The Love Rollercoaster

I have an amazing cousin.  Actually, I'm blessed with a lot of amazing cousins.  On one side of my family, I am the second oldest of 14 cousins, edged out only by my sister.

A couple of years ago, I was forced to admit that one of my younger cousin's is officially cooler than me.  (This is probably true about most of my cousins and isn't that hard to be). It's an upsetting blow to any "older" family member, especially an unnecessarily competitive one like me.

But she's sort of my spirit animal.  She finds cool music and stays up way too late and loves comedy that's not on TV yet and makes cool headpieces out of t-shirts when we are at the beach and would rather do cool "New Yorker things" than "New York things" when she comes to visit.  Thankfully, I have a few years on her, so I can play the older-and-wiser card, if I am forced to lose the "older-and-cooler" one.  Every day she's gaining on me there, too.

In one of our million 2 a.m. conversations, we were discussing relationships and our strict criteria for the men who enter our lives.

They are:
1) Cannot be named D***
2) Must love rollercoasters

I HATE writing about relationships, not because I'm some dark and twisty soul who thinks love is dead, but because whatever is learned from relationships is probably a lesson about yourself, and can be applied everywhere in life.  That's kind of more my jam.  But the scoreboard says that these are my most popular posts, and I am a woman of the people.  It's like that scene in A League of Their Own when Jimmy Dugan/Tom Hanks tells his players to hurry up because "dozens of people are waiting to see you play."  I have to give my dozens of readers what they want.  But I can't date Jimmy Dugan because he's an alcoholic.  And ficitonal.

The point is you all want me to be something I'm not, so I'm selling out and giving you a Carrie Bradshaw rundown of dating in your mid-20s in NYC with the aforementioned criteria of not being named D***, not being an alcoholic, and loving rollercoasters.

These may not seem like the most sound criteria, and it surprises me how many people ask for my relationship feedback when I haven't been in a relationship in quite a while.  Granted there's been an intense "focus on me" period that every 20 something is obligated to go through, but I guess I've picked up some relationship trends by watching from the stands.

I went speed-dating with my stupid sister who signed us up for it without asking me if I was available or if I wanted to do it.  The answer to both of those questions is no, but we did anyway.  For some reason, we were both trepidatious on the cab ride over with our hearts already racing before any suitors had a chance.

"We can get out and split a cake instead" I said to my sister, completely not at all joking in any way, shape, or form.

But we did it, and I'm glad we did.  How was I so nervous going into something I was completely close-minded to and had no expectations for?  These fears were quickly squelched when I remembered that they were just as scared as me, were just other human beings, and that I didn't actually give a shit about the outcome.

It's funny that just by sitting there and having a different conversation every four minutes (or really the same conversation every four minutes with different people) that I felt like I'd accomplished something.  Entering it, my best case scenario was that I'd walk away not interested in anyone that I met, but feeling as if my guard was low enough that I'd have as authentic of a conversation as possible, and that's exactly what happened.  I wasn't pleasantly surprised by a spark with anybody, but that's okay.  It reinforced my belief that my no-name, no-crippling-addiction, must-love-rollercoasters criteria are so open for a reason.

I'm attracted to someone's energy more than a "type."  I have no doubt that a lot of these guys will make for a great Prince Charming for somebody, take them out to great dinners and fit all of the attributes on their roller-coaster neutral check list.  But I've dated mohawked musicians to finance boys in jeans that cost more than my last paycheck.  I don't have a check list.  (Except it really helps if they're taller than me).

I guess that's why I never committed to online dating, in collaboration with the fact that I'd rather be single and wait for the right guy than be coupled with any guy kind of girl.  Some people are looking for a perfect handy man who provides financial stability and wants the 2-and-a-half kids and a mini-van life.  But I really just want an adventure buddy to laugh with. Of course, I want to be grounded enough to be serious, and I'm not so independent that there's no point in having another person around, but my default is fun and silly.  This was not available in a sea of Young Professionals Speed-daters.  They wanted to discuss what they do outside of their uninspired 9-to-5s and what part of New York City I live in and what my ideal date is.

The truth is, my ideal date would be to go to the Central Park boathouse, but if I'd gone with any of these guys, I'd be looking to jump into the water to get away and/or make it exciting.  I guess that's part of where my closed-mindedness started.  I'd rather be on date 3 at the boathouse, or date 5 watching bad TV in my sweats and eating take out than on date 1 talking about how your finance job pays the bills, but is burning you out.  Some even refused to talk about work, which not only totally made me think they were in the mob or porn industry, but is really hard--neigh--impossible when my job feels borderline vocational.

