logical principles, you can figure a fair portion out. You have to use logic as far as you can, and then use that point as your diving board for your faith, not excepting ignorance as an acceptable point and letting people with their own agendas fill your head with their beliefs, or even just beliefs they want you to hold so they remain in control. Faith is a powerful thing. I'm sure more than one "religious" leader has used that for their benefit. I don't think I could ever really follow an organized religion that I didn't start myself. I'm not an atheist, not even really an agnostic, but I just can't be religious.
-Lia

Monday, July 21, 2008

The Internet

The internet is really an amazing thing. I've always been a little wary of it. I mean hypothetically anyone in the world could find you on the internet. Anyone could be reading this now. I doubt very few people have actually stumbled across this blog, but it is posted for the world to see. That's part of the reason I use a pseudonym. I know there are bad people out there, but lately I have been trying to meet people online. Good people hopefully. I mean I'm not trying to hook up with anyone or anything dirty online I won't even post pictures of me that are too suggestive. Now though I have started looking for penpals. I don't know if it's just the summer or what, but I want to meet more people from all over. I've had wander lust lately. Just the need to get out and see the world. I want to go to Greece and Ireland, and Norway, and Australia. I just feel like I need to see more than I have. There's so much of the world, and so much history. I just want to see it all. Soak it all in. I just need to see everything. I suppose the internet is as far as I'm going to get with that for now sadly.
-Lia

Friday, July 18, 2008

Hell

I admit that I've started about three other posts now, and haven't posted any of them. I suppose I have a bit of writers block. Which I suppose is strange, because I'm only writing about my life. I'm living it every day obviously, but I can't seem to think of anything interesting enough to actually post. I suppose when it comes down to it, my life really isn't that interesting, and any drama in my present life I'd rather not write about until it has resolved itself. I'm much too prudent to post something in the heat of the moment, only to make things worse.

I'm dreaming a lot about moving into my new apartment for the fall. I'll be living with my roommate from last semester and best friend, River, and two other really nice girls who were a couple floors above me last year. For the first time since I've been at school I'll have my own room. I'm really excited about that. It's nice to have a room to yourself.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about happiness. Everyone seems to have a lot of ideas about what will make them happy, but I know very few people who are actually happy. I suppose there's very little you can do to guarantee you're happy. I don't know, maybe it's just in our genetic make up to always be looking for more. The only way I know of to feel really good really fast is to do things that mess with the chemicals in your head that make you either feel euphoric or not feel at all, through sex, food, exercise, drugs, whatever. But just being contented in your life is so hard. I mean overall I'm content, but happiness is still elusive. I can feel good. I wouldn't say I feel happy. Maybe our make-ups just won't let us know what real happiness is. If we were completely happy we would never work for anything else, and that's evolutionarily not beneficial. If you stop working you tend to be the one that dies in the famine. Maybe this world is just too hard to let people be happy. Maybe we're just in hell and making the best of it. It makes sense if you think about it. The levels of unhappiness, the levels of hell, we just can't accept that we're never going to be perfectly happy, so we do our best to improve the situation. I think that's the true human ingenuity. As a whole, we can't just accept things, we want to make things easier for us, and thus we just keep marching along.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Thoughts

Plane flights can get me pretty depressingly philosophic. Here's where my mind went on the five hour flight home:

Sometimes it seems like life is made purely of decisions. Do I want the Ham or the Turkey? Should I get a car or a van? Most of the time these questions are decided on the spot or at least with very little deliberation. You decide based on personal preference or just logic. You had Ham yesterday that wasn’t that good, so maybe you’ll try the Turkey today, or I have five kids and three dogs, the only way I can get them places is with a van. But what happens when you come up to a question you have no idea where to start deciding. I suppose that’s why I call myself indecisive, because when it comes to the big decisions, I can never bring myself to make a decision. And that always makes me turn philosophical.

