Confession: I'm a tatted up, bibliophilic punk rocker.

I really enjoy creating playlists from my favorite music each week, my Tuesday Music Mix, but yesterday was just not having it.  Really though.  I was at work all day, ya know, working and stuff, then out to dinner with Jon and when I got home I was up until two am finishing some homework that was just a couple days late.
Obviously I had wayyyy more time for watching the Belgium vs US game then I did for getting on blogging.  Sue me.

BTW, right on Tim Howard.


So because I love my music, and my brain is completely fried today even after three cups of coffee, I'm posting my playlist today instead of yesterday.

I'm a rebel, I know.  Don't have to tell me twice.

 

Song list:

"Elevated" by State Champs

"Soul & Body" by Air Dubai

"Loose Ends" by Real Friends

"Adelaide" by Anberlin

"A Call To Arms" by Bayside

 

All of these songs are from artists playing at this year's Warped Tour.  I'm really damn sad that I can't go this year but I play the compilation CD in the car, close my eyes and pretend that I'm there, surrounded by the pungent smell of pot and rubbed on by sweaty dudes in sleeveless shirts.
Sigh.  A girl can dream.

><><><><

Today I'm also linking up again with Vodka and Soda for Humpday Confessions.  I don't have anything crazy vulnerable to put out there like last week, but here it goes.

I confess...

...that I loathe, dread, hate homework but, dude, I get so freakin' excited to do the science experiments for my bio class.
Last night I bounced in to the living room to show Jon the status of my egg experiment, which was an egg soaked in vinegar, karo syrup and coffee for about a week, and all he could do was yell at me, "Ew!  Why the hell are you touching it with your bare hands?".  Hater.  What he didn't understand was that it might be an a gross egg but it was a really cool gross egg.

...that I often I would rather sink in to the couch and read then leave the house to actually do stuff.  Such is the life of an addict.

...that I didn't do my homework on time this weekend and covered by telling my teacher that I had trouble with my Internet.

...that I reeaallly want a full sleeve of tattoos but am too scared of what other people will think, especially possible employers.  Would I be able to get a job?  What if I can't cover them up?  I stare jealously at other peoples' tattoos but don't have the balls to get another one for myself.


Source

What are your humpday confessions?
Would you go for the sleeves?  Do you even like tattoos?  Do you even go to this school?  (10 pts for whoever knows what movie that's from!)


Linking up with Vodka and Soda.
Check out previous weeks' music mixes here.



In and Out

Man, if that isn't the dirtiest title to a blog post that I've ever written...


I've only got a little bit of time to write today because, first of all, it's FRIDAY (happy Friday!) and, second of all, Jon and I are going to get drunk with friends and play an awesomely vulgar game of Cards Against Humanity.  I've never played before, and the raciest I've ever gotten in a card game was playing the Helen Keller card in Apples to Apples, so wish me luck.

I still need to post the pictures from Neuschwanstein Castle AKA the Cinderella castle (don't let me forget!) and then there's a couple of books that I need to review.  I will really, really try to get write at least one of these things this weekend but in addition to getting my party mode on tonight we're having a BBQ tomorrow and there's this little thing called homework that I need to finish by Sunday night.

And maybe I'll sleep in between one of those things?  I don't know, maybe?


I'll leave you with a sweet jam and an adorable picture of my pup:



Linking up with I Wore Yoga Pants To Work

Confession: I'm a nervous wreck

If it isn't already obvious, let me just throw it out there that I am a huge worrier.  Actually, I'll just cut the crap and admit that I have straight up anxiety.  Small things, past things, all things, it doesn't really matter, my brain just needs some type of fear to latch on to and get worked up about.

Usually it starts from some insignificant thought like "I need to pick up dog food after work today."  Totally normal, right?  But then my mind starts to gradually pick up speed and turn out shit like "How the hell are we going to buy dog food when Jon gets out of the Army?!  We're going to be broke and maybe end up living out of a shopping cart on the street!!  Homeless people love dogs though, so we'll fit in, right???  They'll accept us...maybe they'll take pity on us for being so newly homeless and share their dog food??  And we won't be able to take showers to maybe I'll have to grow out dreads???  Damn, our finger nails are going to get disgusting."  And so it goes.

I'd really like to say that I totally made up the melodrama of that scenario buutttt I didn't.  That whole thought process has really happened in my big ol' brain.
Thank God it's big because it gives me so much more room to worry.
Yeah, I'm sick.


Source

Anxiety has this nasty little habit of making you feel completely alone and, if I could sum up anxiety in one word, hopeless.  It rips away your self-assurance and leaves you feeling really scared and exposed, alienated.  It feels like you tried and failed and ended up three levels below everybody else on the planet, like the worst possible thing is going to happen because you are completely failing at life.

This morning I fell in to one of these sinkholes while driving to work.  The sun was out, the sky was blue, the grass was green and all I could think about was how much more money we need to save up before Jon gets out and, ohdearlord, what if he can't use his GI Bill and we can't pay the car payment and how am I going to buy all the Mexican food that I really need when we're back home and dead flat broke?*
*Note: Usually my anxiety-driven mental tirades are made entirely of panicked run-on sentences.

