San Diego Pictures!

okay, so in honor of the bad news that i didn't get the new job position i interviewed for, i thought it would put such a smile on my face to finally share my san diego pictures with you! there aren't many, for fear of boring you, and also because of the fact that the camera was broken and some of the images didn't turn out at all. but please enjoy! i have to warn you that i loved putting the slideshow together so much that i've already started on a larger one. would you like to see another?

i want to reintroduce myself.
i'm tangerine. i'm 20 years old, and although it might not seem so, i am a lovable happy girl who loves to travel. and here are some pictures:

from here on out, i will no longer blog about working overnight. (unless it is a celebration post that my shift has ended!)

8:12 a.m.

sad news about my san diego trip: we took our Nikon EM, and i purchased 4 rolls of film and we shot pictures of our trip. after we had them developed, we realized the a piece inside the camera was cracked, and that some of our pictures came out over-exposed, ruining most of them! i was so excited to post some pictures of lover and i but the only ones that came out were a few of the view from the rooftop, which do the rest of the trip almost no justice.

once i get out of this silly fog i've been in, i hope my posts will hold much more color. i'm going to try and find a new look and template for my blog. i'd like to add more pictures to my blogs. i feel like i'll look back at my 20 year old self and really find nothing at all. no images of what life was. but then again, i'm not really sure if my life is really much of anything to document at all since i started working overnight.

i've been feeling much better, and much worse.

i've been trying to excercise before i fall asleep at night. as much as it helps my body feel better, it really doesn't keep the nightmares away. i've been having recurring dreams, violent dreams. i wake up afraid. the dreams stay with me far after i wake. i see places i've never been, and faces i've never met. i don't know how i dream of such frightening things. i'm surprised at my imagination.

tylenol pm became the only way i could fall asleep, and as soon as i realized that i stopped taking it all-together. i average 3-5 hours of sleep every night.

i also made an appointment to see a doctor next week about all the little bits and pieces that have been falling apart since i was a child. gymnastics injuries, childhood injuries, life in general. i don't like going to the doctor. i'm sure he'll be kind though, but the rooms feel so sterile and so dirty at the same time!

i live for weekends now. during the weekdays its almost as if i've died ages ago, and someone is perverse enough to attach my body to strings as if i was a puppet. i have no options. i have no choices. i can only surrender to my work. i'm just completely unsure of how i've managed to do my work so accurately when my mind is absent.

i would make a phenomenal zombie.

caged animals do make me sad, though.

last night i dreamt of flamingos and giraffes.

lover and i went to San Diego this weekend. his presence made me feel whole again. the St. James was a charming hotel. the elevator was adorned with a metal gate that you opened and closed yourself, (in haste i might add, unless you'd like to wait for the elevator to travel 10 floors again) and a second door that you pushed open to exit. the hotel room itself was immensely small but held such a high ceiling that instead of realizing you're cramped, you are instead romanced with the idea that while you're nearly forced to move so closely around the room together, it would be absolutely foolish not to share a kiss in every passing. red stairs and a hotel key led you to the rooftop which was a breathtaking, unobstructed 360 degree view of San Diego. everything seemed to be both small and large from there. the sounds from below echo, and you fall silent just to hear the city resound. i still can't seem to comprehend why the faint sounds of honking horns and sirens could sound so endearing, but in the midst of chaos, i think knowing so many others are around makes you feel less alone.

we arrived late to the hotel, we checked in at nearly 9 and wandered about with our GPS trying to find seafood. we wandered from one restaurant to another, becoming instantly turned away by the price at the end of each description. our last effort for seafood resulted in a 20 minute walk in the dark near the harbor, with only roaches walking along side us. naturally, the restaurant had closed just 13 minutes prior to our arrival. so we wandered back to where we belonged and sat ourselves in the 24 hour restaurant that sits inside the hotel (which we had greatly underestimated). the menu promises the best pancakes you've ever tried, or your money back... and we walked away paying the full bill, and a gracious tip. the food was amazing. i thought it was simply because we were so hungry from our long walk, but even upon waking up the next morning, it was the only place we wanted to eat in the entire city. if you can get me to eat a burger with peanut butter on it, you must have a talented menu. i ate more pancakes than i probably have within one excessive week at home! but moving backwards now, before breakfast the next morning...

