Two years ago I got  a Twitter account for one simple reason:  I was applying for a job at the popular start-up company and needed a Twitter account.  What the fuck was Twitter exactly?  I didn’t know nor did I care. What could I say in 140 characters that meant anything?  Who knows.

Since then I’ve hopped on the band wagon and am now following 300+ people with 1100+ followers.  Gadamn.  Sometimes, I feel as if I can’t even keep up.  Ever check your timeline after 2 hours and find 500 tweets?  That’s a ridiculous number of things to read through, especially if all of these tweets are exactly the same.  What am I talking about?  The following tweets are examples of why I now hate checking my timeline:

1: “Do you, I’ma do me.”  Can someone please tell me what or who exactly I’ve been doing all this time?  I thought I WAS doing me?  According to you, apparently not.

2: “Look at what fabulously gluttonous thing I’m eating today.” I am the biggest offender when it comes to this.  But at least I can eat my own food porn.  WTF am I gonna do with a picture of your food?  It’s not even scratch and sniff.

3: “That awkward moment no one gives a fuck about.”  Because honestly, we all encounter awkward moments.  Not all of them are funny and/or worth speaking on.

4: “Look at how drunk I am again this weekend.” (insert pic of Hennessy/Jameson/Grey Goose here).  You’re having a great time this weekend?  Awesome.  But you posted the same picture of bottle service 3 weekends in a row.  What else do you do besides get shit faced drunk?

5: “Me and my boo.” (insert 76541839476th pic of you and your boo.) Y’all are hella cute.  And I’m happy that you’re happy.  It’s just that…. well… that last picture looks exactly like the other 300 pictures you posted of you and your boo.  I know you have a life outside of each other.  I KNOW IT.  If you don’t, you should.

6: Irrelevant complaint #67 for the day to be closed out with the letters “FML.” I don’t really care that the people at your job suck.  Everyone’s coworkers suck.  I don’t care that you can’t find your keys, or your dog ate your homework, or that it took you 6 minutes longer to get home than normal.  I don’t give a fuck.  In fact, you cannot imagine the immensity of the fuck I do not give.  Yes.  Fuck YOUR life.

7: Yet another Instagram’d closeup picture of yourself. With no makeup. Throwing up the peace sign/middle finger.  You’re so vain.  You probably think this one is about you.

8: Mundane life detail #89. “work is going by so slooowwww.”…..AND?!

Step your Twitter game up people.  Say something funny.  Say something witty or clever or just don’t say anything at all.  My timeline used to be refreshing.  Now I don’t even want to refresh the feed.

http://www.7×7.com/eat-drink/you-choose-winner-7×7-and-st-germains-valentine-dinner-drinks-and-dreamtime

Entry #1: “Love Is.” by Abigail B.

One of my best friends Rach approached me one day asking, “What is love?” It was for a project she was doing, and for a very rare moment in life I had nothing to say. I’ve been single for years, and seemed to have forgotten. So instead, she tweaked the question for me, what a pal.

“Thank God,” I said. “Because if you were to ask me what love is, I’d say it was us yesterday at Nikko’s house.”

The day before, three girls got in their Sunday’s best (basketball shorts, tanks, sweats, and tees) and dragged themselves over to our girl Nikko’s house. Some of us still drunk from the night before. OK fine, that was just me. At any rate, we all collapsed onto the bed makeup-less, and hair in messy buns. Through the wonders of technology we gathered around a Macbook and witnessed our friend get married all the way in New York, and through the wonders of Chinese delivery we grubbed on walnut prawns, garlic noodles, fried rice, mixed vegetables, and sweet and sour pork chops. The rest of the afternoon consisted of ice-cream, napping, chocolate, making it thunder-clap, Mary-Jane, chips and dip, me pretending to watch football, and even more chocolate.

We had just seen each other two nights before, yet there we were again. Doing absolutely nothing – and having a grand old time doing it. We didn’t wait until the next day to text each other because we didn’t want to clingy, and we didn’t hesitate to make plans so soon for fear of smothering anyone. The laughs were bottomless, the conversation was natural, and no one hesitated to be too silly, or too weird, or too anything but be themselves. Now tell me that isn’t love.

Not the most conventional answer, but it’s my answer right now. And lately, it’s all the love I’ve been getting. The love shared between friends will never be the same as that among lovers, but it doesn’t make it any less important or real. In one of my darkest days my girl Rach said, “Even though I can’t give you the love you want right now, I can give you the love I have, I hope for now, that’s enough.”

Well it’s not. It’s even more. And if it’s this good now, I can’t even imagine how great it will soon be.

Laying in the dark, I was asked a few questions about my cancer.  How life threatening is this recurrence?  Why am I deciding to refuse chemo?

I swallowed the tears in my throat and willed my voice to work.  Saying I don’t want to lose my hair is something tangible.  Something easier said than simply, how terrified I am.  I don’t want to be the sick girl.  Because somehow if I lose my hair I am that much less of a woman, that much less beautiful, that much less desirable.  I say this as I lay next to a man who has enjoyed my body and my sex.  A man who has run his fingers through my hair while inside of me.  A man I wish would never look at me any different than he does now.

