Pretension is But a Pretense for the Ignorant

DAY WHATEVER: It Doesn't Matter, Because The Pauper is Dropping the Paup

As we go through life, the paths and goals we set out for ourselves ebb and flow as flippantly as the tides.  A year and some odd weeks ago, I set out to write a blog about the striking life decision I made to quit a job of unrest and pursue anew.  And as I venture further away from that decision, it becomes less a defining factor of my life, and just what it is.  A choice.

With that, I am making a choice about this blog.  It will no longer be a reflection of that change, but a space to put the proverbial pen to paper (or fingers to keys, as technology would have it.)

So instead of talking about some grand self discovery, I'm going to discuss a film.

Last night, after a not so long day at work, I came home to do some laundry at the non-peak hour of 11:00 p.m.  Instead of filling my time with sit-com reruns or inconsequential ambient television like Chopped, I decided to delve into the meat.  So I used the powers of the Internet to watch Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin.

The "plot" is simple (I used quotes because the plot would make a first year screenwriter's head spin.)  An alien seductress arrives in Glasgow with one mission: Harvest men.  For what?  It doesn't matter.  Because the film isn't about the alien's mission at all.  Only halfway through the film do we get a glimpse at any sort of plotted conflict.  The alien wants to know what it's like to be human.

Immediately after watching the film, my mouth hung open like a bass who had given its final breath.  Filled with scenes about the environment, focusing on moments where 2 + 2 = 5; it felt like an undertaking as a viewer.  An arduous task not meant for an Internet grown audience with the attention span of a gerbil on mescaline.

I needed to decompress.  Without a companion to discuss the film's merits, I needed to seek solace in the comment boards of strangers.  And what did I find?  A mixture of people praising its audacity combined with people disparaging it for its pretentiousness.

I remember the early stages of my humble cinephile beginnings.  She's a girl who saw The Matrix at 12 years old but didn't understand it until she was forced to write a paper on it in college.  She's a girl who claimed Memento was her favorite movie, but couldn't describe the plot to her father at his behest.  She's a girl who fastforwarded through 2001: A Space Odyssey's "Starchild" sequence.  She's a girl who said things were great, but secretly thought they were bull shit.

Being someone who has spent the better part of her twenties trying to reverse this frame of thought, I can understand the gripes that Under the Skin is pretentious.  It spends half its running time showcasing the alien's prowess at bringing men back to her home.  It fetishizes the Scottish coastal landscapes.  It leaves blank spaces for our minds to fill.

But it also creates some of the most beautiful imagery and disturbing sequences I have ever seen.  The harvesting of the men, the couple lost at sea, the disfigured man.  These are scenes of beauty, imagination, and intent.

We dismiss things we don't understand as pretentious, because we don't want to be excluded.  No one wants to miss the point.  So it's easy to brush off a complicated film as "art house bull shit."  It gives us a feeling of superiority when, in fact, we feel anything but.

I'm not dismissing viewer's claims of pretension as unwarranted.  Perhaps it is.  But by all means, give yourself the service of justifying your perspective.  Don't live in a world on the defense.

However, as a former abuser of this defense mechanism, I can tell you that I've been listening to the music from this film this entire post.  I've been running through images in my head as I type.  I've been fighting back tears of revelatory beauty as I struggle to find the right way to express how I feel about this film.  If that sounds pretentious, then maybe that's the world I want to live in.  A world where art affects me.  Sends a jolt down my spine.  A world where I push myself to care.

Give Up or Get Out

DAY FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY: The Pauper Fights Her Demons... Or At Least Acknowledges Them

It's Halloween.  The time of year for spooky specters.  The bewitching hour.  The time where beloved childhood icons can be sexy.

But [whore]ific costumes aside, Halloween is a time to be scared.  So what better day to acknowledge the lurking demon inside me?  Self-doubt.

I've taken a hiatus from writing of late.  Not for lack of thought.  I've started numerous blog posts and have deleted them.  Why?  Because I've gotten lost.  Lost at sea.  Lost in terror.  Lost in a grocery store where my mom has to summon a security guard to blast my name over the same intercom they use to price check grapefruits.

I'm lost in self-doubt.

How do you overcome it?  In an Internet Age where literally every thing gets over-analyzed and criticized, creatives are becoming a target on the same page as Hitler or John Mulaney's disappointing new show.

When information is at our every fingertip, earbud, and sightline, every single person with some kind of gadget has free reign over their opinions echoing over space and time.  And it instills doubt.  Copious amounts of it.

How do you overcome it?

Every choice I seem to make in my writing endeavors comes fully equipped with an endless amount of uncertainty.  Sure, validation comes, but it never dulls the hot pain of that screaming incubus of self-doubt.

I don't know how to overcome it.

There are people who are talented and succeed tremendously.  And then there are talented people who languish.  There are untalented people who succeed.  And then there are untalented people who succumb to the drudgery of life.  Of course they do.  How else does the circle of life foster?

As time goes on, I find myself pulling away from society.  Pulling away from professing my feelings because they seem trite.  Pulling away from people I care about because disappointment lurks in every corridor.

I'm not sure this can be overcome easily.

So when you go to your parties and haunted houses this Hallow's Eve, maybe you shouldn't be so scared of goblins and vampires and visions of childhood innocence being grotesquely violated.  Because there's nothing scarier than the voice inside your head that tells you to stop.

Cool. Cool cool cool.

DAY THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SIX: The Pauper Gets David Caruso-Style Cool

Everybody wants to be cool.  Why not?  Even if you turn to gothic or punk rebellion, don't you do it to fit a new definition of the idea?  Nobody wants to reject the norm simply to have the ab-norm reject them.

But what is cool?  Obviously, there is no answer to this.  It's however you choose to perceive it.  But when information is limitlessly at your fingertips, eye sockets, and ear and nose holes, "what is cool" is constantly being blasted at you.

Take for instance the recent rise of The Ice Bucket Challenge.  It began as an idea to raise awareness for a disease that receives very little funding.  It gains speed on social media.  Begins popping up in your numerous feeds.  "Oh hey, what is that?  That's kind of interesting."