we mostly walked aimlessly after dinner, and for once it was me that taught lover how to be an assertive city pedestrian. the streets became filled with only the drunk and homeless, so we knew it was time to head back to the hotel. i fell asleep wearing his shirt, with his arms wrapped around me.

we were unsure of what to do the following morning, but after lover shared his tragic story of a certain little boy getting the chicken pox on the day of his elementary school zoo trip, we headed off to the zoo. (for the second time actually, since the first time we left, i realized 20 minutes later that i left my cell phone in the hotel lobby, and it surprisingly sat quite patiently in the chair i left it in until my return.) it was nice to hold his hand and marvel at the animals that we've only seen on television or inside the pages of colorful books.

i was so proud to have navigated the city, and even more proud to have made it to San Diego in the first place seeing as i screamed in terror for the entire drive on Hwy 74. blind turn, incline, decline, blind turn, sharp turn, repeat. the drive was worth it; the hotel expense, the walking, the sore feet, the loss of sleep, the petty argument. love should always be worth every second.

it was our 2 year anniversary this weekend, and i couldn't be happier. my entire world has fallen in love with his. i've seen him 737 days in a row since he stepped off the airplane. i remain infatuated with his presence, his eyes, his intelligence, his patience, his uncanny ability to retain information others would forget in minutes.

i love who you are.
i just want you near me like you are now, for good.

this scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin.

i've been in a strange place. i can hardly believe it's been a month since i've written. on most days i find lying in bed with headphones on watching Mad Men. the show is sensual and melancholy, and it's perfect for me to lose myself in for an hour.

most other times my mind seems to be carrying on without me and i've been doing unconventional things to make me feel more alive. sometimes when i drive to work i scream in the car with the windows down. i wish i was kidding. the neighborhood probably goes awry hearing the mysterious screams come through their windows in my passing at two in the morning. on monday night i rolled down the windows and cried for my entire drive. the next day i sang with the windows up. some nights i merely drive in silence, which suffices. i feel much better than i had two weeks ago, and although some days i can hardly contain my sadness, on other days my emotions are at rest and i can dance about in my underwear and blissfully eat fruit snacks until lover comes home. i'm at peace with this idea, because when my emotions are at an unrest, i feel that it is happening for a perfectly good reason: when i become unsettled and unhappy, it usually means there is change coming about. frankly, if the only change was the seasons transitioning from summer to fall i would be perfectly content. sometimes i can hardly focus on work because i just want fresh air, and the sky.

i've felt so distraught because i think i can feel when a situation in my life is not permanent, but still i cannot seem to predict the end of it. i know this will not last forever, but there is no light at the end of the tunnel yet, only darkness. while traveling through a tunnel it starts out in the light, and with sadness you watch your surroundings blacken. you forget you're moving at all there in the dark, and get caught up in the idea that the only light that exists is only behind you now, and cannot understand that while travelling through the tunnel, looking behind you to find the light becomes the wrong direction... the light will only appear ahead. but the light behind me is all i've known.

i still dream of strangers, and a city i've never seen. i know my life will amount to something bigger, it just isn't the time now. and if years from now i was terribly mistaken, and my life has amounted to nothing... i simply will fly off the handle, sell everything i own in a yard sale, and move away.

if life chooses to leave me behind i will simply have to get ahead of it.

i can't seem to shake this feeling that i made a wrong turn somewhere recently, and that the direction i chose gave me an entirely different life. i wake up and feel that i'm in the wrong city, meeting all the wrong people. i picture waking up in a different home with a breeze and clouds, and a completely different view from my balcony. i imagine that a typical day would include riding my bicycle to pick up groceries to make dinner for lover and i, and that after my work day, i would be going be sitting outside of a coffee shop, waiting for others to meet me and breathing a sigh of relief that tonight i belong somewhere with someone. i dream of other places. i've been meeting people in my dreams that i've never seen before, in a city i've never been to. i'm beginning to get to know these people because dreams of them recur more frequently. and i can tell it's somewhere other than where i am now because it rains there, and i once caught a glimpse of the skyline meeting the ocean.

