And I'm finally seeing why I was the one worth leaving

Smeared black ink, your palms are sweaty
And I'm barely listening to last demands.
I'm staring at the asphalt wondering what's buried underneath where I am

I'll wear my badge, a vinyl sticker with bigh block letters adherent to my chest
That tells your new friends I am a visitor here...
I am not permanent
And the only thing keeping me dry is where I am.

You seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex,
A stranger with your door key explaining that I am just visiting
And I am finally seeing why i was the one worth leaving
D.C. sleeps alone tonight

You seem so so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex
A stranger with your door key explaining that I am just visiting
And I am finally seing why i was the one worth leaving
The district sleeps alone tonight after the bars turn out their lights
And send the autos swerving into the loneliest evening.
And I am finally seeing why i was the one worth leaving.
-leave it to Ben Gibbard.

Hello. This is a kind of personal entry. I need to write it out and think it out though, so here we are. Caution: read at your own risk.

I was thinking about things that are over now, as usual, and I realized that in general, the last two most important guys in my life, in a romantic sense, loved me but I wouldn't let them. I know that sounds ridiculous.

In the first case, he was still dating his girlfriend of over three years and although in all emotional senses I was his girlfriend- there are a ton of examples I can write here to explain how close we were and how much I mattered to him and vice versa but will spare both you (faithful reader) and me (my pride, and these details have been over-analyzed to death). His best friend used to always say that I was the only one who could ever break them up; no one in their group really liked them together because while they were probably a perfect couple years ago, their relationship had come to a certain point where it was detrimental for both of them to still be in it, although neither one was strong enough to break it off. I always shrugged off his best friend's insistence- I figured he was just implying that I was the only close enough to the guy to make a difference in his life, which taken differently could have been all the proof I needed to see how he felt abou tme, but I never acted on it. I wasn't about to be the homewrecker because in getting so close to him I had gotten close to her too. I am not a life-ruiner, it's never been in my nature. I left where I was living for a period of time, during which I realized how I felt about him and what that meant. I think that all those times I didn't explicitly say HEY I LIKE YOU, and all those times I didn't tell them to break up, all those times he put himself out there and I never really understood thus didn't reciprocate, really hurt him. I know it did. I tried to re-establish contact while I was gone and it didn't really go well at all. I got angry at that because I felt like I had lost my best friend. Looking back at it though, I realize that it was me that messed it up. I mean the fact that he was even that close to me in general while having this girlfriend should have been clear enough indication that he was having doubts in his relationship, but I wouldn't push it. I don't know why- I obviously didn't realize what was happening until I was separated from the sitatuion, thus the strange way things ended. Like when I finally couldn't have him, I decided I wanted him. I have since reconnected with him, and while we are friends because it is impossible not to be when you know someone so well for such a long period of time, things will never be the way they were. I tried, but it failed, and that really sucks. I have no one to blame but myself.

In the more recent situation, this boy clearly was infatuated with me. We became closer than I ever have with anyone in such a short period of time, and I feel like we knew each other better than I have known most of the other people in my life, even the best or oldest of my friends. It was easier to talk to him than most people I have ever met and now we barely speak. How does that happen? He was a bit more obvious than the aforementioned guy, and I don't know why, but I constantly turned him down and maintained the "just friends" mentality. It finally came to a head and when we were trying to figure things out, I stressed, kind of meanly, that we weren't dating, hadn't been, wouldn't be, and while I wanted to stay friends I knew that going back to our "real lives" would drastically change the dynamic of our relationship. I saw how that hurt him and didn't get any satisfaction at all out of that, in fact it hurt me to hurt him, but I stood by my opinion. I really wish I could somehow explain my reasoning. Now that we are thousands of miles apart, I realize how much I miss him. It's more than I miss any friend. I tried to talk to him recently but it didn't really work and I can't even blame him. I acted how I did. He was in it. Again, I have only myself to blame. I was the one who said no repeatedly and for what? To keep my options open? That's such bullshit. There love was again, tangible and staring me in the face and that's how I acted, again.