I doubt most people go into speed-dating looking for confirmation instead of a date, but I'm glad that it verified my odd and limited checklist.  My sister can sign me up for that awareness any day.

Now a few speed dating tips:
1) Don't take off your name tag and say it's because "you're a rebel like that."
2) Don't try to woo me with your Spanish guitar skills and ask if "you can buy me a drink and get out of here."
3) Don't bring up porn, even if the connection is that your sister did an off off broadway gig with a porn star and we're talking about "art."
4) Don't speak so quietly I can't hear a word you're saying.
5) Don't refer to the tram between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan as a "magic carpet/magic box."
6) Don't tell me the WWE is stupid.  I already know it is and I love it anyway.
7) Don't be named D***. (See above)
8) Don't tell me we "aren't going to talk about THOSE things that everyone else is."  Of COURSE we are.  This is awkward as hell.
9) Don't be a Red Sox fan.  That's just a tip about life, really.
10) Don't tell me you're "on break" with someone.

A word about number 10.  What the HELL does "on break" mean?  You're either dating someone or you are not dating someone.  Those are the only two things that are real.  I hate "on break" because 87% of the time it's just postponing a break up because you're both in denial that it isn't working out when "you're just so right for eachother."  Unfortunately love, like most of life, is a decision and a circumstance.  You can decide who is right for you (see rollercoaster preference), but their preferences, timing, fate, etc., may not fall into the delicate balance that looks so stubbornly right in the picture you've made, or stalked on the two of you on Facebook.

Here's the thing about being "on break."  It's a power struggle, intentionally or otherwise.  One person didn't want to be "broken up with temporarily or maybe forever," so they're stuck pacing back and forth between the friend zone and "someday," (which may never come) while the heartbreaker is off "working on themselves" and "just having fun with their friends" and "probably sleeping with other people and debating whether or not to tell you about it."

Rarely when a couple is on break are they actually working on the issues within themselves or their relationship, and if they are, they aren't "breaking" for shit.  The real kicker is, that usually the person who called for this break is stewing whatever complicated circumstances they created so that they had "something to get away from."

Let this person go.  The masochism of "hanging in there to see if it works out" is overpowering the fact that they are disrespecting you, even if you agreed to it, and frankly, if you're looking for a rest-of-your-life person, the circumstances are just going to get harder.  If they have one foot out the door already, you may want to close it for them, because they'll be sprinting for the streets when what lays ahead arrives.

Ask couples who have been married for over a decade how many breaks they've had, and how many they've felt like they needed.

Just remember, you're probably worth staying for.  I mean, do they even like rollercoasters?

-k

as soon as you start to make room for the parts that aren't you it gets harder to bloom in a garden of love

this happened:

ss1moose: katesaysanything needs to blog about valentines day

i'm taking blogging requests now.

Valentine's Day is the most polarizing day of the year that Hallmark has ever made. in fact, lonely singles will try to invalidate Valentine's Day and hide their loneliness by protesting against Hallmark and their manufacturing of this holiday. over-the-top couples will give into the red roses and boxes of chocolates mentality, with a defensive promise that they're doing it differently than everyone else, but actually enjoy getting caught up in the cliche for a moment. nobody recognizes that this is fine as long as you come back down to earth eventually.

i don't think anyone has really gotten Valentine's day right since the second grade, where you'd give everyone Barbie (or Transformers) stamped pieces of folded cardboard-weight paper with candy attached to it, as a way of showing appreciation and maybe telling one person you have a crush on them and then running away (a practice I still exercise today). it was a straight forward process defined by our parents, classmates, teachers, and simplicity. there is usually some some of celebration where you eat cupcakes, distribute your valentines, and celebrate. this celebration is severely underrated. 1) cupcakes are rad 2) valentines are rad 3) how often do we get to set aside a day, or even time in our day, to tell me people we love that we appreciate them? so simple an eight-year-old child can do it, and so simple adults don't.

the truth is, Valentine's Day is a Hallmark holiday. it was originally started in celebration of a martyred saint, which could lead this blog into a whole bunch of unnecessary symbolism i refuse to get into. but who cares? who cares if the damn holiday is an annual department store marketing tool and who cares if you're single and are going out with your single friends for cocktails and who cares if you're in a relationship and having one day of unhealthy devotion to the person you're in that relationship with filled with canned romance--or even better--real romance. it's just a day to celebrate love and appreciate those around you. the avenue we take to do so shouldn't matter. anything more than this is fake, anything less than this stems from an unnecessary bitterness that you are holding against your friends or an ex or yourself. nobody in this world is a allergic to love. regardless of which "type of love" your are celebrating, you should still celebrate it, whether that's with your family, friends, boyfriend/girlfriend, or even yourself. maybe the issue isn't with Valentine's Day, but with our inability to widen the scope of what that means. putting a limit on love is stifling the most necessary intangible force that we need.