A once inoffensive idea in moderation, The Ice Bucket Challenge blew up astronomically.  My eye, ear, nose, and butt holes could hardly accomplish a thing without being inundated with a new video or article about The Challenge.

Suddenly, the meteoric rise to superstardom turned The Ice Bucket Challenge into something to rebel against.  It garnered too much popularity.  Regardless of the cause, it became a fad.  And fads - like the name Merv - aren't cool.

Enter backlash.  Too many people like something, which means I must dislike it.  It's a guttural instinct for many.  It's - admittedly - a guttural instinct for this author.  Like Katy Perry, velour tracksuits, Twitter, the "cinematic canon of Sir Michael Bay"; I choose to reject what's popular.

But where does backlash come from?  Why do we feel compelled to hate so many things simply because they are popular?  I once dated a guy who told me he started to dislike Arrested Development when it found its resurgence on DVD.  Because it wasn't "his own" and it was now popular.  The show didn't change (this is pre-Netflix era resurgence.)  But the show's constituents did.  Although the quality remains, the sheer fact that it becomes socially acceptable makes something revolting.

But the truth is, Katy Perry songs are catchy, velour tracksuits are comfy, Twitter can hone your wit like nothing else, and Michael Bay movies are...

Okay, so I can't defend everything.  I'm only one woman.

As for The Ice Bucket Challenge?  Its merits are obvious.  And after the backlash, the inevitable backlash to the backlash rears its face.  And suddenly (take a deep, satisfying breath of relief), it's cool to like The Ice Bucket Challenge again.  And we all start to remember why the whole thing started.

And now, just a few short weeks after its zenith, there are no more pictures.  No more videos.  No more backlash.  The fervor has settled, and the memory of it will fade.  Until Chad shows up at the Halloween party next month dressed in an ice bucket that he didn't fully think through.  But when you spot Chad across the room, cracking a joke about pumpkin spice lattes, what will you think? Is Chad's costume cool?  Or is it lame?

Connect Four!

DAY THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE: The Pauper Re-Evaluates the Essentials

If you died tomorrow, where would you define yourself?

It's a heavy thought, but as someone constantly floating through life searching for an answer to "why?", I think about this often.  Do we leave our mark on others?  Did others leave their mark on us?  Unless you were some kind of latchkey kid who never grew out of it, our lives are constantly echoed by the voices around us.

Relationships.  A bond between one individual and another.  Be it familial, friendship, romantic, or nemesis; our lives are constantly being molded by the people around us.

Last year, a friend posed the question to me; "If scoring the soundtrack of the movie of your first 25 years on the planet, what 4 to 5 songs capture the essence of your core periods?"  I opted for a full soundtrack in lieu of 4 to 5 songs.  My response was an amalgamation of intrepid battles with the opposite sex.  Songs ranging from an electro-pop declaration of loneliness to a meditation on unrequited love.  From a song dedicated to asking my crush to prom to a scene I've always wanted to write into a movie with a woman ridiculously bawling over a recently lost love.  There was a common link that my friend pointed out: Most of my songs revolved around the wounds bestowed upon me by the opposite sex.

It was a jolt.  The kind of jolt you always knew was lurking behind some lurid corner, but never noticed until someone pointed it out.  Like the smell of last night's booze on your breath as you walk into church.  So one question remained: Why did I place so much emphasis on spoiled goods?

As someone no longer self-conscious over the fact that she's never had a relationship, I have niente qualms about admitting all of my past loves have been unrequited.  And yet, I still defined myself by people who couldn't see the beauty I can see in myself.  Why?  Is it some kind of twisted low self-esteem logic buried deep within the teenager that never left?  Fabricated obsession?  A medieval torture device?

Because the thing is, I have had some amazing relationships in my life.  When I was ostracized for suicidal tendencies at age 14, one brave friend confided her personal travails so I didn't feel so alone.  I spent the past three and a half years living with a boy I befriended at age 15 when we both whole-heartedly believed we would be superstars by the age of 21.  I found my confidence in a girl I admired for years before we eventually studied abroad together.  I've had a mentor at work who taught me how to stand up for myself in the face of ugliness.  I've met partners who have nurtured my creativity.  And, oh yes, I met some guys who treated me like shit.  And yet, they are the ones whom I allowed to define my soundtrack.

There is so much beauty to be found in every single relationship we happen upon.  It's such a shame that the pop culture machine breeds [women] to believe the romantic relationships should dictate their lives.  I've spent countless nights sitting on a friends' porches, bearing my soul.  My dreams, my fears, my regrets, my shames, my past, my hopes, my embarrassing bowel movements.  My everythings.  Why do we not cherish these relationships the same way we do with the ones that turn so sour?

I pose this thought because I wonder if it's how the populous feels.  Because the media would lead us to believe so.  I spent some time watching trailers for upcoming cinematic features.  Anything with a female lead inevitably featured a woman toiling over her romantic woes.  Do women genuinely obsess about romance this much?  Or do we obsess about it because we've been programmed to believe it's our lot in life?

You know what I want to see?  More than anything.  I want to see a world where femme-centric films no longer center around the fallacy that women's relationships need to be defined by whom they are fucking.  Because as a woman who spent too much unsatisfying time doing said activity, I can tell the young girls of today the truth.

Relationship: The way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected.

Relationships will always define who we are.  Because the interactions we have in life will invariably affect the actions we take next.  But make no mistake; romantic relationships will define about 5% of the person you become (Scientific fact... Ish.)  As a woman who has very limited experience in relationships of the romantic persuasion, I can promise you that life continues to astound me.  The people I encounter and share my life with, well, those are the people who remind me to wake up in the morning.  That life can still amaze me.  And when two people meet and connect on a level that defies odds, well, that's what I live for.

Blackout

DAY THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR: The Pauper's Back Porch

What are earmarks of our lives?  Birthdays, New Years, and anniversaries.  These are randomly selected dates based on a calendar that dictate the passing of time.  But as days blur into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years; time becomes less visible in our memories.  It's harder to remember what year events occurred in my adult life without the demarkation of school years.  I became an adult at 18 - in 2005.  But I became an independent adult while living in this apartment.  This apartment I say goodbye to tomorrow.

