Art in the suburbs

.beginning.

So I grew up in this very untraditional type of family. At least it seemed untraditional to me. While all the kids I grew up with were going to church on Sunday mornings and their parents had these corporate jobs my parents were sleeping in until 1pm because they had played gigs the night before. My parents were in a band together all throughout my childhood years. My mom was the lead singer and my dad was the keyboard player. It was like Sonny and Cher and growing up in that environment I didn't know any better. I thought it was normal to hang out as a 8 year old in a smoky bar, and listen to really loud blues music until all hours of the night. I slept in the back of vans a lot, vans that were hauling musical equipment back and forth.

When I was 12 my parents divorced and I moved to a new town where I didn't know anyone. When asked in class what my parents did for a living, I always replied with, "they are musicians." I think at the time it was a little embarrassing. Most of my friends parents assumed my parents were these insane hippies that just couldn't get over their past, but I was lucky enough to be transported to a town where hippie was the norm. I wasn't an overly intelligent kid. I had street smarts, and I knew how to talk to people of all ages, but when it came to school, I just didn't have the passion. To be real honest, I still don't. It's always been one of those things I was just wasn't exceptional at. There were time periods I tried real hard to make all A's and be that kid, but I never was. I think my parents realized how smart I was, but how unmotivated at the same time. I would always say things like "I'm going to graduate high school Valedictorian and go to Princeton when I grow up". My parents are realists and would always say, "You might want to aim a little lower."

My step mom and I adopted the phrase "Aim low so if you do well you'll be pleasantly surprised." I still hold true to those words.

I was a kid who if I knew I wasn't good at something I just wouldn't do it or I would quit soon after realizing how unnatural it was for me. I was in ballet for a year, then quit because it was too girly for me, I was in girl scouts, and quit after 4 months because "it was boring." Choir I quit because I didn't want to learn how to sight read, theater I quit because there were other people who were better than me. All things that with more training and force I could have been incredible at, all things that I wish I would have continued to do because thinking now, I probably had a lot of fun doing those things.

There were also a ton of things I wanted to do, but never did out of fear of being bad. Like painting and writing more. Even little things like exercising. I know, isn't that insane. I didn't know how to use the equipment at the gym, so I wouldn't go in fear of looking like an idiot. Fear for the last 21 years has ruled my life. The fear of rejection, the fear of letting myself down. I think that's why I haven't buckled down and finished school, fear of their not being anything after school is done. Or maybe fear of still not being happy when I've finished what I wanted to accomplish.

So about 2 years ago, I started dating this guy. It started off rocky, and looked like it wasn't going to go anywhere. Most of the guys I've dated are unmotivated or can't figure out what they want in life, and with a girl who is unmotivated and can't figure out what she wants in life, it's not a good idea to date someone thats swimming in the same pool. Eventually you will both drown. So we'll call him George. George is incredible. He's got this great career, and I mean career. Not a job that's just wasting his time until he finds some other shitty place that will pay him more money or where the boss won't be a dick anymore. He's on a salary and he's doing something he enjoys, something that pushes him and something that he wants to do for the rest of his life. He's not finished with school, but to me the fact that he isn't done with school and he's still going everyday chopping out a little more every year to eventually finish means more. God knows that if I were doing something more enjoyable I don't know that I would have the ability to stay in school. I'd get too frustrated. But he wants that degree, he wants to be able to say he finished. Which he should be commended for.

So George has all these hobbies. All these things he enjoys doing, even if he's not awesome at them. He likes playing video games, drawing, designing websites, blogging, making art, learning about movies, and music. He doesn't have a lot of time for these things but he enjoys them non-the-less, and he never gives up on them. They are always there in the back of his brain, telling him that they want a little more of his time, even if he has to ignore them for months on end. He always comes back to them.

I'm always mentioning things I'd like to do, and he's always telling me to give them a try, but I usually just ignoring him, because my brains response is "Oh, God, don't do THAT, you're not nearly creative enough for THAT!!!"

