the woes of me.

i really wish i was more entertaining than i actually am. i mean, i used to think i was pretty entertaining/amusing but now, i look back at my blogs and think- "what an asshole." i certainly don't write to complain, but sometimes i feel like that is what's happening. i also feel as though i think my stories are hilarious and in reality they aren't. not to mention, that the funniest things to me are simple, and small and i appreciate them all but never seem to get them down on this here blog. the woes of me.

it's sad to me that at 31 i am still looking for some kinda of approval from friends and outsiders that what i am in fact doing amuses them in some way. pathetic.

anyway- a few things have crossed my mind recently to "blog" about but i have yet again either forgotten, or have yet to put them down. needless to say, i'm wicked lazy.

RB and i recently went to get our mortgage in order for our fancy 2 bedroom apartment. we have, what seems like forever, to wait for everything to kinda work out, but i know inevitably it will. about a month ago i told suggested to RB that he call our landlord and plant the seed of living month to month for the beginning of next year and not renewing our yearly lease. my suggestion was ignored, brushed off as though it was silly of me to suggest such a superfluous thing. here we are almost december and our lease is up on the 17th. after mentioning that suggestion again RB tells me, "why didn't you suggest that sooner?" really?! god love him, because sometimes i want to put my fist through his face. i calmly said that i did suggest it about a month or so ago and you, good sir, simply dismissed me.

--- I know what you are all thinking, if i thought it was a good idea, why didn't i just do it myself? well, for one, it's not my job to do those things in our marriage <ha, ha>, two, my job doesn't allow me time to generally make phone calls or randomly send emails throughout the day, especially if it's not on my mind or work to do list, third, when it comes to things like this i usually defer to RB thinking his way is better.---

RB emailed our landlord asking that we live month to month and today we have received a reply email. it states that they no longer do month-to-month leases but we can do 6 months. <insert that sound that goes off when you have lost on a game show or bid to high on the showcase showdown> in reality we would only need (hopefully) 3-4 months. now you ask, why not go for the 6, because money doesn't grow on trees. how am i paying a mortgage, maintenance and rent for 6 months? am i suddenly becoming independently wealthy? because if thats happening, i want to go on plenty of vacations instead.

shrug it off, some might say. move home for a few months! thats a brilliant idea. however, i will be living with my parents (and i will do it happily!!) while , RB would move in with my MIL and either kill her, or himself. he can't live with my parents being that Bene the dog resides there and he is allergic to him. Guess we'll live apart. i'm not going to shy or not admit this, but i couldn't be more excited if that is really what will happen! i mean, sure, i'd miss RB and sleeping with my husband, waking up and being lazy in my own house in my own space with my own husband, however, i really love being home, and love my parents and would just love to be home for the holidays!! (i'm getting giddy just thinking about it).

many friends of mine when i was younger couldn't wait to move out of the families house, get their own space, etc. NOT ME! i was more than content on staying there forever if i could. i'm pretty sure that if RB wasn't allergic to the dog, we might have lived at my parents house for a little while after being married, and now we wouldn't think twice about it for all intensive purposes. alas, that wasn't the case.

i'm concerned now that RB will refuse to move home, and make us pay the 6 months rent, while waiting our new place, but i have to say that i really don't want to. I think it's a complete waste of money and it's silly. of course you could argue that this whole new apt thing could fall through and we would be homeless. that would suck on a whole other level. for now, i'm dreaming about being a young adult again, and dating my husband while living with my parents. it all sounds so magical.

i only feel a little bad...

when i was about 15 years old i had decided that when i was 18 years old i would get a tattoo. i thought long and hard about what i was going to get permanently placed on my body and would only do it once maximum twice. the first week i was at college i went with friends to get my thoughtful first tattoo. of course being 18 i still kinda got something silly, but nothing off a wall. it was an Asian character that read "free spirit". it worked well for me, and it helped me pay tribute to my recently deceased friend, jason, who was hit by a mack truck and died a few days later after being declared brain dead. that was it, i was done. well, until i got the itch a few months later.

they say once you get one tattoo, you never really stop. i believe this holds true for people who really put thought into their artwork and the meaning behind it.

august came just before starting sophomore year and again after thinking long and hard, i decided on my second and "final" piece of ink. when i was 13, my dad, my forever valentine, gave me a stuffed frog. it also commemorated the fact that i survived my first year away from home and completing that first year of college. so, yup, that's what i got. a frog.

i went a while before getting the itch again. after graduating in 4 years, surprising all of my family who assumed i would have transferred and moved home due to the crushing home sickness i felt after the first year, and getting a job plus getting into grad school, i put some more thought into what would be my next and "last" tattoo. i got a beautifully done horseshoe for luck in the next step of my adult life.

years continued to fly by, and the itch grew stronger and stronger. i had thought of 2 more tattoos to get and decided that once i got those i would be officially done. while all this thinking was happening, life was going by, and big things, little moments, everything was happening. my parents are not fans of tattoos, and they knew i had at least one and mom had asked if that could be it. i told her it would be. of course that was before the horseshoe- oops! oh well. anyway, my 4th tattoo actually was a cover-up. i covered up my first tattoo ever. after 11 years of gaining weight, losing weight, and working out, that original symbol wasn't looking good, not at all. it looked nothing like it used to and to be perfectly honest it never really looked good, it wasn't done very well. the cover-up i used is/was an elephant. my grandma loved elephants and i had thought long and hard of what to get, so that was it. an elephant silhouette. a cover-up. almost done.

can't even tell where the original one is.