As you get older, life becomes less about monumental dates and more about moments.  Like the moment you cut yourself off from your parents financially.  Or the moment you decided to fuck a life not worth living and start one that was.  Or the moments you spent on your back porch figuring out who you are.

Tonight, my last night in my apartment, I decided to have one final GrubHub food delivery to 3050 N Greenview.  Some fabulous (read: decent) Thai food.  I popped open my Netflix and put on a documentary.  Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me (a carryover from my recent 30 Rock re-binge).  After an hour and twenty minutes spent watching a woman contemplate her impending mortality (made all the more poignant after her recent death) by shuffling on with what she loves to do in sassy, brassy fashion; it made my forced reflection on this apartment much more imperative.

So onto the dirty work.  There was still some packing to be done.  I've spent the past couple of weeks slowly taking things from my shelves and cupboards and shoving them into boxes that I'll have to reopen like Christmas presents after you already peeked in the basement.  My kitchen has looked just a little barer.  My bathroom a wee bit more sparse.  Even the lack of furniture in our shared living room didn't seem to bother me.

But as I consolidated the bulk of my furniture into our dining room to make the moving process easier, I turned and looked at the nakedness of my bedroom and burst into tears.  A room that has shelved my memories, my personality, and my life for the past three and a half years was now just another blank slate for a new life to infiltrate.  It's not mine anymore.  The most stability I've had in my life in years is now gone.

I had to get out.  I grabbed my beer, my ipod, and my tears, and I headed outside.  To my back porch.

There it was.  Unchanged by packing.  Never big enough to furnish, I've always chosen to sit on the bare wood while sipping on my wine and staring off at the large tree whose outline looks like a cross between an Edgar Allen Poe and a Shel Silverstein poem.  I searched my ipod for the perfect song to calm me down, as I've done a thousand times before.  And there I sat.  Looking inside myself, trying to get a hold of my emotion.  Not to get rid of it.  Never to get rid of it.  Because it's on that porch, where all the tears and fears and anger were welcomed.  Where I learned to stop pushing my emotions out.  Where I finally understood that each and everything I feel can and will be used for good.  To spread to others like a promiscuous 15 year old with mono.  (Or maybe she's just someone who really likes to share her water bottle.  Who am I to judge?)

I spent years of my life trying to rid myself of my inner demons.  Therapy gone bad years ago made me believe that they were ridiculous.  My moodiness pushed people away.  It became a burden.  And I had to quash them.

But as I grew lonelier and lonelier, less reliant on friendships who found solace in significant others and lovers who found little solace in me, those demons became all I had.  So if they were there to stay, I might as well learn to live with them.  And once I grabbed ahold of them, I became more able to twist them and use them for my own gain.  To release them on the world.

My lonely nights on my back porch.  They made me who I am.  Time we spend with others can be magical.  But the time we spend with ourselves is essential.

So as I sat there, stumbling upon an old Muse song, I couldn't help but smile.  My tears evaporated on my cheeks as the cool Chicago wind blew them so only the salt remained.  "Don't grow up too fast / And don't embrace the past."  And on my back porch, I bid my apartment a humble good bye.  Not embracing the past, but simply utilizing it in the way it's - by nature - intended.  To be remembered.

This Must Be the Place

DAY THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINE: The Pauper Says Goodbye

And now, I say to you all, "Good bye."

I'm kidding.  I'm not going anywhere.  I'm just going to keep on waxing poetic regardless of whether you read or not.

Two parallel milestones are currently occurring in my life.  Friday, my parents closed on our house.  The house I grew up in.  The house I spent my adolescence.  The only place I've called home.

Until I found my home.

This Saturday, I will be leaving the apartment I have called home for three and a half years.  The home I moved into at the malleable age of 23.  The home I found my adult family in.

Selling my childhood home has been a series of crying wolf.  After moving to Maryland in 1999, my family finally decided to dig its roots.  I had lived in five houses and two apartments for the first 11 years of my life.  So it was a relief to stay grounded during grades 6 through 12.  And as I left for college, my home was constantly on the precipice of leaving me.  My dad's job was ever-changing.  And many times I remember receiving the devastating phone call that they would be moving.

Though it never came to fruition, the nostalgic in me feared losing touch with the only constant I had known for years.  Regardless of finding new life in Chicago.  It was always comforting to know I could go home.

I moved into my first non-Chicago dorm residence in 2008.  Between 2008 and 2011, I moved into three apartments and one house.  I was a nomad who never grew attached to the place she called "home", because I knew I still had one back in Frederick, Maryland.

Until I moved with my best friend into my Greenview apartment.  It was the only place I scoped out myself.  And we signed a criminally cheap lease in Lakeview thanks to signing a 16 month guarantee.

As my family moved to a new country, and my brother and I grew more and more distant, evolution forced me to find a new home and family.  My roommate became my brother, my touchstone.  Someone I wasn't afraid to hop into bed with and watch videos of Beyonce ad nauseam.

Earlier this year, we decided to end our living arrangement for him to move in with his boyfriend.  I felt ready to begin a new, but apprehensive of leaving behind this life I had cultivated over three plus years.

It was only fitting that around that same time, my parents announced they were finally putting our Maryland house up for sale.  And a funny thing happened on the way to a real estate agent... I didn't care.

I wasn't taking moody walks to the beach pondering what life would be like without my Maryland home.  I wasn't going through old pictures of the good times shared with friends and family in that home.  I wasn't buying jugs of frosting in bulk to reminisce over the multiple tubs I sucked down of them after school when no one was home.

I just said, "Okay."

But now, as I read the news that the closing went through, I sit here staring at the boxes in my apartment that I have packed.  I'm staring at the empty bookshelf where Cody kept his DVDs.  I'm rummaging through my cabinets jonesing for a jar of peanut butter to lick off a spoon.  But there is none to be found, because ain't nobody got the room to buy new groceries before moving out.