So I'm big on New Years. Maybe I'm bigger on starting over, and reinventing myself. Every year I want a new and improved me to come out and shine bigger and brighter than the dimness of the year before. So 2008 hit. A difficult year for me. The year I should be graduating and starting a new life. But I realized at 11:45pm on the 31st of December amidst all my drunkenness that I can't just sit around and wait for the world to reward me for the things I'm not doing. Like God's going to hand me the keys to a Mercedes Benz, a college degree from Georgetown and a job interning for MSNBC. I have to go out and get those things. I have to figure out how to make myself better, to learn those things I always pushed away from me, cause maybe they will inspire me, maybe they will make me better.

So I signed up for a class this semester, that before dating George, I would have never in a million years even thought about taking. There are no books involved, and it's very hands on, which scares the bejesus out of me. DESIGN 1. I've always wanted to paint, like I mentioned before, and in this class I knew there would be a little of that, so while that was a scary idea, it was still very appealing at the same time.

I started my painting today. It's very obviously that I'm new, and not very good, but I'm enjoying it none the less. And so maybe, life isn't just about being good at everything you do, maybe it's just about what makes you happy. This will the biggest lesson of all for me.

I'm off to eat a bowl of two day old spaghetti and see if there are any reruns of Americas Next Top Model.

.end.

The first of many.

.beginning.

It hit me today. How I'm 21, and the strangest girl I've ever met.

Most of the girls I know are in the same type of boat I'm in, they are trying to figure out who they are. That's understandable. At 21 it's time to START growing up and figure out what is in the great unknown. I was a over zealous teenager and stressed at 14 about what I was going to do for the rest of my life. While that's sometimes normal, I remember being so incredibly distressed when I realized that what I had planned to be "when I grew up" wasn't going to pan out. This happened a few times.

It started with meteorologist. I think I was 10 and told my parents "I want to be a weather girl". It was just what I wanted to do. I wanted to report the weather every night to people of the DFW area. HA!

Then came actress! Typical I know. What 13 year old girl doesn't want to be a famous actress?
I wanted to be a stage actress. I think I was having such a good time being on stage I didn't realize how unpractical it was for me. There were all these other girls and guys around me who were just so much more talented and so much more passionate about theater. I loved doing it, but there was something missing and I could just not figure out what that link was.

My sophomore year in high school a new friend of mine told me to join the school newspaper. I didn't really have a lot of friends in high school and the aspect of making a new one was worth joining some class I had no interest in. So I signed up and the first day of class our sponsor asked me what I wanted to write. I told her I liked movies and music a lot, not dare thinking that on my first day I would get to write what I wanted to. Although to my surprise, no one else wanted to write about entertainment. So I got the entire page to myself. A free page to write whatever I wanted about the entertainment world. I won a few awards that year for my page, but what I gained the most, was this experience. This love for the written word. The fact that I could write something and 1000 kids would pick it up 6 times a year and read it. Yeah, this is slim pickins' I know, but it felt so real, and so right.

So I'm four years out of high school. I'm supposed to be wrapping up my last semester in college and going on to grad school in the fall. But here I am, working for one of the biggest, hypocritical companies in the world, and taking as many hours at a local community college as I can fit in to my 40 hour work week without pulling ALL my hair out of my head.

This wasn't where I was supposed to be. I'm supposed to be just arriving back from my semester abroad in Italy or India and just starting my internship with Congressman So and So. Taking a small course load because I was able to do so much with my previous semesters that I only need 9 hours to graduate and my grades are top notch. They are enough to get me into grad school at Georgetown where I will be starting my Masters in International Studies in the fall of 08'.

Instead theres less than 40 hours complete on my transcript and nothing to show for the last 4 years I've spent working full time, except this tiny 1 bedroom apartment and my cat who eats too much. No sir, this is not how I imagined myself at 21.

Now, I get it. I'm very young in the wide spectrum of things. I just last year learned how to drink legally. But as a 21 year old you look around, you see people like Miley Cyrus selling millions of albums and selling out stadiums all over the country at 16. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be a pop superstar, but it would be nice every once in a while to not worry about the financial part of life. Ha!

So here it is. My life's goal. I want to be Tim Russert. Ha. Hell, I'd settle to meet Tim Russert. He's one bad ass dude, and if I could spend every Sunday with fellow news commentators, political leaders, and national figureheads, it would start off every week with a bang.

So there's a little about me. I'll try to bitch less about my life and a little more about the thing that drives me, politics.

Read, comment, bitch right back, put me in my place, I love constructive criticism, but most of all enjoy. This year is going to be a bumpy ride.

.end.