She Fights For Her Life On the Train

Selena sent me this song whose lyrics reminded both of us of me in NYC. It makes me smile. The stop motion video is pretty neat too!

"Her Morning Elegance"
Oren Lavie

Sun been down for days
A winter melody she plays
The thunder makes her contemplate
She hears a noise behind the gate
Perhaps a letter with a dove
Perhaps a stranger she could love

And She fights for her life
As she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
As it pours
And she fights for her life
As she goes in a store
With a thought she has caught
By a thread
She pays for the bread
And She goes...
Nobody knows

And She fights for her life
As she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
As it pours
And she fights for her life
Where people are pleasantly strange
And counting the change
And She goes...
Nobody knows

Giving Up Facebook for Lent

"You're not signing on at all for forty days?" was Jifo's reaction. (Yes, he's back in my life...)

"I almost want to delete my account," I said a few days ago. Selena and I had just stayed up until 3 a.m. on a weeknight playing her ex on the most exciting game of facebook Scrabble I have ever encountered. There was collusion ("I'm setting you up for a triple word - can you form a word with C as the first letter?"), victory ("I can form a 3-letter word with C as the first letter and using a high-point tile!"), anxiety ("But can he add to your word?"), letter-counting ("It depends, do you have the last blank tile?"), high risk and payoff ("I got the blank tile!").

But all our covert ops were for naught. After she set me up for the shot and I slammed the dunk (yeah I don't know sports talk), we got an eery final message from our challenger in the Scrabble Chat box:

Please do not be angry with me.

Since my chat messages got there quicker than her, I read the line aloud to Selena. (Yes, we were on our separate computers, shouting to each other through the wall in our apartment.)

"Oh no," I moaned.

"What does that mean?" she screeched.

An instant later, the red dot on our alerts blinked. He had won the game. With an 81-point word, using all the remaining tiles in his deck.

And I'm going to give this up.

I'm giving up the rematch we immediately started with our unbeatable nemesis, titled "Our Mount Everest." ("But I'm only 5'7"," he protested through the chat box.)

I'm giving up 20-40% of my social contact, in hopes of directing my social life into a personal, or at least phone encounter.

On the bright side, I give up seeing what girls keep writing on Jifo's wall and commenting on photos of him that I've never seen (back off b*tches! talk to your own [rekindled]boyfriends!).

Instead, I run my own time, rather than letting my addictions dictate it. I am also putting on hold my watching of LOST and True Blood internet episodes (no spoiling!), because they are reruns and can be watched addictively in one continuous, eye-straining overnighter. I'll keep up with my ABC and MTV shows, because they only put out one episode a week. (Now that I'm caught up. I kind of stayed up until way too late last night making up for my 3-week Grey's Anatomy lag...sigh.)

Are you also giving up facebook? The Chicago Tribune helps you import your facebook activities into realtime. My favorite is:

Poke people. Actually poke them. Then walk away without saying why you poked them.

Hooked On Twilight? Try Sookie and The Host

Jifo's cousin loaned me



and next thing you know I'm up until 7 a.m. finishing it.

WTH?!

And when that was done, my Stephenie Meyers/vampire lust did not abate. So I got into:



which has quite a bit more boy butt and girl boobies!

I am this close to getting into the book series this show is based off of:

Brighter Days A-Come

Whew! I'm in the clear.

My cute younger brother loaned me his car for the week (the kid bikes everywhere, but he still won't let me buy the car off him for a month :P) and the wheels have given me the freedom and sense of self I lost so many months ago.

I start a smattering of dance and voice classes at the community college tomorrow.

Things are going much better - thank you everybody for the love!

My Love, Goodbye

The most painful memories are the times in the early days when you would say, "Just don't leave me."

I threatened and I wanted to. But I never did.

I hold you one last time in my mind as long as I need to, to let you go, and I hold you forever in that place in my heart where I've loved, until the hurt heals over.

Though your end was unkind, I have no bitter goodbye.

My love, goodbye.

It's Over

for that relationship.

Goodbye.

For those with access, I will be on the pink blog.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yup, I'm the gal that does NOT hate this holiday - even when I'm single.

Be loving to yourself, everyone! Bless.

Won Word Wednesday

It's back!

What is 'Won' Word?

Today's Won Word:

unemployed

Comment below if you're joining!

IPod Owes Me For Being First

An old acquaintance of mine in San Francisco heard that I was the first iPod silhouette ever and immediately paused at his high-faluting finance job to search out my ad.

I used to see this baby everywhere - storefront windows, bus ads, subway billboards, the backs and inside front cover of magazines:


And no, after the first photo shoot, I didn't see a dime. Models in print ads are usually bought out and don't get residuals.