A house is an object.  It's a place you stay so you aren't on the street.  You pay rent.  You spend ridiculous amounts of money on heat when it's forty below.  You hang your Moulin Rouge poster on the fifth wall of a residence.  But a home?  A home is where you cry.  Where you laugh.  Where you grow.  And shape.  It's where you look back on the hole in the wall where you jammed a knife out of frustration.  Where you can joke about your slanted shanty floors.  Where you still find the imperfection in the bathroom door that looks like a moorish face.  A home is where memories are cultivated.  Fresh and raw.  

And sooner or later, every home you have reverts back to a house.  Because you find a home to replace it.  You find new memories that feel so important they take precedence in your mind.

So as I look around at the blank walls in my home, the boxes that I grabbed years ago at a Dominick's to shovel my things around; I know that there is only one home I have to say goodbye to this month.  There is one place that I will be thinking of for the next few months with nostalgic longing.  And that home is no longer on the east coast.

Everybody's Somebody's Everything

DAY THREE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN: The Pauper Falls Madly In Love

I have no idea how it happened.  Truly and honestly.  All these years I have been searching.  And it's true what they say, it happens when you least expect it.  But suddenly, I'm in love.

It's not quite the euphoric feeling I imagined after years of digesting Disney princess films.  And it wasn't quite as obvious as listening to a musical cue play while two strangers reach for the same book and looking longingly up at each other.  But it happened.

I remember the early days of our relationship.  I was in an utterly lonely place in life.  Having just moved to a new city, I had zero friends aside from my own personal alienation.  And then one day, we took a walk together.  Around the area.  It was late, the sound of summer cicadas echoed through the streets.  We listened to music.  And we walked.  And we discussed our insecurities.  Our pleasures, our pains.  Our fears and dreams.  We bonded in a way few people ever do.

And to think, I was only 12.

I spent the majority of my teenaged years hating my new companion.  She was embarrassing.  In school, she had difficulties adjusting to the changes around her.  Oftentimes she was teased for being herself.  Put down while trying to make new friends.  And she got smaller and smaller because of it.

But no matter how much I distanced myself from her, we still had our walks.  We'd still stroll around Ballenger Crossing, peeping into Kingsbrook.  We'd pass the tennis courts, walkman in hand.  Some times a dog would pass.  Some times we'd pet it.  Some times he'd bark.  But after the excitement of interaction settled, we'd return to our conversations.  Wondering why the boys weren't chasing after us.  Wondering why we had such difficulty connecting.  Wondering what the future would hold.

We attended college in the same city.  Far away from home.  As the city proved an even lonelier abyss than the suburbs, we found solace in each other.  So we'd pack up the Creative Zen Micro, shove an earbud in each ear, and go for a walk to the lake.  This time, armed with pepper spray.

Two years into college, we traveled to Rome together.  The first weekend we were there, we left the orientation grounds to be alone together.  Our desire to travel clashed monumentally with our disdain of small talk.  Of forced social interaction to meet new people.  It's so much easier when it's just the two of us.  No judgement.  No ridicule.  No disappointment.  And besides, we were two pretty rad people.  Enough company as is.

We left college and were forced to forge our paths in adulthood.  We watched our friends fall in love.  We watched our loves fall away.  We watched our dreams age and petrify.  We watched our ages tick away, feeling more and more like Cinderella as we waited for midnight when everything withered away.

But every now and then, we'd still find time to take some walks.  Perhaps even a bike ride.  And perhaps even with a flask tucked into my pocket.  We'd venture to the lake, sit on the rocks, take a swig, listen to music, and stare out into the vast aquatic darkness.  Straining to see the other side.

Until talking no longer felt adequate enough.  And that's when I started to write.

Days before my 27th birthday, I am no longer afraid of being alone.  Some of the most wonderful things that have happened to me have happened because I allowed myself to be alone.  I allowed myself to move to Chicago for college.  I allowed myself to travel to Rome.  But most importantly, I allowed myself to go for walks.  Bike rides.  Movies.  Concerts.  Dinner.  Flights.  Road trips.  Back porch wine nights.  I've done it all by myself.  And without this kind of quality time spent with an individual I spent so much time and energy hating, I don't think I could have fallen so madly in love.

I love my flaws.  I love the emotional intricacies I weave in my brain.  I love my pain.  My pleasure.  I love my failures because they keep life interesting.  I love my successes because I'm not some kind of depressive and ironic douche bag.  I love watching my journey.  There's a glorious satisfaction in fully realizing that everyone is fucked.  Not in the schadenfreude sense (although everyone can relate).  But because once you realize that no one has it figured out, you can sit back and enjoy watching yourself try.

So now I'm going to go out on my back porch, pour a glass of wine, pop my ipod into each one of my years, and have a good long chat with the love of my life.

All That She Wants

DAY TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE: The Pauper Has A Craving

What do we want?

It’s a question asked of us almost daily.  You ask it in the morning when you search for the perfect shower song on your ipod.  You ask it on your way to work when you dip into Dunkin’ Donuts instead of making that oatmeal at home.  You ask it when your friends invite you out for drinks when you know you have to wake up early.  You ask it when you stare into the gaping maw of the future.  The barren unknown.  What do I want?

This has always been a difficult question for me to answer since the age where ordering chicken fingers off the menu became a hearty blow to my maturation.  I used to be a picky eater.  I’ll eat whatever is easiest to choke down so I can appease my parents before ordering the make your own sundae bar at Max & Erma’s.

But at some point, my palate inexplicably changed.  Food became something to cherish as it slid down my gullet.  And as my experiences with food grew, as did the creeping sense of anxiety when the waitress turned to me and asked, “And what do you want?”

Honing our desires as children is as basic as “this will please me immediately; therefore this is what I want.”  When ordering ice cream, we don’t think about the consequences of weight gain.  When choosing to go to the mall with a new circle of friends, we don’t plague ourselves with insecurity.  When looking for our first jobs, we don’t question whether it will lead us down a path of self-loathing so deep that we aren’t sure if we’ll ever crawl out of it.  Ice cream is good.  Friends are fun.  And money is the bee’s knees.  I want all the things.

But as we age, more questions have to be answered before we can make life decisions.  And figuring out what we want in life becomes a craft.  It’s a strategic mind fuck of a game where we must balance our ids and superegos delicately so as not to break our souls.