I don't know why it takes me thousands of miles to realize anything important, but here I am, alone and wondering how things went wrong. In the past, I would justify things by saying that I didn't want to regret anything and didn't want to get hurt, but after much reflection I realize regret makes us human as much as getting hurt does. I still don't understand how I could have been so heartless to either one of these two men, for I am the furthest thing from heartless and I do not, in no way, gain satisfaction from others' feelings being hurt or having some sort of power. I think I must have been scared of what was happening in both situations, which also scares me. Because now that I am getting older and settling becomes more and more important to me, I realize I can't just get up and go 3,000 miles to fix my problems anymore and at the end of the day, I want someone to come home to. I have had a hard time with the notion of "home" since the day I left it for good and I can't deny that, but I think in the end it will have something to do with the person that I love. I just can't believe I was so stupid. As someone who prides herself on being perceptive and analytic, (and you can't deny I am either if you really read what I am saying) how could I have missed the two most important events of my life if I had just let them happen or been paying attention? I think I have really learned my lesson here, because with the more recent pseudo-relationship, his absence has weighed a hell of a lot more than the presence of others.

This all coincides with the worst bout of bad luck I have ever had in my cognizant memory. Starting with my birthday, which was an epic fail for a few reasons, then missing my flight to Barcelona (and while we got to go to Paris instead and I really enjoyed that, I truly was upset to miss Spain), then moving back home to find it completely different yet exactly the same and realizing I didn't quite feel right there- perhaps because I had to share a car, had no job and the weather wasn't perfect, coming back to Arizona in hopes of fixing some personal shit and finding a job only to realize that my car needed $1400 to fix and I had to buy a new computer through now, still not getting a job or internship, trying everyday but failing and wasting so much time it seems. I fill my days with the menial activties I enjoy while living in here: contemplating, driving a lot, swimming outside almost everyday, visiting my friends, hanging out at the best cafe I have ever been to and feeling inspired to take over the world every time I step onto the campus that has become home, I still feel like something is missing. And it is: love. I could have had it, too, if only I just let it happen. That's what kills me the most, because while a lot of these things were out of my control, that wasn't. Yet still, here we are. I am trying to get over this as quickly as possible, and think in a few weeks or a month I'll be okay because everything will re-familiarize as it's supposed to, it's just hard right now. And I feel like this isn't the stuff I can discuss easily with anyone but a blank processor because I have a hard time explaining why I think I don't deserve what I should have had all along.

I want to leave you explaining that I will eventually be okay- I know I will. For so long I have been fooling myself, saying that all I did was for my own best interest and to not regret, but I have changed that philosophy. I still think the journey is more important than the destination and feel that every experience teaches me something, I just needed to think this out and thus write it out because now that I have isolated the problem, I can begin the first real solution in what feels like years. This is my therapy and I hope that it either helps or entertains you too. Oh, what a world we live in.

The farther away I get from London, the more it feels like home.



Isn't it amazing how it's in total human nature to romanticize memory?


Does it mean I am mature because I can see that, or does it mean I am mature because I know I can miss something? Does that matter?

The mind wanders...

Ruminations as of late.

hello all!

I know I haven't been too good at updating this recently, and I think that stems from that fact that I feel like I have nothing important to say. This happens to me frequently, the pressure to sound smart comes mainly from within I suppose but yeah I hold myself to kind of a standard and only lower it for special circumstances (like when I bought the space shoes.)
I figure I'll make this a kind of regular update? If such an animal exists?

Well, I came back to Tucson just over a week ago. It's been unreal. I was happy and am happy to be here, although I still feel mixed because I am not at home. I think three years ago I would have felt a lot more guilty about leaving than I do today, which is a great sign of personal growth I think. Not much has changed in Tucson. It remains basically the same to me, although I can now access the cool bar scene due to my recently completed 21 year old status.
I also had to buy a new computer and finally uploaded some pictures from this summer, which I feel I should share.

One of the things that came to my attention sometime last week is that July 14 is Bastille Day. In honor of Emma, "Paris, tu me manques." The fact that I was in this beautiful city just two months ago coupled with the fact that I could finally upload the small amount of pictures I took that third trip back to the city made me super nostalgic. Here are some highlights.

Team Crepe forever.

Monmarte at night. This was far and away my favorite area, and coming back the second time to hang out as more a student than a tourist yielded a really nice experience here. For a more extensive idea about why I liked Paris so much and more pictures, see the post in my travelblog, tusewrlhr.blogspot.com.