let it bloom.
-k.

this blog sent from my iPhone!

okay not really.

but i could if i wanted to.

i wasn't supposed to get an iPhone until Christmas, but Christmas came early to me this year--in the second week of December to be exact. my phone dropped out my pocket while i was in cab, falling more harshly than the gentle snowflakes that followed us to a post-Thanksgiving feast. story of an average New Yorker. i thought my phone fell out in cab, but after further investigation i'm fairly certain that my old phone is in micropieces imbedded into the ground of an Astoria street corner.

the visible chill escaped my lips as i sighed in frustration, as my head cycled the rolodex of contacts i'd have to hunt down via social media and e-mail and numbers of friends of friends. i was dangerously on the verge of creating a "hey guysss lost my phone so i created a Facebook event for you to publicly post all of your numbers" type of event. i find these obnoxious, so the only option i had was to stalk down each individual number because God forbid everyone doesn't get my adorable Merry Christmas! mass text.

or, i could not.

i get the itch to rip up life by the roots sometimes; just to overhaul what's negative--what's painful, what's sad, what's annoying, or even just what's grown stale--both from within and from the outside. i don't consider myself a masochist, i consider myself 23. i try with my every ounce to appreciate what is given to me, and that doesn't mean being perfect--i don't always want to be. but there comes a meeting point between your threshold and the expense of yourself. even something as simple allowing myself the patience to let people come to me with their contact information was a nice slap in the face of reprioritization.

it's easy to mistake selfprioritization for selfishness. i try to give as much as i can as often as i can, so these lines tend to blur. when we think we are helping people by giving more of yourself to someone than you can afford to, you end up in personal debt. it's also vital to know that giving someone what they want doesn't mean you are necessarily doing right by them either. you may just be feeding into their own bad habits and neither of you are getting what you deserve. your good intentions are along the wayside. and you can "good intentions" until the end of time.

certain people just compel you. you can't explain it. you don't want to. but your continued investment may be undervalued or unseen. you'll find one hell of a disparity between the mental energy you waste on someone and the appreciation seen for you or by you. return of interest ain't just a measurement from business school. whether it's friends, loves, or family, you have to break your own holding patterns if they are breaking you.

it doesn't always take a betrayal to close the curtain on the final act, though a stab to the back makes for one dramatic death. maybe it's just constantly you who is on the phone for them. or driving to see them. or being their wingman at the bar, dealing with the fact that they'd rather hunt flash a tender smile to attract the opposite sex than actually spend time with you. maybe whether or not you and your friend hang out is contingent on whether he/she will be in bed with someone else at the drop of a hat. maybe you let your guard in full to someone, but they only cracked their soul's window. maybe you're friends with all their most important people of Facebook but they aren't brave enough to step into your world to catch even the smallest glimpse. maybe the people are right but the timing wasn't/isn't/never will be. maybe you're right but they won't admit it. maybe you're right but they're not on the same page, which makes it impossible to start your own chapter. this is crucial: don't ask why--it hurts bad enough. you can't live life contingent on these factors and you can't hunt them down for their phone numbers. you will only be let down, and if it's meant to be, let yourself be pleasantly surprised rather than burn yourself out by grappling with the unattainable--temporarily or otherwise. i always air on the side of hope and fate and believing and guts, but we can't be consumed by these. otherwise, there's no you left.

i'm tired of speaking in undertones and innuendos and subtleties.
love is loud.

-k.