One of the less decipherable desires I’ve had in my life pertains to the XY chromosomes.  And perhaps, because attraction is such a fickle and unrelenting mistress, I am not alone.  I have never been in a relationship.  Not for lack of want.  But I tended to fall for men because I loved that they would laugh at my fart jokes.  After 8 high school and college years of thinking blowing into the crux of my elbow and emitting a sound only the deaf wouldn’t appreciate, I came to realize that maybe guys weren’t trying to have sex with “one of the guys.”

So to overcompensate, I lost my virginity to a guy I knew so little that his name in my phone was “Office Guy”.  In a plot twist that would give The Usual Suspects a run for it’s money, “Office Guy” and I parted ways shortly after our initial encounter.

My second sexual encounter was with a guy I had negative 7 interest in.  But after my friend left with her boyfriend, I sat with a newly refreshed Jack and Coke without much of an escape plan.  When he asked me to come back to his place, I sort of shrugged and mumbled as much as one can mumble the word “sure” and slumped into a cab with him.  In a plot twist that would give The Sixth Sense a run for it’s money, I never returned his calls.

After that, I had the only “Facebook official” relationship of my life that lasted a staggering month and a half with a guy who seemed right up my alley simply because he seemed interested in me.  Never mind the fact that he was selfish and immature and made me pay for my own ticket to see a movie I had zero interest in ever seeing in my life.  (It was the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.  For anyone who knows me, there is literally no other genre on earth that interests me less than slasher flicks.  Much less crappy remakes of slasher flicks.)  But I digress...

In a twist that would give the sinking of the Titanic in Titanic a run for it’s money, I broke up with him by quoting a song by Fiona Apple.

Now, I could go on and on and on and on and on and on and...

about the number of guys whom I continued to associate myself with simply because I was so eager to have someone want to associate themselves with me.  But I don’t think I can hold your attention that long.  We’ll save that for the memoir.

The point is, after being turned down so many times by the guys I always truly wanted, I no longer knew what I actually did want.  I would become transfixed by someone who appeared interested, regardless of drunken nonsense.

But over the past year, I did encounter someone whom I truly cared about and who truly cared about me.  It was real and genuine.  And though distance doomed it from the start, it doesn’t change the fact that it helped me hone my desires.

Because you may think that you want something.  You may crave it like a junkie selling their grandfather’s ass watch for one more hit.  But until you get a taste of what truly makes you happy, then you’ll wander around aimlessly until you find it.  And you’ll delude yourself into believing something fleeting will actually make you happy.

So as I sit here and watch the lightning flash every couple of seconds during this June thunderstorm, I don’t feel lonely because I don’t have someone to cuddle up with tonight.  I feel a sense of happiness.  Because I know that one day again, I will find someone who will sit with me on my couch, our feet entwined, and we’ll exchange looks of awe at each other as each crack of light and sound fills the air.  We’ll smile at each other because we know how special every moment together is.  Because that’s what I want.  And I’m no longer willing to settle for anything less.

But until then, maybe it won’t hurt to hit up that ice cream sundae bar after all.

**Please note, due to the storm, my Internet went down.  Therefore, this post was unable to post during the actual storm.  Now it's morning and kinda nice out.**

TBA

DAY TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SEVEN: The Pauper Turns Off the Power

Most people who know me know my aversion to technology.  My cell phone still flips open and only functions as a means to send text messages and make the occasional phone call.  When I take a screenshot, you can usually see the "How to take a screenshot" tab open on my window.  And when I received an ipad for Christmas, I went to the Apple Store for a free seminar and was the only person in attendance who has never seen a standing president shot in the head (Lincoln included).

So it should come as no surprise that I have decided to take a stance against something I have termed "Technological Brain Atrophy."

I'm about to make a revelatory statement: Our reliance on technology is rotting our society.

*Pauses for shock and awe to cease.*

Remember the good old days when you asked your parents or grandparents a question?  "Are tomatoes a fruit or vegetable?" and they would simply respond, "Go look it up."

This used to mean searching through an encyclopedia.  Scanning for the correct letter volume, finding the word "tomato" alphabetically, and then reading the passage until your answer presents itself.  Now it means, Google "tomato vegetable fruit?"  Question mark optional.

Sure, this seems insanely easier.  And in our fast-paced lives, why should we bother to look things up in books?  We have much more important things to accomplish.  Like binge-watching Orange Is the New Black on Netflix.*

But the fact is, the less we use our brains, the less our brains become useful to us.  Our brains are muscles.  If we don't exercise their incredible talents every once in away, they will get fat and lazy and start binge-watching Orange Is the New Black on Netflix.

So I have taken a break from Googling for the time being.  For instance, today I tried to remember the names of all the Starks' direwolves on Game of Thrones; Ghost, Summer, Nymeria, Lady... Beebo?  Tupac?  I drew blanks on the last two.  But I refused to Google it.  If I really want to remember what dumb little name Rickon came up with, I will have to search my brain to figure it out.

Because there's also a beautiful reward in finding something on your own.  When Netflix took Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind off their instant play, I was devastated.  Genuinely.  When I'm going through a rough time, that movie is my Cherry Garcia.  So I decided to buy it.  I went to Amazon, and I put it in my shopping cart.  But then I stopped myself.  No.  Not like this.  If I want this movie, I will go out into the real world and find it.

If I recall correctly, the greatest relationship of my life happened because I explored a world outside of the Internet.  I was 18 and had just moved to Chicago for college.  I knew very few people, and more so, I knew even less about the city I newly inhabited.  But I knew the Mag Mile!  And one fateful day in September, I stumbled into Virgin Records (RIP) on Michigan Avenue.

It was that day that I happened upon the wall of new releases.  I walked over to this album with what appeared to be a pea pod on the cover.  I recognized the name, so I slipped the headphones on and gave it a listen.  The first song, so simple, so beautiful.  It grabbed me immediately.  I knew I had to have it.

And from that moment on, Fiona Apple changed my life.

Am I saying that I would have never discovered Fiona Apple on the Internet?  Absolutely not.  But there's no way that moment would resonate as powerfully if I was simply clicking away at YouTube videos on my computer.

