[Dusk's Scrapbook] New beginnings

by **Dusk** on January 4th, 2011, 3:27 am

Hello my darlings!

I have one week until I go to Asia on vacation - only a week! So hard to believe I'm about to travel all the way across the world. I've never done anything like it before, so this should be fun.

If anyone wants a postcard from Singapore or Indonesia, send a PM with your address to my Murdoch account (just so I don't get it mixed up with any official stuff in my inbox) and I'll send you something from tropical locations!

Otherwise, I'll likely be offline from the 11th to the 17th, but will be back on again after that. I will try to get everything replied to before I go, but if you need anything special, just let me know!

by **Dusk** on February 2nd, 2011, 12:13 pm

Hey guys!

Quick update: I've been horrifically jet-lagged since I got back last week. I'm sleeping about three hours a night even with the help of things like Tylenol PM. I've had a headache for the last four days and my entire body hurts like someone ran me over with a car, and I kinda feel like I'm going mad. All that to say, I can't really write right now. But as soon as I find a friend with some Ambian and get a full night's sleep, I'll be back and will reply to everything. In the meantime, I'm going to stare blankly at my ceiling and hate everything for a few more hours.

by **Markus Andres** on February 2nd, 2011, 9:56 pm

Sounds terrible dear Sel

I hope you get well soon

by **Dusk** on March 9th, 2011, 1:03 pm

I realized I should probably update my scrapbook when I'm doing something other than going offline or generally sucking. So yeah. Here goes.

I have been utterly without creativity for the last two weeks, and am trying desperately to kick-start my brain so it'll get to working again. I started a Tumblr account to help with that, and finding neat images or stories has helped a little. It's gotten me interested in looking for my muse, instead of just quietly hating her while she flirts with other girls.

But I got a 100 on my one psych test, and I feel good about the other one. Now I just have my African American Politics midterm and my next Spanish test, and then I'm good for a few more weeks.

And in other news, I'm just desperately waiting for next week to roll around so I can drive down to see Dani and Katie, and bask in warm sunshine and soak my body in booze and dance around in my underpants with them. I feel like that's what I need right now. I feel like that's what I need every day.

So yes, that's pretty much what's going on with me. Yay!

by **Dusk** on March 13th, 2011, 4:22 pm

I woke up this morning to my phone ringing and my mother calling me before noon, which is against the rule of "don't call Selena before noon because you'll wake her up," but I picked up anyway because I wasn't completely asleep.

Half an hour of conversation later, we have this exchange. Remember that I'm now 30 years old, and my mom turns 52 tomorrow.* Please keep in mind that we were giggling the entire time:

Mom: So I take it you're not seeing anyone?
Me: No. God, I haven't even been on a date since... um, I don't remember. October? I think. I got busy with school, and just haven't cared enough. Dating takes effort. I like no effort.
Mom: It's okay. You've got a cat.
Me: ...and now the full glory of how pathetic I am has been reveled to me. Thanks for that, now I have to go get a fucking date.

(and later, after the talk deteriorated into wild hypotheticals about what my desperation would lead to)

Me: I could always get knocked up.
Mom: Do you want a kid?
Me: God no. Do you want me to have a kid?
Mom: GOD NO!!!
(pause)
Mom: I mean, not right now.
Me: Yeah, I don't think I can fit a crib in my 10x20 room. How about I just have a kid and give it to you? Then we can be a traditional Southern family, just fifteen years too late.
Mom: Well, you know, after you graduate you can move back down here and work at the hospital with your brother and, you know... have babies.
Me: Just tell him to have another one. He's already got four, he won't notice.
Mom: I suppose you could get married first.
Me: Oh yeah, because finding a husband is SO MUCH EASIER than getting knocked up. And I totally dig the guys with two divorces under their belts and no teeth. I could just scope out the honky-tonks and be all "Hey darlin', I like yer camo. You wanna buy me a Coors Light?"
Mom: They're not all like that!
Me: The ones who are my age or older are. Oh! Or I could just cougar it up. Catch 'em straight out of high school. "Are you 18? Hot. Get in my truck."