There are so many questions we don’t have answers to, and just as many answers we don’t know answer what. The answer to the meaning of life, 42, just being one of them. Is our life planned out from the moment we’re born? Are all the choices we make really choices or is there some great author out there who knows exactly what it is we’re going to do even while we’re debating? Do we have free will? And if we have free will, do we have some way our life is supposed to go and our free will just gives us the chance to fuck ourselves over?

It would be so much more comforting if I believed that everything in our lives was written out the moment we were born. That the fact that I’m typing this now was already determined to happen by a greater power. Then I wouldn’t have to be so worried about making the wrong choice, if I chose to go to a party the night before a final, got drunk, and ended up flunking that class, none of that would be my fault, it would have all been part of the universe’s greater plan. Personal responsibility in general would be out the window. It’s a lot harder thinking the universe has some greater plan for us and the short-sightedness to give us the free will to screw everything up. Then if your life sucks, it’s all because you made the wrong decision. Maybe that’s why some people are so dedicated to religion. It’s so much easier when everything’s just planned out by the almighty. You don’t have to think, nothing is your fault because they’ve give you all the answers right there in a handy little book that with modern printing techniques can come small enough to be carried around in a pocket so you never actually have to think or make your own decisions. I just think the world is much too screwed up to have someone controlling everything, unless they were supposed to but went out on a coffee break and never came back. That, or they’re one millennia away from retirement and just don’t give a shit anymore. In my opinion, someone started the universe made us all so that things would go a certain way, but messed up on the logic to emotion balance and figured we’d be ok taking care of ourselves for a couple million years.

I personally can’t think of one person in the history of the world who has been happy with the human race. You can argue if we are the way we are because of our natures or if it’s because of us producing nothing but more and more little miniatures of ourselves. I suppose there is some difference between the generations. I don’t believe exactly what my mother believes, she doesn’t believe exactly what her mother believed, and we have progress that way, but its glacieral progress. A couple inches every few generations, so none of us ever get to the end. And then we go and sabotage ourselves, fighting and destroying things that took thousands of years to be compiled because of ignorance. The knowledge of the Incas, the great library of Alexandria, I know we’ll come across that knowledge again, but we’re forever walking three steps forward to have ignorance come and wipe what progress we’ve managed to come across. Like Sisyphus sentenced forever to try to roll a boulder up a hill to only to have it roll back to the bottom every time we get close to the top. It’s amazing that more people haven’t just given up at this point. Maybe part of the reason that I don’t fear hell as that I think we’re already doing about as poorly as we could. Burning forever in eternity couldn’t be much worse than living in limbo like we are now. Physical pain is awful definitely, but with enough time I’m pretty sure you could get used to anything. Like a hot tub that’s just so hot it hurts when you first go in. You get used to the heat. Have something enough and everything sort of goes numb.

I think the best time in your life has to be when you’re a baby when everything is just brand new and brilliant. It’s too bad you can’t remember that time, because the older you get the more depressing life seems to get. As a child you don’t care about what other people think. You’re taken care of. You can dance naked in your front yard and no one thinks twice about it. “They don’t know better”. For once I’d like not to know better. Dance in a supermarket without getting weird looks. Talk to animals without sounding like a crazy cat lady. We get to do more when we get older, stay home alone, date…but we give up so much at the same time.
-Lia

Thursday, July 10, 2008

The S-Word

It's fun that something so necessary has become so taboo in our society. I know there are more repressed societies than the United States, but still of all things to be a forbidden idea, you wouldn't think sex would be one of them. I can't understand what is so bad about it unless you still believe in puritan values, and really as Henry Mencken put it, "Puritanism is the haunting fear that somebody somewhere may be happy." I can't imagine that this fear of sex is much more than either a shame of feeling good or a hang over of the early church with their fear of women. There are plenty of other societies that embrace sex and fertility as a communion with the divine, or at least don't think much past it's a good time. I understand that there's more than just the physical to consider when it comes to sex. There's pregnancy and STDs to consider, along with the crazy things it can do to your hormones, but I hardly thing that if I decide I want to have sex before there is a ring on my finger that I'm going to hell.

