What Rushes In

November DVD Reviews, pt 3:

-In Her Shoes: Starts out as a typical chick-flick dowdy-girl vs party-girl thing, but ends up being a sweet family story. 2.5/5

-Flashdance: For a strip joint, they got up to some pretty avant-garde dancing. 3/5

-The Hours: I read the book a few years ago and kept trying to remember what they added/omitted, which was quite a distraction. Not really my type of movie, anyway 2/5

November Book Reviews, pt 3:

-Adverbs. Daniel Handler: Hilarious but often sweetly touching vignettes string together to compose a giant love story. An abundance of recurring jokes, characters that come into focus then fade back into the scenery, and the often-rambling prose make you feel like you’re listening to a somewhat-hyperactive friend reciting the stories as they bubble over into each other. 7/10

-Death of an Ordinary Man. Glen Duncan: If I had stuck with it, I feel like I would have liked it, but the shifting narrator and awkward insertion of italics-as-inner-thoughts made it too tough to handle. There’s a “big mystery” that I suppose gets resolved at the conclusion, but far too many fogging details and circuitous side plots made me lose focus. I got just about halfway through before shaking my head and putting it away. 4/10

-Who’s That Lady. Andrea Jackson: “Urban erotica” novel borrowed from a work friend. Stupid, but it helped pass the time while the kids were sleeping. 3/10

-Passing Strange. Joseph A Citro: Compilation of the best-documented ghost stories and other eerie happenings in New England. Very well-researched but Citro maintains a great tale-teller’s voice in the presentation. Really creepy stuff! I’m very heavily influenced by ghost stories, so I started to dread finding mentions of nearby towns. Luckily, my current residence was left out of things. 7/10

Before I get into the "serious" stuff I'd like to share that I had a very nice Thanksgiving with my family on Thursday, then came home on Friday afternoon to find my roommate trying to cook a Thanksgiving dinner. He was more interested in getting drunk, so I took over and cooked pretty much the whole thing by myself. The turkey was still frozen at 3pm, so we didn't sit down to eat until almost 10, but it was so worth it. I got a ton of compliments on the carrots I whipped up, so I'll share the JS Original Recipe with yous guys:
JerseySjov's Fuckin Awesome Carrots
1 lb carrots, peeled and cut into +/- 1 inch pieces
4 Tbs butter
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp garlic powder
Sriracha, to taste [I put in a lot]
-Boil carrots until they give a little when squeezed, or make your drunk roommate do it so that you don't burn your fingers. It takes what feels like a long time.
-Add everything else, stir until butter is melted and there are no secret Hell-pockets of Sriracha. Serve hot!

Now that you have a snack, let's delve into what's bugging me this week:
I’ve been texting both internet guys since the last time I popped in here. I’ve decided that I need to cut off the old one and work on the new guy, but you know how I am with old habits.

Actually this isn’t an old habit at all- I went out with the old guy for several weeks before we got down. I feel angry that I invested all those weeks getting to know him only to be let down by a) the fact that he’s going out with that other girl b) his lackluster sexual performance. I have to admit that B gets me madder than A. I’m used to not being the only girl that a guy is seeing, and guys generally accept that they might not be my first choice, but when I’m naked with somebody, I always give 100 percent. I put on a goddamn show. I enjoy myself best when I get a reaction to whatever I’m doing. And now I know how guys feel when they talk about girls who “just lay there.” Totally lame not cool. But there’s a chance that it’s better to have someone I’m not serious about to cuddle with and chill with while I keep one eye out for the next big thing rather than just having to hang out by myself on the weekends.

It’s not like I can complain that he was cheating on me since it’s not like we were a couple, which might have been his gameplan the whole time. Oh whatever. I’ll probably just give him a classic “I think we want different things, so, byeeee” in a few days so he can concentrate on girls who aren’t old enough to drink.

And I need to go out with the new guy again before I overthink him and our ONE [we went out ONCE. This is something I need to remind myself of constantly. ONCE. And before that we just IM’d on the stupid dating site for like an HOUR] date to death and preemptively dismiss him as just another idiot or start making mental lists of reasons why he wouldn’t want to date me and stop hoping that he’ll ever text me again.

Ahhh, I can’t lie; I’ve already stretched out my shoulders for all the shrugging I’m going to have to do when yet another guy I think I like turns out to be the opposite of what I want.

I wonder how my life would be different today if I had ever been asked out in highschool. How would I be a different person if I had a date to prom? What is it about me that stopped any nice dude that I’ve met in real life from asking me out? [Seriously, folks. 22 year old attractive and pretty awesome female has never been asked out on a date by anyone in real life. Call the papers.] Will I ever find anyone who appreciates both my physical assets and my personality?

I understand how my “reputation” as something of a, let’s say, “partier” in college would make the average campus douchebag assume I was only good for one or two things. Even so, I never thought I’d make it this far without having had ANY meaningful “I love you” relationships. However, I refuse to accept that I’m somehow less worthy as a person and a woman because I am UNwilling to sit around, staring at the walls, twiddling my thumbs waiting for whatever’s out there to sniff me out.

Incidentally, my blogaversary is forthcoming, and I highly doubt any of you who have been here from the beginning would have stuck around if I wasn’t out here having an awesome time making months upon years of bad decisions.

While I consider myself a very happy person on a day-to-day basis, I’ve recently been feeling like I’ve just been free-falling for my entire life. Supposedly major events whiz by and I barely notice. Occasional snags catch my elbows and ankles, throwing me into dizzying aerial cartwheels, but it’s mostly been as easy as just continuing to blink and breathe. Thing is, I can’t see the edge from which I tumbled, nor can I tell how much farther I have to go until I pancake out on the ground.