In other, perhaps bigger or more global news, Harry Potter came out on Wednesday! I saw it Tuesday at midnight and felt so strange about the whole thing. I have been having a hard time dealing with the fact that I am indeed getting older and older, thus closer and closer to the "real world." I hardly remembered the events of the sixth book, but a quick jaunt via sparknotes helped me out. I thought the movie was really good in that it stayed true to the book and provided a good sense of character development. Perhaps I liked it more too because I was in London for so long and throughout much of the movie thought "Ah, I have been there!" This is a photoshopped picture my friend Mariel made after she visited Kelly and I in London in May. Too fitting not to include.

Hogwarts Express, here we come.

Another thing I have been thinking about recently is gender. It is because my thesis is on the Southern American Gothic and French Feminism, and as scary as that sounds it's actually quite interesting and I am super excited to write it. I am basically analyzing selected short stories from my girl Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers and Eudora Welty through the feminist theory of Simone de Beavoir and the like. This could also be an added reason for the recent francophilia I have been experiencing. Anyways, it came to my attention that I really do like a lot more females than I thought I did- I mean that the best way possible; I usually have favorite male authors only, many of my favorite musicians are men, etc. But this past summer I saw two great female-led shows. Metric in NYC on June 16th with Kelly, which blew my mind because it was amazing. Kelly got me the tickets as a present for my birthday because we missed the Metric show in London, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because this NY show was bomb.

Metric, so happy. I <3>

A second female-led show I saw was just last Saturday in Phoenix with my roommates. I saw Jenny Lewis, who I have always had a soft spot for since Kelly introduced me to her music a few years ago, and again I was blown away at the musicianship that went into producing this show. Her band was undeniably awesome and I thought without them it would have been vastly different, but seeing this show live made me like Acid Tongue a lot more than when I just listened to it on CD. Over the years I have realized that that's usually what happens after a good concert, but this one was indeed exceptional. She played everything I wanted to hear and had these two female musicians named Danielle and Barbara who each rocked the guitar and drums so well that the last song was a sort of explosive medley between them and was completely amazing despite the fact that Jenny was not really involved.

Jenny and her band.

Okay. That's really all I have to say. I want to get some pictures of the desert to somehow provide reason as to why I had to come back here, but we'll see how that goes. Currently I am just trying to find a job here, continue to get settled and attempt to re-regularize my Arizona life. It's been weird; I miss NJ a bit more than expected but I think that's always how it goes, I seem to be constantly coming and going in a sort of nostalgic haze although usually I can't wait to leave.. Yeah. That's all I have to say on this night I think. I'll write again soon, promise.

speaks for itself

First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons - but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that is a similar experience for the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which has lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow every lover knows this. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange loneliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer. So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world - a world intense and strange, complete in himself. Let it be added that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man saving for a wedding ring - this lover can be man, woman, child or indeed any human creature on this earth.

Now, the beloved can also be of any description. The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love. A man may be a doddering great-grandfather and still love only a strange girl he saw in the streets of Cheehaw one afternoon two decades past. The preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be tracherous, greasy-headed, and given to evil habits. Yes, and the lover may see this as clearly as anyone else - but that does not affect the evolution of his love one whit. A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poision lillies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.

It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.

-"Ballad of Sad Cafe", Carson McCullers

I love Carson McCullers for her simple, honest truth, Southern way of storytelling and the somewhat fable-istic quality of her stories. She is one of the writers on which I am doing my thesis, and I came across this the other day and had to post it here. Not sure if I quite agree with these ideas, but this sentiment sure does explain a hell of a lot about human relationships. All in all, though, I have not given up on the world just yet.

discoveries come in all sizes

Okay so I know this is supposed to be my deep and profound blog, but I had to share somethings with the world (Casey).

I found this website: http://www.kaboodle.com/. It is PERFECT for us- has wishlists, brands you like and a list you can create of things you just bought. My username is christy_campbell and please get one! It's so fun. Makes me feel okay that I am not actually SPENDING the money, just browsing browsing.

Also. Today I went to Marshall's because I was looking for something different, which I found. Behold, my new obsession:

HELLO! These are such a good combo of space-age, modern design and slightly vintage due to the wedge? IDK. I am obsessed and so excited to rock these bad boys all the time, although moving into desert heat means no tights which means it might get a bit awks. But whatever. I know I have no money and no reason to buy boots in the summer, but here we are.

It's somewhat comforting to know that no matter how deep I get into my thoughts, some good old fashioned American consumerism can really perk me up. The only thing that works faster is the dog park.

Enjoy!