Childhood Ambition

When I was a kid my mom and I used to drive around after church each Sunday and go to model homes. My mom would see what was trendy and try to find something similar at yard-sales or discount stores. I would make notes, in my planner (because I had one of those, I bought it with birthday money), about what details I liked and what I thought was tacky. I never really liked the decor in model homes, but I did love bay windows and sunken living rooms and arched doorways.

My mom has always wanted a large house, one of those McMansions that she has spent so many years cleaning. But the realtors who were always present at model homes didn't know what my mom did. To them we were just some lady and her odd daughter taking notes. Between these homes and the ones I saw in coffee table books, I was set on being an Architect for a very long time.

My mom was raised really poor, and I think she's always been fascinated by what people with money look like and buy. It was important to her when I was coming up that I looked a certain way, not just because she didn't like my torn up jeans and band-tees or ragged hoodie, but because in her day I would have looked poor. It didn't matter that I fit in with most kids my age, it wasn't "nice." This was with all things. My brother once told me it bothered him that people assumed our family had more than we did because of the way my sisters and I were dressed. I felt similarly, our duplex seemed inadequate compared to all my friends' homes.

I kept my notes and would go home and draw a blueprint. The concept of designing an entire house didn't really hit until I was older, so I had all these drawings of my ideal room. When I was around ten my dad bought me Sierra Home Architect, a computer program that allowed you to design buildings. I didn't have video games, but I had that and I would spend hours designing my dream house (it would have an octagon foyer based my earliest designs). 

My parents encouraged this as much as they could, which included taking me to several of Frank Lloyd Wright's homes. I wrote my fifth grade SOL essay about Taliesin West -- I got a perfect 600. Three years later I was accepted into an engineering program at my high school and did that for two years before I realized how much I hated drafting in CAD and Visio. But I would still sketch things in my notebooks next to terrible poetry. 

I spent last year living by myself in a studio and didn't realize it for some time, but that was the first childhood ambition that came true. All those sketches of my ideal room were finally brought to life. A single room, arranged precisely how I had envisioned it. Split up into a bedroom area, a dining area, a living room area -- there was a system and it felt like more than just a large blank room. I think Frank Lloyd Wright would have approved. 

It seems so silly, but I spent the first two decades of my life just wanting a giant room to call my own. Then I had it, and wanted it somewhere else. 

Your Hair is Stupid

My mom is not good at hair, and was terrible at doing others' hair, specifically mine. She would either put my hair in hot rollers and then brush the curl out until it was a massive, wavy ball of static, or she would brush it while I cried. I had very fine, tangly hair and  brushing it was never an enjoyable experience -- this was probably why I became interested in hair in the first place, to avoid tears. 

These are fucking terrible. All of them. Anytime.

My mom did know how to use hair-pins and bobby-pins though. I'll give her that. But I figured everything else out on my own. This isn't to say that my mom isn't feminine and all that, she is. She could do her hair just fine (though in limited variety), she just couldn't do others'. My sisters weren't much use either. They can both work it out when they want to, but I am better. They earned their varsity letters, I got my cosmetology license.

I understand that most people, did not spend their Saturday mornings as a child sitting on their beds with two mirrors and several combs teaching themselves how to French braid. I get that. However, I also am saddened by women everywhere who have never taken the time to learn how to do their hair in any way. It's as though they have never taken a single Saturday morning in their lives to figure out what to do with everything growing out of their heads. So they put it in claw. Then to make up for their complete ineptitude they spend time picking out "cute" hair clips. These clips continue to be popular because people continue to think hair is hard to do.

This isn't 1998, pulling your hair back with glittery butterfly clips isn't going to cut it if you want anyone, anywhere to respect you as an adult. You look like a child whose parents have unfortunately also not figured it out. It takes every fiber of my being to not pluck out hair clips when I see them on adult women. I just figure whatever they've go going on is definitely not being helped by that wretched clip. I do do this sometimes to friends and acquaintances, the recipients aren't ever welcoming, but it makes me feel like I've made the world a slightly more aesthetically pleasing place.


PROTIPS:

Ponytails should not require combing, nor should one have a multitude of clips to "smooth out the bumps" all over their head. Flip your head over, pull your hair back. Voila. It might not be perfect at first, but a ponytail should never take more than thirty seconds to do, if that. (Don't feed me any of that bullshit about having a different hair type, either.)

Braids are simple, unless you have absolutely no dexterity in your fingers. Three sections. Right over center. Left over (the new) center. Until it's done. BOOM.

Buns, of all varieties, no matter the hair type, are simple if you know the difference between hair-pins and bobby-pins. Just twist your hair around and pin it until it doesn't move, and you like it. If you do this enough, you'll figure what you're naturally inclined to do, and it will get easier. I promise.

This is a hair-pin - use this to hold hair to other hair.