i had been through a lot at this point and again decided that a hummingbird would come next. i had an artist friend of mine draw it out and brought it to an amazing tattoo artist who was recommended by another friend. of course while finalizing the plan for the hummingbird, it hits me. another tattoo idea. fine, fine i tell myself, it'll be small. i asked my mom for hand written letters by my grandmother, and she asks what for. i tell her i want to get a small tattoo of the word "faith" in grandma's handwriting. as my mom is telling me how stupid i am to get another tattoo, she is also looking for the letters. thanks mom. you make me feel only a little bad about doing it. i chose faith because my mom constantly reminds me to have faith regardless of what i am doing and what is happening around me. to have faith that "it" will all work out and be the way it was meant to be, to have faith in myself and my abilities as well as my ability to choose right from wrong and lastly, to know that someone out there is helping me out when i need it. my amazing artist did the best she could with the letters. she was able to recreate every letter to a "t" except for the lower case "f" we fixed that together from my memory. i love this tattoo and it is beautifully done. it took about a minute and a half to get done and felt like a tickle.

a few months after the "faith" was completed, i went back to have the hummingbird completed. i had to find an alternate placement for her. i forgot to mention earlier that all the previous tattoos, (except "faith"), are on my lower back, hidden from public view on a daily/regular basis. i wanted the hummingbird larger, but again, not in public view. i decided on my ribs. it only hurt a little and took about an hour. my amazing artist doesn't do color, but liked me and my ideas so much, she agreed to add just a little bit of color. with RB's help, some awesome details were put in.

that's it. i'm done! i don't regret any of my tattoos, not even the first one. i do however, feel a little bad that i "defaced" my body, as my mom would say. i feel a little bad because growing up all i heard from my mom was how hard she worked on creating me, keeping me healthy, and how she didn't drink coffee for 9 months. she would tell me that she felt guilty that i got my dad's genetics for eyesight because we both wore glasses, or that she didn't work hard enough on my self-esteem because she wasn't positive enough about her own body image in front me as a young impressionable girl. so, yeah, i felt kinda bad that i voluntarily "defaced" and "ruined" her hard work.

that guilt lasted about a year...

mom: "you think i don't know that you have a bunch of tattoos?"
me: "i never said that. i just don't feel the need to announce or have them in public view."
mom: "well, i know. there's no point in thinking otherwise."
me: "i don't think i'm done. i think i'm going to get daddy's handwriting, you know from a card, of 'love daddy' tattooed somewhere, maybe my hip or something."
mom: <gasp> "daddy's handwriting is so ugly. i can't believe you, you have all these tattoos and you don't even think about getting 'lil' girl'!?"

my mom has been calling me, and writing notes to me addressing them as "lil' girl" for as long as i can remember, so it would make sense that she would suggest it. oh wait a minute, NO IT DOESN'T! my mom is now suggesting ink ideas?!

next step. get it done. and i did. i don't know if she's seen it yet. dad has. he has no comment other than "what's that?" to which i respond, "what's, what?" all in all, i only feel a little bad that i have "defaced" her hard work 7 times.  i just wonder where my next one will be.

when you're fortunate and you know it clap your hands.

it has taken me a long time to become more grateful for the things i have, and even as i write this i am realizing that there are certainly times that i don't act as grateful as i should. i think this realization comes with age, and the lack of acting as though i am grateful at times is apart of being human.

when RB got sick the first time, i kept asking "why?", "why me? why us? why now?" after he got sick for the second time, and we went through everything we went through, i started becoming a more grateful, happier, thankful, 'it happens for a reason', 'it'll work out', kinda person, silver-linings and shit. even the negative people in or life have helped to teach me to be more grateful for what i have and what i have been through, because i know things aren't as bad as they all perceive them to be. it could and has always be worse.

last weekend i sat in hour and a half traffic to drive 4.5 miles. i almost peed myself- which wouldn't be the first time- in my new car, while sitting in this traffic. i was praying that i would make it home to use the bathroom. luckily, i did. i mention all this because on monday, NYC and the east coast was hit with hurricane Sandy. she destroyed neighborhoods, shore lines, some of my favorite places. i wish my vocabulary was larger so that i could possibly explain to you what when on here from sunday to tuesday. it's totally one of those things that you need to experience for yourself to understand and truly comprehend.

i've been home since monday, waiting for schools to reopen, the subways to be de-flooded and cleaned up, and electricity to be fixed. some friends lost everything, some people i know lost friends. the photo's of what happened here are pretty incredible and so surreal. my family, are safe and sound. i mean, my cousins both lost electricity, but otherwise everyone, safe and sound. completely lucky. absolutely fortunate.

it's like a war zone in some areas. nothing is normal. nothing. trees down, super markets struggling to be filled again, lights out, roads closed, people homeless, the list goes on. the latest development is the lack of gasoline. people are rioting, and waiting on gas lines, similar to how my parents described the 70's. i believe everything will be fine, and eventually everything will go back to being the status quo, just not the same.

after all of this, i find that people are still complaining, about having to go to work, about the weather, about whatever they normally complain about. it's frustrating to me after everything that has happened and continues to happen that people can still feel ungrateful for anything.

if the worst thing that happens to me this week is that i almost peed myself in my new car while sitting in traffic for an hour and a half, and only having to go to work one day this week, i'm pretty sure i am one of the lucky ones. in addition, i was surprised when some friends extended their concern and have shown more care than anticipated towards me, my family and my city. i couldn't be more grateful.

i'm definitely fortunate, and i know it, so i'm clapping my hands and feet.