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Now playing: Charlotte Martin - Your Armor
via FoxyTunes

i'm not gonna write you a love song...

guys i'm a blogging rockstar! my cousin made a request. this post is going on my greatest posts compilation: volume one and will be the bonus track on my live dvd.

said cousin was particularly drawn to the quote "try again. fail again. fail better." she asked me to apply it to relationships, knowing full well i hate writing about relationships. she also wanted me to explain why i hate love songs so much. in high school, they would call this a "critical lens" if i found a literary element to throw in somewhere. after debating whether or not to accept this request, which was really a demand, i realized i'm a sucker for my cousins, and haven't used my AP English skills in a while. let's get academic in here.

i hate writing specifically about relationships for the same reason i hate 90% of most love songs and love angry rock music. every song is either about "you" or "them." about how damaged you are, or how much pain you are in, or how you have to pick up the pieces. or it's about their smile, or their eyes, or how you'd walk the earth to hear their laugh. well, you're never going to have to walk the earth or do anything physically impossible to prove your love and his/her special eyes are like one of three colors in varying shades.

these songs aren't real because they either dance around the purpose of love, mask it, or bury it. the hubris, or tragic flaw, (as witnessed in Shakespearean tragedies, like King Lear. take that third period Senior year!) is that they won't get to the heart of the purpose of love. love is self discovery, the discovery of someone else, and the trust that you can both build something outside of self that is greater than you are as individuals. love is when you combine smiling from your soul with the treatment you deserve and have been willing to give all along. those are both my definitions, not merriam-websters, just as a heads up. it's that simple. and also incredibly complex. it's what makes Charlotte Martin's "Tremble" such a beautiful song, and anything by the Jonas Brothers nauseating. and when we don't want to think about it, that's what Rage Against the Machine is for. chuck klosterman said that "art and love are the same thing: it’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you." this is why good love songs and great, and why bad ones are putrid garbage. one some level, art and love are synonymous.

"try again. fail again. fail better." love and life are inevitable every day if you're lucky. if there's anything we know about life is that it's not perfect, it can get really messy. you're going to want to quit, you are going to want nothing more than to stay. it has highs, it has lows, it has thresholds in both directions. but waking up everyday is worth it. love is a lot like life, but you find waking up next to someone else is worth it a part of you.

navigating the speed bumps of your own life is one thing, but when someone else is in the passenger's seat, the ride is entirely different. especially if you have the capacity to love someone so selflessly that you are buckling their seat belt before your own. you aren't going to get it right every time, just like you won't as individuals, as mothers and fathers and daughters and sons and sisters and brothers and cousins and friends etc. the fork in the road is inevitable. it's just a matter of if you will pick a prong together or go down separate paths.

break ups are a painful process of a shared love not withstanding circumstances or changes of self. where love is sometimes unconditional, we as people are not. it's perfectly human to be subject to the unforeseen or unanticipated. it's like how the glove that once was worn by O.J.'s murderous hands no longer fit at trial. when we grow, we sometimes outgrow. people are constantly evolving, changing, and growing. love can't always adjust. it's why people who still love each other get divorced, and why people who seem so right for each other on paper have no chemistry in the real world and why two seemingly incompatible people can make love work. if you've ever been through a break up where there was nothing you would change in a redo, you probably would change their desire to leave or the circumstance that caused the split, and you probably didn't feel like staying power was so underrated until you were in this person's rearview mirror. this means, you want to change them or the situation, and that is an indicator that different paths are where you belong.

should you both bear right at the fork in the road, you are going to hit some detours. and you can get lost together. you are going to fight. you are going to inexplicably get on each other's nerves. you are going to be wrong together. there will be no handy g.p.s. telling you where to go. but you'll do it together. it's hard to view failure as an opportunity to learn, especially when a significant other is significantly involved. but that's the beauty of having a partner in crime--one of you can post bail. and if you have guts, you end up better in the end for it and still facing each other and yourselves the next morning. you will fail more times than you can count on one hand from everything as simple as trying to make his/her favorite eggs to trying to figure out how you can hurt someone so badly who care about so much. you will never be perfectly wise, but you will fail again. and you will fail better.

i just hope avril lavine isn't the one trying to write your love story.
-k.



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Now playing: Barenaked Ladies - Lovers in a Dangerous Time
via FoxyTunes

"i'm a walking contradiction...but also not."

i stole that from friend.

i was recently told that my blog is kind of dark considering how bubbly and happy i am in person. i feel like i should explain. (i'm not in any danger of severe depression or declaring Fall Out Boy my favorite band. i promise.)

i've never slept well. my sister never slept well.

when i was little, i used to make my parents lay down next to me. then they had to sit at the end of my bed. then they had to sit a top the three stairs at the end of the hallway that led to my room. then they had to sit at the bottom of the full flight of stairs. and yes, i would get up and check.