We are a society that complains about the blistering cold and having to stay indoors for months on end because it's so awful outside, but then we spend our summers staring at our gadgets and gizmos a plenty.

So I ask for a call to arms.  To join me in the fight against TBA.  Let's pledge to function more as humans and less as drones.  Let's open our eyes and our brains.  Let's not become sheeple.  For we cannot let the machines win!

And now, I'm going to play brain games on Lumosity.... GOD DAMMIT!

*I plan on doing this soon.  So please understand the hypocrisy oozing out of every word in this post.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

DAY TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-TWO: The Pauper Slows Down

As I look back on this blog from inception until this post, I notice a trend.  A trend that gets me down a bit.

I haven't been doing a good job keeping up with this blog.

In 2013, words were coming both fast and furiously.  It was as if Vin Diesel was at the helm of my fingertips.  Rushes of emotions and experiences flooded my purview.  I sat on the train and got an idea for a post that I just had to jot down in my notebook.  I'd be sitting on my porch with a glass of wine and suddenly leap up and rush to my computer.

But that's not the case anymore.

And it wasn't until recently that I understood why.  It's not because I have no words left to write.  It's not because I don't care.  It's not because I'm not a good writer.  It's simply because I've settled into my new life.

When change occurs, it's a deluge of experience.  You make a decision to leave your job to pursue your creative dreams; it's an emotional adrenaline rush.  Like jumping out of an airplane knowing that one of the parachutes in the pile is a dud.  Every moment feels like a new experience.  Everything was worth commenting on.  Whether it was going to the Starbucks across from my apartment at 11:20 a.m. on a Tuesday.  Or waking up without obligation.  Or having actual time to sit my ass down and write.  It was all new.  And it was beautiful.

But even for the risky skydiver, at some point, you determine whether you grabbed the dud parachute or not.  And once I opened it up and started gliding towards the ground, my grand experiences settled into routine.

So although the thoughts are no longer pouring out of me in a way that change mandates, I'm not going to believe that's any kind of a slight on me.  It's just human nature.  Much like it's easy to be happy when things are going well, it's easy to miss the nuances of life when life runs at a steady pace.

The Young and the Wasteless

DAY TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY-TWO: The Pauper Kills Her First

Adulthood.  It's a right of passage.  We go from babies to toddlers to children to adolescents to... adults.  The first four earmarks of our lives are simple.  You learn to walk and talk, you exit babyhood and enter your toddler years.  You enter the memory phase of life, you become a child.  You start to grow hair in weird places and believe you are the center of the world, welcome to adolescence.  But what demarcates adulthood?

At 18, you are no longer a minor.  The adults in your life can no longer control your decisions... in the eyes of the government.  But can anyone really look back at an 18-year-old version of themselves and call themselves adult?  At 18 I still relied solely on my parents for support and the most adult things I did were getting my cartilage pierced (healed into a small bump on my ear 6 months later) and buying a peach flavored cigar that I smoked on the hood of my car with Kelsey Painter in the park across from my development.  Oh, and giddily walking into a sex shop with Amy Tolbert in Georgetown.

LOL.  We are so old.

So then what?  Buying my first legal drink at Hahn Liquors on Devon a quarter past midnight on my 21st birthday?  If I'm old enough to go out to Wrigleyville and throw up in a trash can inside a bar I'm legally allowed to be in, does that make me an adult?

I can taste my 401k.

Once that glitz and glamor superseded me, I began to search for new rites of passage into adulthood.  Losing my virginity (yes, it happened after my 21st.  Get over it.)  Cooking meals outside of buttered pasta or grilled cheese (look guys, CHICKEN!)  Making my bed every morning before work (that lasted about 2 weeks.)  Having a job that gave me health insurance (huzzah for an HMO that I never used for fear of venturing into China Town alone when I had strep throat.)

As a nearly 27-year-old waitress renting an apartment who looks at friends who now have homes, marriages, and children, I constantly find myself quipping, "Look at you.  Your such an adult."  So when does my adulthood kick in?

In literature, rites of passage into adulthood range from getting your monthly fertile reminder to killing your first prey (in more dystopian societies.  Or in the Ozarks.)  So if I've never felt like an adult because of our society's visions of legal purchases and car rental capabilities, then how do I know?

My parents' generation was much in the mindset of finding a good job to support a family.  Mostly because it was infinitely possible to skip college, get an entry-level position at a company, and work your way into a career.  In our age, finishing grad school doesn't even secure you a position in the mailroom.  So many of us put off the family goals as we meander aimlessly through life trying to find that Tetris piece that slots us into the next level.

In lieu of the ages, I believe adulthood sets in the moment you realize what you need to do to make yourself happy.  This is why so many movies about arrested development have become so popular.  We are the generation lost.  With vices and distractions lurking around every aspect of the Internet, we rely on these senses of happiness to lull us into the idea that we are living life the way it's meant to be led.  We drink because we'd be social outcasts if we didn't.  We hang out with friends instead of working on our goals because we don't want to be left out.  We search for love because we think we are the only ones without it.

Essentially, we become adults when we realize it's time to grow up.  And no amount of homemade sesame chicken dishes with a side of potatoes au gratin will trick us into believing otherwise.

For long.

Benedict Arnold

DAY TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT: The Pauper Meets Her Nemesis

The time has come to address my Benedict Arnold.  The element of life that has double-crossed me.  The thing I most loved and trusted, but has reared its head to be my sworn enemy.  Everyone, meet Cinema.

A little backstory.  Cinema and I met at a young age.  There were cartoon iterations of the beloved spy during the years of memory that elude me today.  But my most vivid first viewing experience comes from Marcus Theaters in 1994 when the Tim Allen holiday masterpiece, The Santa Clause graced us with its affable presence.  But for reasons unbeknownst to me (but my brain might be able to tell you), I only recall this viewing experience due to a journal entry fixed in my mind recalling the moment I waited in line outside the theater SO FAR that I was stuck staring at the far more provocative poster for Interview With a Vampire (a film it took me nearly fifteen years later to (inter)view.)

Tagline brought to you by L. Ron Hubbard.