This is a bobby-pin - use this to hold hair to your head.

Bum-fight

Today, as I was waiting for my lunch order to come up, I saw a man walk into the cafe. He was tall with long, dirty, blond hair. He filled two cups at the soda fountain, under the suspicion of the buss boy, and returned to his table outside. My order came up and I found a table over from him.

I had just started to eat my grilled cheese when I heard someone shouting in Chinese. It was a small man shouting at the first man's dog. 

I'm not really sure exactly how things went about, but the dog started barking at the Chinese man, which led him to kick at the dog. In turn, the first man pushed him a way, and they ended up in an all-out brawl. Security cards came to break it up, the cops followed, and a handful of people were recording the whole thing on their phones.

I felt like an jerk just sitting there, eating my sandwich, but I didn't know what to do. I thought about  calling the cops, but they'd already been called several times (people kept announcing that they had or were going to call). I thought about moving, but it seemed like a bad idea at the time. So I sat, and ate my sourdough grilled cheese sandwich as each suspect and and excited witnesses were questioned.

People are such assholes. 

Written with Writer's Block

My school is on a quarter system, so we have classes for ten weeks followed by a three week break. It's a portfolio program and hopefully by the end of it I'll be a decent copywriter. I'm closing in on the end of my second quarter and all my final projects are due this week. I'm busy and totally blocked.

I keep beginning things, deleting them, starting again, and making lists. Nothing is getting done. I keep hoping that maybe if I can get some time by myself that I'll be more relaxed and will be able to organize my thoughts. That hasn't happened. 

I think I started this post about six times. 

Everyone this quarter seems to be on the fritz. I felt that way last quarter. No one is sure if our program will be worth it, or if moving here was the right thing to do, or if they should be closer to their families, and a million other things. I do miss my family, and going out and knowing people already, and living by myself, but overall my anxiety levels are down - I haven't had a single panic attack since I moved here, and I'm finally somewhat content, approaching happy, with most of my life. 

I go out more now than I did when I first moved here, but significantly less than I did in Richmond. I was really concerned about meeting people when I got here, and getting along with the people who are also in my quarter.  They have degrees, some multiple degrees, speak other languages, have travelled, some are married, some have worked in ad agencies before, and overall I felt like a fish out of water. I don't feel that way anymore. 

I'm starting to feel more confident, though more critical of my work. I'm finding it easier to manage my feelings, and I know that to manage my sanity I can't stay home all day just because I don't have class. This was hard at first, but has become easier. When I start to feel overwhelmed I go for a walk, or to a park (luckily I live really close to two). Despite not being able to write in this moment, I feel more focused about my life. 

Focus is a strange thing to have. I've never really had this kind of direction before, or drive - I've always wanted to succeed, and I think of life as some absurd competition, but being around other people who were cut from that cloth is new for me. I like it. 

For the first time in my life things seem to be happening. 

OCD: Part 2

I'm pretty good at falling asleep, anywhere. I take a nap at school at least once a week and have no problem sleeping in moving vehicles. Lately though, I've had difficulty due to OCD's white noise machine. He gets up about 239847 times between 11 pm and 2 am.

I start to doze off. (whirrrrr) OCD goes to the bathroom and leaves his door open. Then I have to go to the bathroom. And then the cycle repeats itself about four more times. 

My body has started associating that fucking noise with bathroom usage. 

And it is constant. 

In addition to being able to sleep anywhere, can hold it for hours. I drove across the country and would only stop if we reached out destination for the day - I am excellent on road trips. So this needing to go four times before I finally fall asleep is new. I try talking myself out of it, and then I go anyway, just because. 

The other night, I kept waiting for the noise to stop when he closed his door, but it didn't. So I got up and closed his door, because only God knows how long he was going to be in the bathroom this time. I think he got the hint, because it hasn't happened since that night. 

But the incessant whirr is grating. It's not just when he's sleeping, it's all the time. It's how I know he's home - that and all the locks I have to unlock when I get home. I don't see the point in locking doors when everyone is home during the day. (Nevermind the fact that we live in kind of a weird spot and I'm pretty sure there isn't another soul who is aware of these apartments who hasn't lived here.) 

The whirr swallows all other noise. If I'm listening to a record, and he opens his door, WHIRRRRRRRR. If I'm doing dishes, WHIRRRRRRR. If I'm watching Hulu, in my room with my door closed WHIRRRRRR. 

WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

IT DOES NOT STOP. 

We've discussed this briefly, it's relaxing, to him and no one else who spends time here. People always ask what that noise is. It's this machine that my roommate finds calming... Yeah, okay. 

I used to have an issue with silence, but I find any sort of constant noise to be more irritating that helpful. Everyone hates that person who taps their pen in an otherwise silent room. It's like that. Except Darth Vader is breathing behind you, and you can't kill him because that dude you live with likes to cuddle with him until he falls asleep.