my dad used to travel for work, so my mom had to deal with my sleep troubles and my sister's simultaneously. in fact one time, i was crying in my bed, while my sister was crying in her room, and my mom split time and the tissue box between both of our rooms. finally, she realized we weren't going to sleep any time soon, and that my dad would be landing at the airport soon. if we hurried our up-too-late butts out of bed, we could intercept him between his landing gate and the cab ride. keep in mind this was before cell phones existed. but we had to leave THEN. so my sister in her flannel night gown, and myself in my Aladdin nightgown (third grade gift from Aunt Laura and Uncle Tommy) prepared to leave. just as we were busting out the door, our family dog, Bailey, who my dad never really wanted in the first place and rarely warmed up to, decided she needed to go out. with no time allotted for this, my mom decided Bailey would come on this trip to prevent any accidents for my dad to come home to.

off to Binghamton Airport we went. it was like the Bradys but born out of more chaos. once we arrived at the airport, we realized we can't really just take the dog in. so my mom sent my sister and i to retrieve our surprised and exhausted father, as she waited with the dog at the other end of the airport. people probably thought we were a little insane as two grammar school kids were running thru the airport in their pajamas.

when we got home, the tears disappeared and exhaustion set in. it was decided shortly after that my dad needed to stop traveling for work so much.

but we didn't sleep for long. soon the nightly tossing and turning transitioned from 'i miss dad' to 'what the hell is adolescence and why did God think it would be a good idea.' laying down with your own thoughts can be one of the most difficult parts of your day. it's amazing how much energy you can put into doing nothing. it is only when my head hits the pillow that everything i need to do and everything that is weighing on me creep in.

i've been thinking a lot about why, an overall happy person writes about overall unhappy topics, usually at like 2:30 in the morning. recently the idea of individuality has been marinating in my head. the idea that as an individual, we are just an insignificant spec in the grand scheme of something far greater, but also as an individual, the human elements we possess are in some ways all that matters. the greatest factors of human connectivity are love and pain. that's why i think it's no accident that they so often present themselves as a duo. great pain can open the door to great love, and great love can open the door to great pain. dealing with pain is often through finding ways to love yourself, others, a higher power, etc. so even though i more often than not write about pain, am i truly ignoring love? there is a lot of value in lessons learned from both. besides, who wants to read a blog about how much i love everyone.

go turn on z100 for that.

-k.

though the skies may start to rain they're always blue

i feel good. it's unrelated to james brown.

one post ago--which i know the 'intoxikating' faithful nation read--i wrote about ups and downs. today i am pretty even-keeled.

two posts ago--which i know the 'intoxikating' faithful nation read--what i wrote was pretty depressing and a total downer. this may be it's antidote.

i'm recently unemployed and more single than i was a week ago. the past three months have been their own rollercoaster ride following the bedbug incident of 2009 (BB2K9). a recipe of dislodging, 'lonely,' and unemployed don't always yield the most uplifting results. but it's different when you move to a better place mentally and physically, are okay with yourself, and freelance.

i feel like i'm seeing clearly through the fast-pace chaos frenzy that often surrounds us. a good friend of my said of circumstance that 'you can't pay for that kind of clarity.' he's right...it's a good thing too because i can't afford to pay a lot.

i feel like i'm in a movie scene at a mall or an airport where i'm the character standing still while the people surrounding me are faceless and speeding around in fast forward. instead of struggling to control circumstances that are out of my range, i am controlling what's within my grasp: me. but i find this metaphor unsatisfactory.

people a lot smarter than i am somehow figured out that the calmest part of a storm is in the center--right in the eye of the tornado. i'm guessing this was a dangerous trial by error thing, like life can be. the further we deviate from center, the more likely our foundation is to be ripped up until you are out are the storm and far away from it's path.

i'm in the eye of the storm. i thought i wanted to be safely tucked into a basement somewhere on it's outskirts. i thought serenity came from protection, watching the Weather Channel and destruction from afar, counting our blessings. but that means i'm dodging the storm all together rather than tackling it. but there is more value in it's eye. you learn to maintain your center and travel with the storm. you can avoid damage by cutting through to the storm's core. you can manage yourself and follow it's path.

well i guess i'm Helen Hunt (in Twister--to my knowledge Mel Gibson has no ability to read my mind and i certainly don't own the awesome dog from 'Mad About You'). rather than run from the Storm of Life (how much does that sound like a self help book?) i'm doing a better job of tracking it (with the help of Bill Paxton). i'm changing what i can to rock this sucker from the inside. when the storm takes an unexpected turn, i am adapting. and when the storm revisits old doors that i thought were closed, and rips them off with a powerful ease, i'm still managing to keep control of myself, even if i can't control the situation itself.

and maybe that's As Good As It Gets.

-k.