I can understand that before birth control the whole fact that you could get knocked up was a big problem for women when it came to sex, but now with modern science I don't think there's a whole lot of excuses. Yes, I believe you should care about someone before you have sex with them because it's giving over a part of yourself to someone else, but I don't think any part of my immortal soul is in danger for feeling that way. Sex has never presented itself as a moral issue for me. It's a personal issue, and I don't see that changing no matter how many people tell me that my soul is in jeopardy. What if there is no afterlife anyway? I'd rather go to hell having experienced all that life has to offer than go to heaven to imagine all that I missed. I must say if I had made a bucket list, a list of things to do before I die, have sex would have definitely been high up on that list

Truly, if god hated sex so much, why would he have made it the only way for so many species to continue living? Truly either you have to believe there is a loving god who wants us to procreate and be happy, or god hates us thought we were a mistake and decided we all should die out and thus made sex a sin. Personally I'm more willing to believe the first.
-Lia

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

The...well, Me

Well I've gotten this far telling about the people I met in my freshman year at college but I haven't really said anything about myself. I'm sure you've learned a thing or two about me in the last couple of entries, but I've written a good share about people I've lived with, but nothing just about me. I suppose it's just always easier to write about other people than it is to write about yourself. I think part of that is because I'm still trying to get to know myself. Emotions make everything sort of fuzzy. People as a whole are pretty simple creatures to read. We may not wear our emotions on our sleeves, but they are at least on our skin. You get glimpses of them bit by bit, and even the most bundled up individual can't help but giving you the overall picture if you're around them long enough. As long as you don't let your emotions guess for you, you can understand just about anyone. It's pretty damn hard not to have an emotional opinion about yourself. We're all a bit like impressionist paintings I think. We're so close to ourselves that all we can see are the dots, not the overall picture. I've been working for a while to understand myself, and I doubt I've done as good a job understanding me than half the people around me, but I'll try to do my best.

Of course there's the superficial stuff that I could have no problem talking about. I'm blonde, I'm a junior at LU, those sort of classifications are never hard to make. We do spend enough time thinking about superficial. I wouldn't call myself thin, but I'm not fat. I think my hands are very pretty, I think my eyes are a little too close together and overall I wish I were more dainty in general, but I think for the most part I'm pretty. Any teenage girl could give you a list of the body parts she likes and the ones she wished she could tweak, or change all together. It's internally that we don't like looking.

Really I feel like I'm a study of contradictions. For the most part I like people, but then I like being alone when the mood hits me. I like people who need me, but they have to be independent or they tend to get on my nerves. I'm very logical. For the most part I'll let my head lead, take in all the information and figure out what I want to do that way, but every once in a while my emotions run away without my head. Those are the times I tend to flip out because I at least have the illusion of control when I've thought through things. I'm a bit of a control freak. I don't like feeling out of control. I like to write because it gives me the chance to live in situations I've never experienced and plan out what I would do in those situations, or feel like I have some control over the world in general. I call it schizophrenia for control freaks. I can't stand people who believe things that they have never thought over. I don't care if you're Jewish, Catholic, Wiccan, Atheist as long as you have thought about why you believe what you believe. Because blank says so is not an argument. Overall I'm a optimist. Maybe bad things will happen to you, but if the bad things are all you focus on you'll never experience anything but bad things. You have some control over your world. Maybe a fire burns your house down, maybe you loose your job, you can't change that, but by focusing on the positive you change something in yourself and that helps change the world around you. I find men in uniform extremely hot. I think smoking is one of the most disgusting habits someone could ever pick up and all smokers should be transported to an island where they can pollute their own air and leave mine alone. I'm a feminist in that I believe that men and women should have equal rights and would never give a man complete power over my life, but I do act differently around men and women. I end up as the leader in a group of women, but find myself deferring that position to men more often when they're around, though I have no problem acting to sway their decisions. I just won't act as the head of the group as often. I'm a cat person. I love pretty much any genre of music you could imagine as long as there is some form of harmony (dissonance gets to me). I don't feel close to a lot of people. I'd rather stay self-contained, but if I am close to someone I would do anything to make them happy. I'm too empathetic. I can't be happy when someone I care about is unhappy. I'll cry before I yell. I don't like to cry unless I'm being manipulative. People almost always sympathize with the crying one. I can't cry on cue, but can generally work my way up to it. I'm not manipulative too often unless I'm really upset with you. I tend to get what I want mostly because I have a very strong will and won't generally back down if I feel strongly about something. I'm indecisive. Most the time I don't know if I feel strongly about something. I'm always open to argument. I wish you could still take classes in rhetoric. I named this blog after the Beatles song. I love looking pretty. I love people looking at me when I do look pretty. I can name all 50 states with capitals though I always have a problem remembering New Hampshire's capital and the fact that Indiana exists (It gets lost between Illinois and Ohio all the time). I love my family even when they get on my nerves. My mom is nicer than my dad, but my dad and I are both the ones with strong wills so we clash more often. My brother is a sweetheart even though he's now a teenager and trying to be cool. If you misuse grammar, I most likely will correct you. I get upset when people use blond when talking about women because coming from french it needs an e.

