Re-vamp

So. I'm wondering what to do with this blog. Either leave it here and move to another one, or re-vamp this one in the new year to discuss what I really want to talk about. The question, however, is this: what do I want to talk about?

I, myself, right now, am all of the following:

a writer
a friend
a daughter
a girlfriend
a runner
a cyclist
a car-less Angeleno (but more so a Valley girl)
a dance freak
a reader
a gym rat
a reccesionista (hello, fashion)
a learner

I love to eat, go to museums, watch movies, go to concerts, garden, shop, play with patterns, analyze friendships/relationships/media, go to clubs. What in the world do I focus on?

Very few readers of mine, in this last week of 2009, I will figure it out. And in 2010, hopefully you will have some thick juicy content to use and inform others to your heart's content.

Soggy, unromantic me

There was a time when I considered rain to be romantic. When I was a little girl I used to wander out in our prone-to-flooding family backyard in waterproof boots and what - a nightshirt? Flannel pants? School clothes? - I'd often wade in the marshy portions of grass, whose organism count had risen with the inches of rainwater... and while everyone else in the neighborhood would be lining their abodes with sandbags, I would be in the grass, wondering what it would be like if John Malkovich as Mr. Hyde would spirit me away from the Valley to the wet, foggy streets of 19th century London to the life of God knows what unspeakable horror.

Yes, conveniently, I would have just watched "Mary Reilly" for perhaps the fourth or fifth time. So maybe I have major issues as to what I find romantic.

As a woman, I can admire greatly the typical idea of romance from afar. Not to say that, as a woman, I am a sentimental fiend, but I can appreciate the things that make one go "aww", since most of life's routine ins and outs don't behold that response. I'd say my favorite recollection of romance would be roses sent to a co-worker on her birthday. Who couldn't notice the contrast of golden yellow petals flecked with red, just sitting there against the grey-beige of her desk. I've never received roses at work before, and that's okay. I've received reciprocated rated-X text messages, but that's about it.

Friggin' romance: in conversations with others, it seems I'm a little jaded for my twenty-something profile when it comes to things like hand-holding, lip-locking, gift-giving, and interpersonal exchanges of words. It's beyond obvious how I'd like to think that romance isn't chocolates or diamonds or hand holding in public places. Whatever, however. Familiarity, camaraderie, in the muck with me. This is romance... unless I'm entirely mistaken?

Bonus round: What do you define as "romantic"?

I'm kinda busy (but not really)

It's not exactly been public knowledge, but I was laid off a week ago tomorrow. I'd known for about 3.5 months prior. Even still, it's been an interesting ride, the aftermath. Work, as much as I despised what the company I worked for became, was something that I did every day, something that I was good at, and something that I was thankful to bring a paycheck home from.

It's been nearly a week, and I've done all the things I wished I could've done from the confines of my cubicle: cleaned, done laundry, rode my bike, run, gone to the mall, to the movies, to the bank - hell, yesterday a friend and I went to City Hall for a meeting on cycling and transportation. I think I've done it all. Tomorrow I intend to meet my boyfriend for lunch and spend the better part of the weekend with him.

I've got so much time and I don't know what to do with it.

If anything, I hope in the next month to:

train my body to be accustomed to higher speeds on my bicycle
to write, write, write, no matter what it is
to ride, ride, ride, no matter where or for whatever reason
to help put together one of the floats for the upcoming Tournament of Roses
to organize my closet and donate whatever I don't want to the Salvation Army
and to learn to make meals to nourish both myself and my roommates, because why the hell not?

Other than that... I think that save for education, the internet, electricity, and other modern conveniences, I might go crazy.

/cry for help

Really?

I just wanted to say that I'm happy to be viewed as a writer by my friends and fellow writers and others who - dare I say - depend on feedback, on analyzation. I am thankful for retaining a pseudo-creative way in validating a bias without the one reading being the wiser. I am happy to promote those I want to see do well, so long as the favor is returned (credit on a first and last name basis, please). Despite my doubts about my work and my relative ability, something tells me that this is standard criteria, this distrust and disbelief in self. I don't believe in fate, but I do believe that so long as someone has the drive, most anything is possible.

Yeah, I said it.