But it wasn't until 2002 when I fell in love with the most sinister of vixens.  She puffed her cigarette in the corner of a dimly lit jazz club, her lips lined in stop sign red, but her stare insisting "go."  Her name was Moulin Rouge.  A film I scoffed at during the seedy underbelly of trailers, but fell deep and hard during VHS distribution.  I was fourteen.  My brain whispered "no... not tonight."  But my heart screamed in ecstasy, "Yes, Yes!  Do me now!"

After that, I was hooked.  Adrenaline pumping through my veins every time a waifish teenager neglected to card me for an R-rated flick.  Closer, Sideways, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, oh God, yes!  You name it, I was there.

And as I gobbled up every ounce of Cinema I could gorge myself on, I fell deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole.  Where my life was full of awkward daytime interactions and late night humorous-only-to-me-and-three-other-people rendezvous in the parking lot of Giant, Cinema was were I could, how do you say? Get My Rocks Off.

This, but sans the bottle.

I quickly rejected the norms set in "chick flicks", as my untouched lips at the age of 17 so bitterly denounced.  But yet, I still binged on films that focused their existential follies on love.  Films that utilized narrative devices such as montages to skim over the hard work that creates product.  Films that allowed me to believe that a life story can exist in two hours, when life so churlishly lasts for much longer.

And now, at 26, and as a woman who has given up a decent, mind-numbing job to pursue this minx, I question her motives.  What does good Cinema do?  Does it provoke us?  Does it give us hope?  Does it show us reality?  How do you cope with life when you live most of it vicariously?

When life brings you down, you often look to music to find the truth in it.  As an adult, I like to think I dive into more substantial realms of emotion.  But even as a teenager, you turn to things like the latest pop sensation's drab takes on love to justify your crush on Football McQuarterback.

HE JUST GETS MY SOUL

So for the little Hannahs of the world, I want to create an existence of relativity.  I don't want to lose touch with the lows of life just because I've grown past them.  I want to hang on to the feelings of crushes lost, never-lasting friendships, and big deal moments that fade within the year.  I want to expound the truth.  The honesty of life.  A truth that Hollywood often neglects to address.

Because if I can do that, well, I don't want to say my life is worthwhile.  Honestly speaking, I'll probably have some major downs in my life post-truth speaking that will make me reflect back on grand statements like this.  But if I can create something that people can relate to, then at the very least, I've inspired someone to be something more than a stagnant viewer in their own life.

 

Don't You Forget About Me

DAY TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN: The Pauper Remembers...ish

Memory.  She's a tricky vixen.  The kind you pour into your glass thinking it's a good idea, but ending the night in a world of regret.

Your brain can only hold so many.  It's how it has been programmed since the dawn of time.  Much like your inbox, it will delete certain entries when it grows too full.  But unlike your inbox, it doesn't give you an option of what to preserve.

Why is it that I can vividly remember my brother explaining a nightmare he had about a monkey popping a balloon outside his window and bursting into histrionics, but I can't remember what I was doing exactly one week ago today?

It's rather unfair, isn't it?  That our brain gets to make these decisions about what it cares to preserve, but our conscious mind has no say.  Oftentimes, I've had friends recite moments of comedic impact that we shared, and I am forced to smile and nod and pretend that I have any recollection of what they are talking about.  And I search my mind for that moment, but it is lost.

When we lose moments that are important to others, do they really continue to exist?  As a writer, the most important tool you have is your brain.  (If The Diving Bell and the Butterfly taught us anything, it's that our fingers are merely a vessel of truth.  Not the answer.)  So how do you cope with the wear and tear of your most important tool?  You have to preserve it in the moment.

I recently came to the realization that I have been out of college longer than I was in it.  When I entered college, it felt like the apex of life.  I moved far away from home.  I met new people.  And I had been programmed to believe that college would catapult me to the path I was sure to lead.

Throughout my college days, I began writing a screenplay entitled "The Twenty Year Old Virgin", a playoff of the Judd Apatow comedy with an emphasis on the pressures of losing your virginity at a young age.  As a woman who "became a woman" at 22, this idea meant everything to me.  I specifically remember "coming out" to my best friend that I was, in fact, a virgin on a bus ride home from a party one night because it felt like such a defining feature at 20.  And as a woman who has since sought validation in casual hook ups, the idea of finishing this screenplay seems odder and odder.

But memories are what dictate our future.  There's a reason we hang on to the people who fucked us over and the people who changed our lives.  It's because we need those memories to make ourselves better people in the present... and the future.

- I remember spying on my parents watching Alien when I was 5 years old because I happened to pick the moment when the alien bursts out of John Hurt's belly.  And I remember not sleeping very well that night.  But I have zero recollection of anything that happened before or after that moment.

- I remember choking on an ice cube I was sucking when I was a child, and the cantaloupe I threw up into our sink, but nothing before or after that moment.

- I remember my dad surprising me Saturday morning at our kitchen table because he travelled home through the night to see my stage debut in Little Women when I was 11, but I can't remember any lines from my show.

- I remember the smell of Quizno's subs seeping into my hair after shifts at my first job, but I don't remember how to make a single sub.

- I remember failing my first permit test - vividly the screen and the questions - but I don't remember how poorly I reacted to it.

- I remember vomiting on myself while giving blood during Calculus of my senior year of high school, but I don't remember how to find the derivative.

- I remember hopping on a boat with some strangers during the Taste of Chicago, guiding by an old man named Gordon who enlightened us on his Pagan ways, but I have no idea what the hell he was talking about.

I could go on, but you guys get my drift.  We have moments in our lives that carry significance, but at minimum, the best we can say about them is the moment.  Outside of that, we have to wing it based on experience.  I remember that my father who worked away from us for three years found his way home to see me perform in my first real show because he loved me.  And as a writer, I am forced to fill in the gaps that I don't positively remember.

The pain comes from realizing that there are some beautiful moments in your life that may pass.  And the only way to preserve them is via a photograph or the written word.