Everything in my world was fine yet I knew that I was going to fall apart and fail at life.  I was starting to get panicked and, if I must admit, really freakin' down, and it was only 7:30 in the morning.  I could feel stress starting to creep over my shoulders and down my spine in an attempt to smother me like a scratchy wool blanket in the middle of summer.

Then Jon drove passed me in his little red car, fanatically waving and smiling at me.  He was driving some of the guys around so they were all pressed up against the windows waving and smiling too.  And I was reminded that, you know what, I am not alone.  Not even in my stress and my failure and my falling apart.  This thought changed everything for me.  Right away my brain short-circuited, my mouth dropped open (literally) and those scary, tormenting thoughts ran away.  My world was righted.

I know that I'm again sounding unecessarily melodramatic, but it's all true.
There's this pretty damn cute guy that, even when I want to break a plate over his head, is my absolute best friend.  We fight, sometimes pretty badly, and have gone days without talking to each other, but I know that because of him I will never be alone.  He'll be there to deal with my spit phobia, incessant talking on long drives and whenever I get a case of the crazies.


This is all about anxiety but I guess it's all about relationships too.  They make my world, and even THE world, go round.

I don't know what I'd do without that ginger fella.

Linking up with Vodka and Soda

Tuesday Music Mix // Part Deux

Starting off a blog post is the worst thing ever, I swear.  Especially when the only thing keeping you from falling asleep is four cups of coffee and the promise of one (or twelve) slices of cake later tonight.

Why do I have cake, you may ask, and that would be a valid question.  No, it's not my birthday or anniversary, and it damn sure isn't Hump Day yet.
No, I have cake because my bio professor is making us cook edible models of plant and animal cells.  Forreals.  It was between a cake or a jello mold, and the instructions for the jello mold told me to use an avocado for the nucleus and that just sounded really gross.  Imagine clear jello with a brown and squishy avocado just hanging out in the middle, wiggling all over the place.  Nein danke.  Also, cake always wins.  If it's between anything else and cake, choose cake, amiright?

Now there's heaps of accounting assignments waiting for my genius, so I'll just drop off this week's mix playlist below.  Check out my previous week's playlist for other awesome, though totally different, jams.

Also, I think my new hobby is going to be coming up with amazing descriptive words for how much homework I have, like butt ton and crap load.  #nerdfun

Something shiny and new

GUESS WHO GOT A NEW COMPUTER!
This girl, this girl right here.
My old computer broke for reasons that shall not be named and I take a full load of online classes, sooo a new computer was more than necessary.

Why do I feel like a such a perv when I type "full load"?

Anyways, my new computer is gorgeous.  I love it, it has a ton of storage space and the little side number keyboard thing that I don't know what its called but is perfect for my crap ton of accounting classes.

Seriously though.  It was between this computer and a MacBook Pro, and this computer won out because of the side number keyboard thing.  That's how important it was to me, or AKA I'm a huge school nerd.
That and I could just not handle the $1200+ price of a Mac when it does not have all the stuff I want, like at least 8 GB of ram...and a side number keyboard thing.  Just could could not do it.  The sacrifice was necessary and, to be honest, a bit depressing but a poor college student has got to do what a poor college student has got to do: get the better deal and drown her misery in cheap wine.

But now I can finally upload all my pictures from Neuschwanstein Castle!  That was such a fun trip, and the castles we saw were ridiculously cool, and of course my husband and I are suupperr photogenic (not) so our pictures are amazing (but they really are).
Obviously there's more to come when I actually find my camera and get around to uploading my pictures.  But for right now know that we had an awesome time and we road in a freakin' horse-drawn carriage up to a freakin' castle.  Cinderella much?  Yeah.

Sadly though I must now go back to sitting on my ass in my pajamas, studying cell structures and listening to pop punk.  'Tis my whole life in one sentence right there, folks.


Current stats:
Jon should get his orders for us to go home within the next week or so
I'm thinking of moving back home to CA instead of home to WA
There's a bug bite right between my boobs and it itches
The pup is, as always, ridiculously adorable

In too deep

My summer term for school started up today and I'm done playing games.  Ya heard?

I'm going to invest my time and efforts in to my work because (a) contrary to what I'm usually deluded in to thinking, I actually like school and (b) school's fucking important.

No more crazy procrastinating, no more just getting by.  I'm awesome and I should live up to my full potential for awesomeness.

From Pinterest

I think part of the reason The Gloom has hit me so hard this year is because I'm not living for me.

Still.

Or again.

However you want to look at it.  Either way, I've tried to sort this out before and it's still not going well.

I am so ...addicted... to taking care of other people and putting them first that I forget to keep some stuff for me to function with.  Patience, compassion, bravery, mad cooking skillz.  I get home from work at the end of the day and barely have enough oomph left to clean up after dinner.  I drive home on mental autopilot, walk in the door, take off my shoes and sink in to the couch where I let myself slip in to a nearly catatonic state.  It's so much easier for me to zone out than it is for me to actively participate in life.  And because I'm not taking care of myself, my grades have fallen apart, my body has fallen apart, my emotions have fallen apart.  Basically, I'm a mess.

