Photo Challenge: Day Three

I hate the fact that you can't catch up on sleep, or gain back the hours you missed. I guess that's how it goes with most things though. It was beautiful in San Francisco today! It was warm and sunny, and Dolores Park was absolutely packed with people...more than I've ever seen! (And it's always crowded). Enjoyed some food, friends, music and sunshine.

This week is going to be amazingly busy, I don't know how I'm going to do it. In most frightening news of the week, I might be going up on stage at the Purple Onion again on Tuesday, after my comedy class. (I have until midnight tonight to decide).

I am still so tired, and trying to talk myself into being enthusiastic about my homework. But first, I gotta continue my blogging streak.

Day 03: A picture of the cast from my favorite show.

Modern Family is pure genius. I have been in love with this show since the pilot episode. The actors are perfect for their characters, the writing is brilliant, and the writers are hilarious in their acceptance speeches at awards shows! It makes me laugh out loud, and always ends on an upbeat or moving note...what more could you ask for? (If anyone from the show sees this blog, HIRE ME PLEASE!)

Photo Challenge: Day Two

It was so hard to convince myself to blog tonight. (You see? Sometimes I'm really bad at this). I woke up at 4 am this morning, worked on a film shoot all day, and just got home. (It's 8 pm now). Sometimes I think that when I tell my body it has to wake up early the next day, it decides not to sleep at all the night before. I was so awake last night that it was absurd. I watched a couple episodes of Arrested Development, and then watched Beauty & the Briefcase in it's entirety....really? After Arrested Development (one of the best shows EVER), the plan was to put on a movie I could easily fall asleep to. I thought I had picked the right one...apparently not. So, anyway, I don't feel like moving, and my blood sugar's low, but I cannot summon the energy to go get a cookie ice cream sandwich from the corner store, though I'm desperately craving one. Coincidentally, tonight I am missing a "Zombie Prom" party, which I was very much looking forward to, because I feel like a sleep-deprived zombie.

Day 02: A picture of you and the person you've been closest with the longest.

This is my brother, Dre. I could write a book on how I feel about this man. We've been best friends since sixth grade, and literally inseparable. In 9th grade, he asked me out and I said no, because he's my very best friend in the entire world. I still have the love letter he wrote me, and we will always laugh at that memory. When I moved to San Francisco, he came with me, shortly after. When he moved away again, he quickly came back. He knows all my secrets, fears, desires, everything about me. Nearly every good memory and funny story I have, has to do with Dre. He is my best friend, my confidante, my future Man of Honor, and the love of my life. I love you, you beautiful chocolate man!

We were such babies!

Big hair, don't care.

Photo Challenge

I've always thought that having some type of journal is very important. My friend Kevin has been writing in a journal every night, since he was in eighth grade. I can't help but be thrilled for his future family who gets to read his journal entries for generations to come, even after he's gone. What a special gift. I love writing... it's something I took to right away, as a child. I would write short stories like it was my job. Coincidentally, now I am basing a future career off of writing. I haven't been as good as Kevin about keeping a journal, (or better yet) - about keeping track of my journals, but I do enjoy writing, and I enjoy blogging. It is so cool to me, to read these little insights into people's worlds, while sharing mine. I will always be fascinated with people. Plus, sitting here at my computer, with my coffee just makes me feel so much more like a writer, and I love that.

I am in a writing for multimedia class now, where it is academically valuable for me to write in my blog, read other blogs, and just keep track of people and the news, and everything fascinating (for better or for worse), about our human race. To be honest, I need practice in this...and that fact is evidenced by the amount of times I blogged this February. I really want this to become a habit again, so I'm taking Sarah's lead and I will be doing a Photo Challenge, to get my wheels turning again. And I think it's a cute, fun, little thing to do once in a while. I'm always curious about people's quirks and opinions.

In case you're curious about mine, this is...

Day 01: A picture of yourself with 10 facts.

(this one of me is particularly classy, I think).

1. I just recently started regularly drinking coffee. This is a habit that has been years in the making. I kept trying it, especially when I was tired, hoping that my body would just humor me, and at least pretend to wake itself up a little bit, but it always, without fail, made me even sleepier. I knew I was in trouble when I ordered a coffee with an extra quad shot of espresso, because I had to write all night for a class, and I fell asleep at my computer. It was like my body had a force-field against all caffeine. Turns out, I'm a light roast kinda gal. I'm not promising I never sleep after coffee anymore, but give me a bold roast and I can guarantee you a blackout.

2. I dance when I get nervous. Always... which doesn't make much sense, because it's just attracting even more attention to my nervous self. But the more nervous I get, the more I dance.

3. I laugh all the time. I love laughing! But sometimes I even laugh at inappropriate times... like if I get bad news, I might sort of laugh at first, and then start crying.

4. I'm pretty sure I like animals better than people. I need them in my life or I will not survive.

5. Kristen Bell described me perfectly, when she was describing herself on Ellen. "If I'm not between a 3 and 7 on the emotional scale, I'm crying." That's exactly how I am. If I get too sad or too happy, I cry.

6. I often worry that I won't have enough time in my life to accomplish and experience everything that I want to.

7. Sometimes I think I'm nocturnal. I have such a hard time falling asleep at night, and such a hard time waking up in the mornings.