I'm sure there's more I could think to say about myself but I'll leave it for now. I'm sure I could always come back to it if I wanted to. This is my blog after all.
-Lia

Monday, July 7, 2008

The Boys

Girls floors get a lot of rather alliteratial nicknames, most of which have to do with our sexualization. Virgin Vault, Whore Hall, the sort of names that make hardcore feminists foam at the mouth. I can't say that I ever was upset at either of those names, I'm not that sensitive about sexism that I take any of those names seriously. Anyway beside more cattiness and more girls' bathrooms, I didn't find it that much different than any other floor. There were always guys around anyway. The Adopted Guys of the Girls floor. Even when David had to move out of Helene's room because of her new roommate he was on the floor more often than not. Joining David as resident Adopted Guy were the boyfriends and Cody.

Cody had a thing for Tara. Somehow she has a way of attracting men who were seeing someone else. Maybe she liked the idea that they were unavailable, I don't know, I just know they were the only ones she ever seemed to attract. My personal theory is they seemed safe to her, so she was more willing to be physically affectionate with them. From my experience, men are insanely afraid of rejection, so a woman who is willing to be physically affectionate before they ask them out thins out there chance of being rejected. And Tara, like I said, just wanted a man to pay attention to her, and she was much more addicted to drama than I was. Cody was Tara's pseudo-boyfriend, a guy who was crazy about her without her having to deal with actually having a boyfriend. Not fair to Cody, but it made him one of honorary girl floor members. We even one night did his hair and make-up and dragged him to a floor meeting. He must have really liked her. I actually have a picture of him in a bra still I think.

Overall I think the guys of the girl floor had a rough gig. They were all nice guys, but got in with a weird crowd.
-Lia

The Girl Across the Hall

Since Tara and I got along so well our room became the place to hang out on the floor. The girls down the hall partied to much for us, spending their weekend either drunk or giggling down the hall about who they had hooked up with that weekend. As I didn't drink and wasn't interested in being hit on by drunk frat guys who were looking to get laid, they weren't really compatible with us. In fact the only one of our little group that drank was the girl that lived in the room across the hall from us, Helene.

Helene was another girl who had a bad childhood. Though I never learned as much about Helene as I did Tara from what I learned, she had a mother who was bipolar and when she was in a bad mood abusive. Her parents had since divorced and she had a older step sister who she thought very lowly of, but then again Helene didn't like most women in general. Maybe because of her mother, I don't know, but it was easy to see that Helene got along better with men than women. The first time I met her she already had a boyfriend ready and in her room. His name was Sean and they had met during their orientation session for LU. I don't think the entire time I knew Helene she went for more than a week without a boyfriend though she never seemed to keep them very long. She was a chronic flirt, often debating between guys and always seeming absolutely sure that this was the man she was meant to be with and was going to marry. Sean didn't last long, maybe a month before he broke up with her, because of her allowing her "friend" David stay in her room, and started dating one of the girls down the hall whom, as far as I know, he's still dating. Then came the revolving door of men. A guy from her gov class, a guy she met on the quad, most of the male population at LU it seemed at times. Though she must have hated it I'm thinking it was a good thing she lived on an all girl floor or she would have dated and broken up with most of her floor.