As we get older, days blur more into months.  Months into years.  And years into gaps of time that are harder to define.  A co-worker recently discussed a philosopher's idea of memory with me.  That when we are younger, time feels more marked because we have more to look forward to.  We have years in school that demarcate events.  I remember the Blood Drive Vomit Scandal of 2005 also happened in April, because I was a senior and it was the moment I realized my blood giving compatriot was who I wanted to ask to the upcoming prom.  But post college, the years blur together because we have less to associate with them.  The Pagan Boat Journey on Old Lake Mich happened, well, what?  I don't know.  Maybe 2010?  Maybe 2011?  Somewhere around there.

It's hard to believe college ended 5 years ago, because what has happened in my life since then?  A blur.  Whereas every moment of college carried weight.  Carried significance about the rest of my life.  But as we get older, we have to find our own significance.  Our own sense of worth.  It's no longer handed to us.  And hopefully with time, we can start to figure out how to manage our memories in a more efficient fashion.

But probably not.

Yessssssssssssss

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-TWO: The Pauper Releases

Ever since I've gotten back into the acting ring (where people exchange cutting side-eye left hooks for punches), I've been trying to remember how to be a good actress.

Over the past few months, I've been trying desperately to come to terms with the idea that I'm no longer an honor's student at Frederick High School.  Shove me into an AP class there now, and I'd be lucky to leave with a C.  Drop me in a class at Loyola, and I've lost my Cum Laude status.  When you were once the kid that other kids gave a slightly audible "yesssssss" when assigned you as a partner, it's a weird and humbling transition to realize you rely on your calculator to figure out what you owe the busser in tip share at the end of the night.  Suffice it to say, I'm not the A+ student that got me those chords at graduation.

What I didn't realize until recently was that acting remains a skill in the same vein.  I grew up under the impression that creative talents were a gift bestowed upon you at birth.  That education in these fields was next to useless.  You either got it... or you don't.

Now, I have come to understand this is about as useful as allowing me to perform your vasectomy because I've seen my way around a dick.

Because eight years without any experience has brought me back to square one.  Except, joke is on experience.  Because my life has taught me the art of observation.

Theses gifts are, in part, bestowed upon us at birth.  We are left brain dominant, or we are right brain dominant.  Neither is right or wrong.  But in the same way that our sexuality is determined at birth (and it is), our logical vs. creative skill set is determined genetically before we are even capable of giving the middle finger.

So the person who once was a great actress.  Someone who found solace in the stage; an awkward teenager more comfortable making an ass of herself with the lights blinding her vision instead of flirting with a boy in gym class; now has to figure out how to regain that confidence with a whole new mound of deeper insecurities to cripple her.

The younger we are, the fewer inhibitions we have.  As ass backwards as it seems, our most "awkward" time (adolescence) couldn't be farther from it.  Awkward as a teen means breaking out in acne, not understanding your body, and having very little grasp on who you are.  These are skin deep issues.  I only wish that someone told me how deep anxiety would spread in your twenties.  When you start to doubt your own character.  When your goals and ambitions seem fruitless.  When you can't understand why you were put on this stupid piece of land to begin with.  THAT is awkward as fuck.

So dropping the whole acting thing during the prime of my maturation was regretful.  As now I have to relearn my craft as a human hobbled with self doubt and insecurity.

But tonight, I released.

During the rehearsal process of our upcoming sketch show, I have felt about 60% present.  I'm here.  I'm hosting.  And I am saying my lines.  But tonight, my brain let loose.  I've been watching the actors in our show.  I've been watching improv.  And I've been eating a hell of a lot more kale than pizza (which is hard at Pizano's).  And some where along this road, my brain opened up.

Credit the impending spring time (30 degrees!)  Credit the better diet (KALE!)  Credit the aforementioned euphoria (READ MY BLOG, GODDAMMIT!)  But I'll just go ahead and credit myself.  Because who else will in this crazy, fucked up world?  I make the choices I make.  All of this leads to a better me (hopefully?)  But somehow, tonight, I tapped into my inner actress.  And for the first time in eight years, I saw that girl on stage, age 17, who needlessly dropped a Madonna rap to little applause during an improv showcase and left the stage ready for more.

Can't Stop The Beat

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY: The Pauper Feels Euphoric

It's a weird feeling.  That feeling when you are used to being depressed, and you can't get your body to feel that way anymore.  It's called euphoria.

What makes us feel euphoria?  This happiness that you just can't seem to shake.  You work all weekend and check your newsfeed to see that everyone got crazy drunk celebrating Saint Patrick while you spent your weekend serving up some hot pizza pie to said drunks.  You spend Friday and Saturday night alone watching videos on Youtube and psuedo-Netflix binging.  You haven't made any professional strides.  And a song comes on the radio at work that reminds you of past love.  But it doesn't shake you.  What is wrong with you?

Perhaps euphoria exists because even if the immediate doesn't feel especially fantastic, you know it's because you made a choice for the greater good.  You stayed in all drunk weekend because you no longer find joy in binge drinking in the hopes you will find some sordid hook up that you'll forget about.  You spend your weekends tired from long shifts because you enjoy the relaxation of staying off your feet.  You take a break from professional advancement to enjoy the time alone.  A song reminds you of someone you once cared about, not someone who hurt you.  You are happy in your decisions.

After two months of frigid depression in this windy city, it can begin to feel unnatural to feel the opposite.  Why are you so happy?  This happiness is a fallacy.  This isn't you.  Even the dark week of your monthly Red Wedding should surely bring the empty thoughts.  But they aren't.  They won't.  You can't help but smile.

Why does feeling happy feel like a weird turn of events?  We should always feel this way.  That's the point, correct?  But when you are constantly plagued with fear, self doubt, and inadequacy, happiness can feel like some kind of seasonal flu for which no amount of NyQuil can dull.

So accept it.  Embrace it.  Hold it closely to your breast until it feels so full it might burst.  The moments we feel content in life, we should not question.  Over-analyization can start to bring the chaos back into your cerebellum.  Allow yourself to feel the good as equally as you feel the bad.  For I fear we tend to dwell on the bad and let the good slip away like an extra 20 we find in between the seats on the L and spend on an extra special bottle of wine.

It might be difficult to dwell on happiness.  It's easy to forget moments we get caught up in.  But perhaps, if we spent a little more time dwelling on contentment, we get a little bit closer to a euphoric life.