Putting others before yourself is supposed to be one of the highest levels of compassion, right?  At least that's what I've been taught.  Treat others as you would like to be treated, the golden rule.  But the flip side of that proverb is that we need to treat ourselves as well as we treat others.  The same way that I expect myself to treat others with overwhelming kindness, patience and respect is how I need to be treating myself.  And it's okay for me to ask that other people, the ones who I've let in to my heart, to treat me that way as well.  If they don't, well, that doesn't make me any less worthy of being treated that way, it just means that those people don't have their shit together yet, and that's not my fault or my issue to deal with.

I have more thoughts on all of this, and there's more reasons why I've been depressed on and off for the past two-ish years, but those thoughts are just too personal to publish for everybody on the Internet.  So they'll stay trapped in my mind, chasing each other round and round.

><><><

Sometimes life sucks, and I have no problem admitting that (please see the above melodramatic paragraphs), but sometimes life is really, really cool.

Exhibit A:  I'm taking a biology class this term for which I received a lab kit (!!!).  My fancy, shmancy lab kit includes: beakers, test tubes, gigantic ass tweezers, unknown liquids, protective glasses and a mortar and pestal.  I am so excited to do experiements and make lab notes and be all science-y.

This little beaut was posted on Instagram right after I got home from the post office:

SCIENCE.

Exhibit B:  Friday night Jon and I had a CAMP OUT NIGHT that I rocked like a second grader, except better because there was alcohol and no bed time.
We blew up the air mattress right in the middle of the living room floor, ate junk food, quoted movie lines and quickly fell asleep at ten pm like the old married couple we are.


Caesar likes to spot jack.

Exhibit C:  Jon and I headed over to a friend's to celebrate her graduation from grad school.  I have such smart friends.
The ladies beat to death a metallic piñata and the guys hung out outside playing beer pong for most of the night.  We drank strawberry rum with cherry soda and ate some delish BBQ.  Burgers, homemade guac - my fave, carrot cake.

As a fitting end to an awesome weekend, I made fresh salsa and then spilled it all over the back seat of my car.
Well, really more like I acciently dumped the entire bowl of salsa all over the back seat.  And do you know how difficult it is to clean salsa out of a fabric upholstered cushion?  I didn't.  The temperature has been hovering around ninety degrees for the past few days so opening my car door releases a gaseous plume of hot spicy/garlicy air.*

Also, for the record, Jon said it would be okay back there but he was wrong.

*This event is not have included in Exhibit C as it is not something that I would define as "really, really cool", especially as mercury is boiling out of thermometers.


Drowning (the metaphorical kind)

I like to hide.  I'm under the extreme illusion that hiding is safe, burrowed down like a little mole.  I cover myself in books and blankets and a few layers of rough dirt just to be sure.  Down in the dark, choking on compost, with knotted roots, earth worms and forgotton knickknacks, nobody can see me, interrupt me, disturb me.  I can't be affected.
What I fail to realize is that I'm not hiding, I'm buried.  Lifeless, six feet under.

It's been said many a time that I seem to be a sweet hippy girl of sunshine and floral prints, and I am.  Yet, similar to any good law of physics, I'm a creature of opposites.  I'm soft and fiery, intelligent and forgetful, bright and macabre.  I can't help but smile when I'm angry and crave lip piercings and purple hair.  I hum along to Amos Lee and cook to Bring Me The Horizon.  I knit scarves, whip homemade buttercream frosting and collect boxes and bags of tea (chocolate chai, blueberry green, mint).  I cuss my mouth blue, suck down tequila and yell at movie heroes to die horrible deaths.  I don't know what I'm doing half the time because I'm torn, seams ripping, ribs fracturing, between the sweet and happy and tough and dark parts of my psyche.

It's been impossible to reconcile the two images I have of myself: The first me that wears sundresses, white sandals and permanent toothy smiles and dances through grassy fields at sunset.  The second me that smirks, one eyebrow raised, through dagger sharp remarks and drinks clear liquor out of water bottles at punk shows.
How could those two personalities ever be friends nevertheless the same person?  How can other be people be friends with that person, with me?

So I hide.  I melt in to the corner of the couch, read twelve books, pile dishes in the sink and fuel myself with gallons of coffee.  Jon has stopped trying to approach me gently, no longer quietly rapping on my book covers for attention but yelling "I miss you!  Why won't you talk to me?  Pay attention to me.  Put down your books."  I give him dirty looks and lift the pages up higher over my eyebrows.

Its easier to slouch back in to corners than to embrace the possibility of things that hurt like rejection and disappointment.  Except this is completely illogical and, ironically, it really hurts.  So I just become disappointed in myself, and it's a vicious cycle of hurting then hiding to just hurt and hide some more.


I need to get the fuck over this.