Same with all her men, Helene seemed to have a problem keeping a roommate. Her first roommate, Debbie got homesick and moved back to Atlanta, then Sean spent a couple nights before he could get a room change (Sean and his first roommate got to being seconds away from WWIII before Sean moved). Then David moved in because he lived with two other boys in a room meant for only two people. It was doable, but cramped, and yes this is the David, Sean broke up with Helene about, and really I think he was right to do it, while they were dating David was Helene's "best friend" after they broke up David was her boyfriend, and then not her boyfriend, and then her boyfriend...all in all Helene wasn't the greatest at remaining faithful. She cheated on David more than once while drunk, he just always forgave her.

Helene was always a different person when she was drunk. She developed this thick southern accent even though she only ever said she was from northern Virgina, and was even more touchy than normal which for Helene is saying something. I always sort of felt like Helene was trying to run away from something. I suppose a lot of people change when they get to college, but she went as far as legally changing her name. Her parents named her something very southern, as soon as she could she changed that to something much more WASP and upper crust. I don't know if she had a good reason for changing her name, but she did and I'm pretty sure she just wanted to change herself.

Since even when she got a new roommate Helene didn't get along with her, Helene became sort of like a third roommate to Tara and me, but she was just the start of the refugee roommates we picked up freshman year.
-Lia

The Roommate

College has been the first time that I ever had to share a room. I arrived first to our dorm room, and claimed the bed closest to the window. Because the fact that like most liberal arts schools, LU (What I'll refer to Liberal University) is primarily female, I ended up on an entirely girl floor through no fault of my own, but to the join of my mother. While very liberal in most of her ideology, my mother was raised in the Midwest and when it comes to men she is rather old fashioned. She kept saying that it would be easier for me without men on the floor. Really I don't think I would have had a problem with men on the floor, and it actually would have reduced the amount of drama on the floor. Men as a whole have the effect of making women less catty to one another.

As far as friends go in the first year at college I admit that I sort of struck out. I don't really talk to most of the people I met my first year at college. Tara, my first roommate came from a small town in the Northeast where she seemed to have anything but a happy childhood. Part of that came from the fact that she had father problems. I only happened to meet her father once, and he seemed perfectly nice for the short time I knew him, but from what Tara told me, he wasn't the nicest person. She never really let me know that much about him. From what I could understand, it also was the fact that she came from a family that had a lot of illness in it, and either she was guilty about being healthy or her father took out his stress on her about it. I won't pretend I understand her entire family dynamics, she was very private, but from what I heard her mother had been battling breast cancer for years and it was up to her to handle taking care of bother her mother and her younger brother who had had brain surgery years before, while her father was off with his job of being a pilot. Understandably that's a lot of stress to put on a girl. From the stress, and just a bad frame of mind in general I'm thinking, Tara was a bit of an outcast in her small town. Coming from that mindset it's really hard to change, especially when I admit I had no way to empathize with her.

Looking for friends, Tara and I started hanging out together, as more than just roommates. Naturally gregarious I was more comfortable joining in and talking to people I didn't know than Tara, so she would tag along and get to meet people that way. We were seen together so often that people started referring to us as the same person. That stayed the same way until much later in the year. In some ways I think she was jealous of me, though I doubt she would admit it. Mostly just for the fact that I was happy. Add on the fact that I've never been very good at commiserating with people who are mopey all the time, she was constantly trying to find someone who would fulfill her needs more than I would, which also included dealing with her father issues. Tara had not had a boyfriend since the time when she was 13, and that bothered her much more than even I knew. She said the first day that we met that the women in her family had bad taste in men, and that we had to warn her if she was with a guy who was no good. The only reason her mother was still with her father was the fact that her mother had no money and was worried about supporting her younger brother should she divorce, which overall wasn't surprising since the only reason Tara's mother was even with her father was the fact that her mother had gotten pregnant with Tara. Tara's Aunt was in the process of divorcing her husband whom I never met but Tara told me had gone insane after 9/11. I won't pass judgement whether they were all bad men or if the women just had problems with men, but instead of hating men, Tara seemed to think she need a man to take care of her. All the men she went after were older, and would take over her entire life. That was my biggest problem with her dating. I wanted her to be happy, but I can't stand women who give themselves over entirely to men.