The conversation makes me realize how lonely I have been. The topic of conversation was not something I spoke on with too many people.  In fact, those closest to me didn’t know much.  Some how, the less I talked about it, the less it seemed to be real. “Not talking about it doesn’t make it any less real, Rachel,” he said. I know.  The tears run from my eyes in silence and I pray that he can’t see them in the dark.  I blink them away and hope he’s asleep but my mind does not rest.  I am 28 years old.  Statistically, I have a 31percent chance  of surviving over 5 years. Although I am not a statistic, I would be lying to you if I said I was not terrified.  In fact, I lie every time I say I’m ok.

You know what though? That conversation made one less lonely girl…at least, for the night. And for that, I am so grateful.

Remember the time she text the man she wasn’t supposed to text, only to get no response….which then made her feel bad so she text the other man she wasn’t supposed to text…only to get a response and decide to come over?  Bad decision.  Or the time you cried when the man you were seeing told you he couldn’t see you anymore, and thought the best way to get over him was to get under that OTHER guy you weren’t supposed to be texting… Only to end up crying during face-down-ass-up sex?  Bad decision.  Let’s not forget the time he should have gone home to his girlfriend, but instead entertained the thirsty ho on his lap in front of his girlfriend’s best friend.  Bad decision.  How about when she decided to sleep with him anyway, even after she found out he slept with her, her, her, and her too?  Bad decision.  And instead of hooking up with that nice young man there, you hooked up (again) with “He who shall not be named.” aka The Worst Decision of 2011. Ever.

Yeah I know.  I’ve been there too.  I was there when she called him, when he didn’t call her.  I heard all about it when you woke up in his bed, and I told you every detail the morning he woke up in mine.  I shook the shit outta you, you shook your head at me, we scolded him and told her we understood.  We stood by each other when we were all falling apart, and rotated shoulders when one had too many tears on them.  Sometimes, my ears bled from listening to the same story over and over again.  Sometimes, you knew what I was going to say before I said it.  Other times, we didn’t see it coming.  Every time, we got through it.  Got over it (pfft).  And moved on.

This year?  We all know better.  This year, we won’t make the same mistakes and this year will be even better than the last.

So here’s to 2012.  Here’s to a better you, a better me, and better bad decisions.  Matter fact, heres to flat out good decisions.  Cest la vie.

Lots of things might happen. That’s the thing about writers. They’re unpredictable. They might bring you eggs in bed for breakfast, or they might all but ignore you for days. They might bring you eggs in bed at three in the morning. Or they might wake you up for sex at three in the morning. Or make love at four in the afternoon. They might not sleep at all. Or they might sleep right through the alarm and forget to get you up for work. Or call you home from work to kill a spider. Or refuse to speak to you after finding out you’ve never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. Or spend the last of the rent money on five kinds of soap. Or sell your textbooks for cash halfway through the semester. Or leave you love notes in your pockets. Or wash you pants with Post-It notes in the pockets so your laundry comes out covered in bits of wet paper. They might cry if the Post-It notes are unread all over your pants. It’s an unpredictable life.

But what happens if a writer falls in love with you?

This is a little more predictable. You will find your hemp necklace with the glass mushroom pendant around the neck of someone at a bus stop in a short story. Your favorite shoes will mysteriously disappear, and show up in a poem. The watch you always wear, the watch you own but never wear, the fact that you’ve never worn a watch: they suddenly belong to characters you’ve never known. And yet they’re you. They’re not you; they’re someone else entirely, but they toss their hair like you. They use the same colloquialisms as you. They scratch their nose when they lie like you. Sometimes they will be narrators; sometimes protagonists, sometimes villains. Sometimes they will be nobodies, an unimportant, static prop. This might amuse you at first. Or confuse you. You might be bewildered when books turn into mirrors. You might try to see yourself how your beloved writer sees you when you read a poem about someone who has your middle name or prose about someone who has never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. These poems and novels and short stories, they will scatter into the wind. You will wonder if you’re wandering through the pages of some story you’ve never even read. There’s no way to know. And no way to erase it. Even if you leave, a part of you will always be left behind.

If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die.

Would you rather…

be with someone you don’t love forever
or
never have that one person you can’t get over?