8. I have an irrational fear of roller-coasters. I semi-conquered this fear with my friend Dan at Universal this Christmas break, but I am nowhere cured. It took a lot of convincing to get me on the children's coaster. And at Disney, I am still afraid of the "Barnstormer".... a roller-coaster where you ride in an airplane....that Goofy drives.

9. I can't swallow pills. I know, I am sounding like more of a baby, the more I type. And it doesn't matter that I swallow pieces of food bigger than most pills... as soon as I see that little pill bottle, my throat closes up, and it's game over.

10. I still sleep with a stuffed dog, Linus, that I've had since I was 3. I don't like traveling without him and I very rarely do. In 10th grade, I left him in an airport on accident and I cried. (Luckily, a flight attendant found him...otherwise I still wouldn't be recovered from that experience).

Guess freakin' What?!

I went up for the first time at the Purple Onion. Stand up comedy timezz, y'all. And people actually laughed! A lot. (Whaaat is happening?) And now I have 41 views on Vimeo. As twitter would say...... #welcometothebigleagues, sista!

Park Day

As a writer, I often stress about what to write about. (I assure you, that is not all I stress about, but it takes up a good bit of it). Writing has always been a huge part of my life, and this semester it is at an all-time high. Besides my two very complex and very different writing classes at school, I also dove into stand up comedy. Money (and Mom) came through, YAY! It's something I've always wanted to do, and I haven't talked about this much on here, but I just finished my third week of it, and there will be plenty of updates coming your way on this subject very soon. And in keeping with my new year's resolution, I have been trying a lot of new things. I'm also on a quest to get my happy back. Things are complicated and hard on all of us, a lot of the time, and sometimes all it takes is a good, relaxing, sunny (but cold) day in the park, with friends and margaritas, to get your mind back in the right / (write) place.

Who says all of life's problems can't be solved with a pint of ice cream?

I have discovered, recently, that I am an emotional eater. I wish that wasn't the case, I wish I was one of those lucky few who fast when they're sad; those who go through a period of "sadness starvation," if you will. But not me. You can always tell when I'm going through a rough time by the width of my face. My smile disappears along with my jawline.

That being said, I'm sure it's of no surprise to you, that for the majority of my life, I honestly believed that most of life's problems could be solved by dunking your spoon into a pint of Ben & Jerry's and not coming out until you've hit bottom. (The bottom...of the pint, although I can understand the confusion).

This problem really came to a head this past Christmas break, when I put on an embarrassing display of food annihilation, in front of a close personal friend of mine. Now, a true friend wouldn't let me put away an entire wing of the Publix Supermarket alone, so a couple hours (don't judge me) later, we finally put down the last of the cookie yo-yo's, and retreated to the couch for a food coma. I didn't fully recover from that experience until the next day....but that didn't stop me from repeating it a few days later, this time in the comfort of my own home, during a movie...and again, a few days after that, at a funeral reception.

Just when I thought my emotional eating habits were getting out of control and I needed to find another way to deal with my feelings (alcohol? crystal meth?), this happened:

As of four days ago, these were the things that were less than perfect in my world:

-Rent money: don't have any

-Money for anything: $-36 in da bank, so... no.

-Money for out-of-school comedy class: ^ still, no.

-School/advisors: not happy with me.

(So, I'm taking 4 different classes in 4 different majors...let me live my life).

-Eyeballs: only work up-close.

-Much-needed glasses: please see points 1, 2 & 3.

I wasn't nearly as worried about this as I should have been, considering I spent my last $9 in cash on a "Lethal Mai Tai" I saw on the travel channel. (Priorities...priorities).

Now, if you've been paying attention thus far, you'd know that this is the point where I would turn to my best friends Ben & Jerry, while simultaneously satisfying every craving I've ever had. However, these "feeling feasts" work a whole lot better when you have cash money. And since I don't, I turned to the next best coping mechanism: Sleeping.

(We can address my sleeping habits in another post).

I dream a lot when I sleep, and I have a lot of nightmares. But in this particular slumber, I had a glorious dream - a poor person's substitute for real life luxuries.

I dreamt that I was eating an entire pint of ice cream, with Oreos and popcorn in it, in a movie theater by myself.

(I don't know what movie I was watching, the important thing is that I didn't have to share my ice cream).

So, let's recap: no money, no outside class I want to take, no rent, no food, no hope... (ok, ok).

Ice cream dream.

Then, suddenly -

We're able to put our Costco membership to use. Rent money comes in and we're able to make our deadline by the skin of our teeth. And, I am able to take my comedy class after-all! Granted, my advisor is still calling me every day, trying to convince me to change my classes, and I'm still going to need new glasses at some point, so I can actually see what I'm learning in aforementioned classes.. but the biggest of our troubles are over...for now. We'll still have struggles, every month I'm sure, but I find it hard to believe that my ice cream dream didn't have something to do with helping us out of this one.

Oh, and Mom- you'll be getting a HUGE shout-out at the Oscars for supporting me figuratively and literally, even when you probably shouldn't have.

there is no happy ending

to an unhappy journey.