At this point we both dissolved into hysterical laughter and couldn't talk anymore.

So, yep. That, combined with all the pics of people in the Who Are You thread, has me a little nostalgic about high school and my younger years. So here is a pic of me from tenth grade:

Okay. I'ma go back to posting now. Srsly.

*As I was writing this, I realized that she sneakily called me on the day before her birthday to see if i would wish her happy birthday, because I always forget and call her three days later. She once called me ON her birthday to see if I would wish her happy birthday, and I just had an hour long conversation with her and was like "Okay, love you! Bye!" because I am an asshole with no calendar. But i just remembered, and caught her in her trickery! Wily, that one. Which is where I get it from.

by **Stitch** on March 13th, 2011, 6:40 pm

Me: The ones who are my age or older are. Oh! Or I could just cougar it up. Catch 'em straight out of high school. "Are you 18? Hot. Get in my truck."

-happily climbs in- <3

by **Dusk** on March 16th, 2011, 3:27 am

I just read the most amazing thing I've ever read, and I wanted to share it with everyone.

From The Rumpus:

Dear Sugar,

I read your column religiously. I’m 22. From what I can tell by your writing, you’re in your early 40s. My question is short and sweet: what would you tell your 20-something self if you could talk to her now?

Love,
Seeking Wisdom

Dear Seeking Wisdom,

Stop worrying about whether you’re fat. You’re not fat. Or rather, you’re sometimes a little bit fat, but who gives a shit? There is nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact that her stomach is round. Feed yourself. Literally. The sort of people worthy of your love will love you more for this, sweet pea.

In the middle of the night in the middle of your twenties when your best woman friend crawls naked into your bed, straddles you, and says, You should run away from me before I devour you, believe her.

You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with someone you love. You don’t need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn’t mean you’re incapable of real love or that you’ll never love anyone else again. It doesn’t mean you’re morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That’s all. Be brave enough to break your own heart.

When that really sweet but fucked up gay couple invites you over to their cool apartment to do ecstasy with them, say no.

There are some things you can’t understand yet. Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding. It’s good you’ve worked hard to resolve childhood issues while in your twenties, but understand that what you resolve will need to be resolved again. And again. You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.

One evening you will be rolling around on the wooden floor of your apartment with a man who will tell you he doesn’t have a condom. You will smile in this spunky way that you think is hot and tell him to fuck you anyway. This will be a mistake for which you alone will pay.

Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet.

You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.

One hot afternoon during the era in which you’ve gotten yourself ridiculously tangled up with heroin you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She’ll offer you one of the balloons, but you won’t take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do.

Your assumptions about the lives of others are in direct relation to your naïve pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you.

When you meet a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant who later kisses you while explaining that this kiss doesn’t “mean anything” because, much as he likes you, he is not interested in having a relationship with you or anyone right now, just laugh and kiss him back. Your daughter will have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes.

The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.

One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when your mother gives you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don’t look at her skeptically after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for you. Don’t hold it up and say it’s longer than you like your coats to be and too puffy and possibly even too warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That coat will be the last gift she gave you. You will regret the small thing you didn’t say for the rest of your life.

Say thank you.

Yours,
Sugar

by **Dusk** on March 31st, 2011, 11:06 pm

In which I get all emo for no reason

So this has been a weird week.

This weekend I got a new certification for pre-hospital training and life support, which ended up being kind of a sham but I still got my certificate so I don't actually care. It was free, and that's all mama needs right now.

On Tuesday morning, one of my very good friends had her apartment building burn to the ground. Four alarm fire, 39 FDNY trucks responding, and it took them almost five hours to put it out. She has nothing, absolutely nothing, except for friends who love her and want to help. It's an incredibly eye-opening thing. And it also makes me want to buy renter's insurance.

My uterus tried to kill me again, one of the worst times in memory, and I'm starting to suspect that if I don't get health insurance soon, my insides are just gonna explode in a final, horrifying anime-esque death scene. So I've basically been laying in bed miserable all week, except for the few times I played DA:O and stared at the dirty dishes in the sink before deciding to go back to bed. But I'm trying to get a job, so here's hoping it's one with benefits.