After playing with the “Would You Rather” app on the iPhone, my cousin and I came across this question and the both of us kinda just sat there.. let out a big sigh.. and made this sad face.  cuz either way, you’re stuck.   and either way, you’re screwed.

being with someone you don’t love is hard.  but a lot of people i know do it.. wether it be out of fear, out of comfort, or just plain laziness.   some people equate self sacrifice to love, and as long as they keep trying, and keep on keepin’ on… that’s love right?  no.  its selling urself short.   and its building a relationship full of resentment.  its constantly asking urself, “What am I doing?” and not having an answer.  its waking up every day knowing it could be easier, better off, or just plain happy.

its going thru the motions, but never going thru the emotions.

but for some people, thats ok.   its enough to just have companionship, or know that someone is gonna be there for them when they come home.  its enough that there’s someone who is willing to provide for them, or will love them unconditionally, even if the feelings are not reciprocated fully.   its enough.

and to each his own, i guess but there’s nothing like that feeling of being head over heels, can’t believe he’s with me, can’t wait to get home, shout at the mountain tops, wanna tattoo ur name on my forehead love.  and once you’ve had it, its kind of pointless to settle for anything less.

but what if you HAVE had it, and then lost it?   then what?   one of my very good friends was with the love of his life for as long as i can remember.  and then they grew up and grew apart, broke up and went their separate ways.    that was ummm… 5 years ago?   and he hasn’t dated anyone since.    they were back together for a brief period and i can honestly say that i’ve never seen him so happy.   but that was short-lived and so were his smiles, and his genuine playfulness.   its like, without her, he wasn’t complete.

which i can completely, fully understand. sometimes you find a love so amazing that you wonder how you ever survived without it.  but sometimes, it just doesn’t work out.  and you go thru the motions, you become the depressed girl, the girl in denial, the miss-independent, but you also become the girl who closes her heart and gives up hope.  you become the girl who is so blind to her pain, that you cannot see anything else.  you become a shell of your former self, and you truly believe that only HE can make u whole again.

but what if he can’t.   more importantly, what if he doesn’t want to.   dont you owe it to yourself to try?  don’t you owe it to yourself to find happiness?   don’t you owe it to yourself to take the next step?

sometimes you need to stop holding on so you can start moving on.

because moving on and letting go isn’t about giving up, its about growing up.   and as much as we want to be 13 again, we cant be. we have to be 26 because no matter how hard we try, we are nothing more than who we are right now.  and wishing for a better furture or wanting to go back to a better past wont do us any good if we dont know how to to turn then into now.   we have to allow ourselves to grow past people, and places, and things, and us.  we have to allow ourselves to change and to  have the courage to let go of what we know and embrace what we don’t.

would you rather:
be in a life imagining how much better it could be
or
have the courage to pursue your own happiness?

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Check out Matt’s promo for the project I was in, A Woman Who.  Look out for it’s release early this year!  In case you’re wondering, the other two women in the video are Nikki Desuasido and Allison Torneros.  Check them out!

Jeyel would call these #RaaachemProblems.  Not that they’re problems to begin with, I mean, I’m flattered.  It’s just that, attention from strangers isn’t really my thing.  It’s great and it’s flattering, but the thing is I’m not really looking for attention.  What I’m looking for, is respect.  What I’m looking for, is a mutual understanding.  Granted, those things don’t usually come upon first glance, nor do they come neatly packaged on aisle 14A at Whole Foods either.

Talk to anyone with a little common sense and they’d tell me to just “Play on, Playette.”  Add to the roster, Collect then Select.  I tried that.  You know where it got me? Not where I wanted to be. In reality, my roster looks like this:  I’m seeing a man who doesn’t want a relationship, I had feelings for a man who doesn’t want to date a mother, and I’m missing a man who is no kind of good for me.  That right there?  Those are #RaaachemProblems.

So I’m tired of entertaining for the sake of entertaining.  I’m tired of the kind of attention that I don’t need.  I’m tired of the guys who approach me who simply wish to add me to their roster.  Although I am tired of being lonely, I refuse to settle for just attention.  And like I was telling Abi on NYE, I’m kind of sick and tired of having 10 guys I don’t care about tell me I’m beautiful and bad and alla that, when the one person I wish was telling me all these things is nowhere to be found.  #RaaachemProblems.  Probably, but they’re real to me.

The Devil’s in the details.   ‘CHUCH.

It’s the smallest things that make the biggest difference.   The hug from your son after a long day at work.   The cupcake from your best friend “just because.”   The compliment a stranger gives you on your new hair.  The funny face he made at you that turns out to be the best part of your Monday.

You see, as women, we notice.   We notice when you call us “Sweetheart” or smile coyly at us in the mirror.   We notice when you cut your hair, get a new tee, or have a new scent.  We notice the way you walk into a room and how your eyes shoot straight to us upon doing so.  We notice the way your voice changes when you say our name.   (And we definitely notice the way our knees buckle when you do. )

We also notice when you stop saying, “I love you, too” when u get off the phone.   We notice when you forget date night or fail to say anything about our new haircut. We notice when your dirty socks haven’t left the same spot on the floor for three days.  THREE DAYS SEVENTEEN HOURS AND 32 MINUTES TO BE EXACT.   And we notice that the only reason they made it to the hamper is because we put ‘em there.

It may seem silly or unimportant, but please believe we notice when you stop paying attention.  And after ignoring all the little things that could be noticed, the only thing you actually do notice is our unwillingness to “Hook you up” last night???

N****A, PLEASE.

The Devil’s in the details.  ‘CHUCH.