The first of her older boyfriends was a Law Student at LU named Bert. That was my first experience of Tara blowing everything off to be with a guy. Even when we had made plans she would just not come back from Rob's apartment , blow everyone else off for the guy. And when he said he didn't want to be with her after a couple weeks of "dating" she got mad at me because I didn't realize how devastated she was. I suppose I should have realized the warning signs right there, because when she got her next and as far as I know current boyfriend, this time a grad student, Ron, the fact that I wanted to actually see her meant that I obviously was against her happiness and wanted her to break up with Ron. She turned me into the bad guy, and thus I gave up trying to fix things and moved out, though she could have saved me the trouble since after her mother passed away from the cancer sadly, she moved in with Ron. Truly I hope their happy together, since Ron broke up with his undergrad girlfriend for Tara, and I don't see it going well for her should he break up with her.
-Lia

Prolouge

Since this isn't actually a story, I know this isn't a prolouge in the truest sences of the word but I suppose you'll just have to forgive me and if there are any English Majors out there that are incredibly insulted, they'll just have to live with it. After all this is my blog, so I can write whatever I want.

First of all I think I might as well say right now that my real name isn't Cecilia. I don't know if anyone really cares about that, but since anyone could read this (even if I have site-traffic of, well me) I thought it would be safest to use pseudonyms for anyone I mention by name. I mean I'm sure that it might be possible that they figure out who everyone is, but there's no need for me to piss off everyone who might be mentioned in this.

As I said yesterday, my childhood is nothing that would be very interesting to read about. To quote a book I've never actually read, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" (Tolstoy: Anna Karenina). Overall, my family is happy, and while that led to a good childhood, it makes bad story telling. If Tolstoy is to be believed, I personally think it's because happiness is much more elusive than unhappiness. And there's only so many ways to be happy, you can always be unhappy about any number of things.

Anyway, before I bore any possible readers that have by philosophizing about happiness I suppose I'll get back on track. I made it through grade school with little drama. I had a group of friends that overall didn't proscribe to teenage drama. None of us really dated, none of us really fought within our little circle. Like I said, boring.
College brought a whole new level of drama into my life.
-Lia

I have no idea what I'm doing

Can't say I've ever tried blogging before. I've always sort of been wary of the idea of people being able to read anything I thought, but I suppose since I know that starting out I'll just let my thoughts go and see if I can edit my thoughts. I doubt anyone would really like to read my rambling thoughts anyway unless they might have happened to come across my path and want to see if I have anything to say about them. I mean that's how I came across this sight in the first place. Thought I'd see if there was anything about me. We're a very self centered species. Every one of us thinks what we think is important enough to have other people care about it, and everyone of us only cares what other people think when it has to do with them.
Well if nothing else there are lord knows how many stories about life as a teenager, so there must be something interesting in our lives. I mean at 19 I'm not exactly at the start of my teenage career but I don't know if my life would have been very interesting at all if I had started back when I was in high school. I did my best to stay out of relationship drama and that seems to be the entire basis of teenage drama. It's harder to stay out of drama though when you live in a building with 300 people all between the ages of 17-22. They say that college is some of the best years of your life but it makes sure that you meet quite a few people that you would never meet otherwise. and I suppose that like everything that brings you good and bad. It's late now, though not nearly as late as it sees to say on my draft, since I just never got around to changing the time on my computer, but I suppose if I want to go into my entire life this is hardly the time to do it.
-Lia