Along the same vein of jobs and stuff, my parents have quite graciously offered to help me buy a car since it's almost impossible to work for an ambulance company in this city without one. Most of the bases are out in the middle of nowhere, and take about three hours to get to by public transportation. One way. Which automatically turns a 12 hour shift into an 18 hour day. So now I'm looking into finding a car, and buying insurance, and all the things that go along with owning a car which I've never done before in my life. And while I'm really excited about it, I'm also panicking a little, because I feel like I'm suddenly hitting another milestone in life or something, and I don't know why but it makes me incredibly nervous. Which has added to the impetus for me not to get out of bed. As does the rainy, disgusting weather.

I forget who I was talking to, but I told someone that I sometimes just have a daily goal of getting out of bed and getting dressed, and some days that's actually a hard goal to achieve - and they looked at me like I was completely off my rocker. Seriously, people, depression doesn't just mean being sad all the time - sometimes it means you're not sad at all, you just can't climb out from under the covers. It means you avoid life and skip classes and don't do your laundry when you should, or eat anything other than peanut butter sandwiches, or don't reply to posts even though you know you should and you feel like a complete and total asshole when you don't which just compounds the problem. Or sometimes it means watching three seasons of a tv show so that when you're done, you can look at yourself in the mirror and say "Okay, I let you do that, but now it's done. Get moving." Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't.

But either way, it's something that many people go through. I don't fool myself into thinking I'm the only one who's ever felt this way, or that no one will ever understand me. You only do that when you're young, and I'm too old for that shit. Of course, that's likely why I'm smart enough now to just ride it out, and know that if I give it a few days it'll pass and I can get on with my life. I used to hate myself for feeling this way, but I know now that it's simply the way I am, the way my body works, and hating myself won't do any good at all. Accepting myself, though, that helps. Giving myself space to recharge and get past it, and knowing that I'll come out the other side and likely be a little bit better for it, that helps too.

Oh, and cheesecake. Shhh. That's my secret.

by **Dusk** on April 8th, 2011, 12:43 am

I've been obsessed with this song since a friend showed me the video for it a week ago. Just thought I'd share it.

Also, since it's been a while since I posted a picture, here is one that Jenny took of me being sassy:

Fear my sass, people. FEAR IT.

by **Dusk** on April 10th, 2011, 5:35 am

So, I've pulled out of the ultra-emo phase, thank fucking god. There's nothing worse than self-indulgence, but we all have to do it sometimes. No regrets, my loves, no regrets.

Anyway, it's time to make some changes. I find that when the worst is over, a good change will put the final nail in the coffin of badness. I have officially put away all of my winter clothing except a select few sweatshirts, and have hung up all my bright, colorful, sleeveless, low-cut tops in preparation for Spring. Maybe if I dress the part, the weather will comply, hmm? I've also decided that nose ring wasn't really working, and got rid of that. I've got new tattoos, so that's a check. I will likely get another ear piercing in the next week. I've started back at the gym as of today, and will begin the Couch to 5K program with the help of Christine's awesome podcast for the program, in which you pretend you are being chased by zombies, complete with creepy soundtrack and her narrating when you are to run or walk according to the outline.

I am also down to my last jar of hair dye, which I will be using on Monday, which means I'll have a decision to make very soon. And that's where you lovely people come in! I was trying to figure out what to do with my hair after next week, and I figured I'd ask you guys. So! There are two questions put before you: should my hair be long or should I cut it short again, and should I stick with the orange, go back to my natural black, or try something else? I was gonna make a poll for this, but I felt like a self-obsessed douchebag anyway, and a whole new thread just for my vanity was a bit much. So. Opinions, people. You can has them. I want them.

Here are some example pics of what I have looked like with various colors and lengths:

Long and orange :

Short and orange :

Long and black :

Short and black :

Some other thingee :

So yes. Those are the choices, folks. Comments are appreciated, and since I'm fairly blase about it and just want to do something, it'll likely be either majority rule or the most convincing argument, depending on how I feel. I reserve the right to be fickle. After all, I'm still a woman.