The hair was my own styling - part of why I was hired. (It was pretty ethnic back then, in addition to my Chun-li buns, the black guy had a 'fro and I swore the curly haired ponytail girl was a Latina...)

My father has a giant blow-up of this ad above the fireplace in Jersey, and in the corner is the outtake polaroid I snagged from the shoot.

Nice memories of my glory days - it reminds me during these cold, unemployed days playing scrabble on facebook that I was cool at one time!

A Day In The Fight: Why Positivity Blogs Suck

It is 52 Faces's 200th post and I'm ready to come clean.

Last year, I shied away from discussing the true conflicts in my relationship as much as possible. The blogosphere is full of wives who seemed constantly, irritatingly overjoyed to be with their husbands, in awe of the absolute Edward Cullen that had landed in their lives, and living in a blissful, grateful state of grace with their supportive soulmates who they find exceedingly sexy. (Seriously, how many bloggers actually marry sexy men? It's a statistical impossibility to have that many sexy men in the population to begin with, and the ones that are available have made it into the cast of Gossip Girl.)

To date I have found one blog where someone kept it real and said she had horrific fights with her husband and contemplated divorce on a regular basis. One.

Is there some unwritten law that equates blogger with Stepford wife?

I used to feel the pressure to put on the front of a shiny, happy relationship. At one time I even fashioned myself after the personal development mega bloggers in their euphoric marriages that were so healthy they were going polyamorous! (You know who I'm talking about.) I thought that I had to portray only the progress and not the constant, heartbreaking setbacks. I turned every traumatic fight into a "learning experience I could illuminate others with" - hell, I even touted the advantages of settling, framing it as the best form of commitment an American woman could wish to attain. (If you're over a certain age and don't have access to incredibly good eye cream or, preferably, Botox, then I still recommend settling.)

It's clear that I'm not going to see one buck from blogging any time soon, much less megabucks, and after the heartwarming reception of my vulnerable post about my father, it's time to speak my truth.

I've realized that endless positivity can be incredibly damaging.

It makes the rest of the population feel like they're not good enough.
"Great. Not only am I in debt, but now I have to worry about my attitude, too."

It isolates people.
"Am I the only person stuck in a relationship/marriage/job/city I hate?"

It's unrealistic.
"You may be able to escape cubicle nation, but I have kids to feed and a mortgage to pay and [if you're Asian] parents to take care of."

It demonizes and disowns a whole chunk of the spectrum of humanity.
"Anger/sadness/discord/jealousy/etc. are bad? Guess I'll just repress it some more."

So, here's my contribution to the blogosphere: reality.

What We Did Today

Morning
After a difficult week, caught up on sleep, albeit uncomfortably.
Woke and, instead of eating, sent my novel to my friends on the East Coast who promised to read it and browsed the internet.
Woke Jifo.

Fight Count: 0

Noon
Food.
Fight begins. Walk away from fight.

Fight Count: 1

Afternoon
Voice lesson.
Back to my apartment to change.

Evening
Orange County for belated anniversary dinner.

Night
Near fight turns into surprisingly productive discussion on car ride home.
Get home.
Fight.

Fight count: 2
Resolution: 0

Since then he's been on the couch downstairs flipping through ESPN channels and I've been staring blankly into space, thinking, doing laundry, and blogging. Tonight, I will either sleep in the spare bedroom and cry myself to sleep, sleep next to him silently and cry myself to sleep, or perhaps manage to not cry myself to sleep. I finally have Inkheartfrom the library, but of course, tonight of all nights, I left my glasses at my apartment and I can't wear contacts for much longer.

This is not a unique scenario. This is my life. Each time we see each other, every conversation that is not shooting the breeze about the weather or movies, we fight. 6 out of 7 days, we fight. If we have to spend a whole day together, we fight 2 or 3 times a day.

They are not little squabbles; they are cruel and unloving, mini-genocides. Every step forward is undermined by the lack of trust and compassion, the walls and the closed-hearted nature of the relationship. I see the relationship, not even half a year old, dying and I cry over it, trying to mourn. But that only makes him more angry, so I have stopped grieving it, at least openly.

THIS is my reality.

Anyone else?

How To Talk To Girls

Cutest thing ever!

Written by a 9-year-old, includes tips like:

Comb your hair and don't wear sweats
Control your hyperness (cut down on the sugar if you have to)
Don't act desperate



I recommended to my bff that we buy this for the adult boys in our lives.

The kid also wrote How to Talk to Moms and, of course, How to Talk to Dads. They are just milking this kid! I'm so jealous.

Dear New Yorkers

Dear New Yorkers,

I see that it is 30 degrees and snowing currently.

I just wanted to let you know that here in Los Angeles, it is 80 degrees, clear skies and sunny.

Eat it.

Sincerely,
52 Faces
in a tank top