i've been catching myself staring out windows again. at times i'll unknowingly spend 15 minutes standing in one place, staring at the wind moving the trees. i find myself listening to the water hit the floor of the shower, and become embarrassed that i've wasted 10 minutes and have only begun washing my face. i can hear myself when i'm laughing, and can feel the smile on my face. it's difficult to maintain. that's how i know it's coming back. when i find myself laughing out loud, my thoughts are not abandoned. instead they grow their loudest in those seconds of laughter. my body is beginning to reject feelings of happiness. it feels as though happiness is becoming more and more of a foreign substance. my body knows how i feel before my mind does at times.

how ungrateful of me, considering life has been so good to me. but sadness does not reflect gratuity. i understand what i have. i understand that compared to most, my life is considered bliss. but i think anyone could agree that even if you had won a one week stay in disneyworld, all would be lost if you were condemned with the flu on your first night's stay. my body feels sick at times, and i think it's gone to my head. depression usually makes its prescence known in my appetite and sleep patterns, and since those are the two things that my work schedule has wreaked havoc on, i simply cannot tell the difference.

music

i find music to be so intoxicating. i become lost with headphones in my ears, my body moves involuntarily, my heart beats accordingly. i can't help but to sing, it sets me free. the music plays to the beat of my heart, and in return my heart plays to the beat of the music. that feeling changed who i was, and defined who i am today. when i felt lost in the world, i found myself in lyrics.

there wasn't a thing i couldn't do when music was playing. and when the music stopped, my motivation seemed to come to a complete halt. i've found that i have't been feeling like myself this year. no matter how happy i was i still remained hollow. it took me weeks to realize it was the dust growing on my cd player. it hardly made a sound anymore; lover doesn't listen to music while he sleeps, and background noise to him has always been the television. i began resenting him for not loving music like i do. the music would play loudly in the car, and i seemed to be the only one singing, or really noticing the music at all.

i can't expect his heart to beat to the same tunes as mine. it's petty to wish that he would sing with me.

when i was a baby my parents would visit a family friend at his recording studio, and they would set me in front of the speakers to sleep. all the while the music flowed through the speakers, i slept through the sounds. my parents were musical. my grandfather was a musician, and my dad followed suit and became a very talented guitarist. to this day, my mom sings and dances consistently throughout her day, and sometimes i'm unsure she even notices she's doing it. as a teenager, i spent most of my time with two boys who practically slept with a guitar in their hand. it seemed fitting to have them so close to me, because when my parents divorced, the sounds of my dad's guitar no longer filled our home. i continued to immerse myself in music whenever i possibly could. i spent most of my time at band practices of local bands, or driving to los angeles with friends to stand in a crowded, sweaty room just to hear music that my cd player had played relentlessly on repeat. i used to close my eyes while the bands played; i could feel the music better.

i remember when i was in 6th grade, i was in love with christian bands. they pulled at my heart strings. they made me happy, and i was surrounded by positive messages. but the moment i hit 14, something was changing inside of me, the christian songs became unreal to me. there were things inside of me that i didn't understand, and those songs never mentioned the existence of. i then fell in love with a band that was the polar opposite of the pop punk christian music i adored. this band screamed loudly, they sang of love and pain bluntly, uncensored. i played the sounds of Bert McCracken's voice until the cd no longer worked. i've burned it so many times throughout the years because i would play the cd until they failed. naturally (and unintentionally) my parents disliked the band i fell in love with and probably grew quite concerned because i don't think they ever heard music like that anytime, much less when it was blaring out from under the door of their daughters bedroom.

i don't know who i would be without that cd and others. i cannot imagine my existence with the absence of music. i know at the end of the day, plenty of people can proudly state that they love music, but i sometimes wonder if they truly fall in love with a pair of headphones on. i can't describe the feeling it gives me. i could only imagine that it is a feeling of ecstasy that some can only manage to find at the bottom of a bottle, in the form of a pill, or maybe in the arms of a lover.

everyone has their vice, and this has always been mine.

"she has never seen the sunshine, yet she's getting along just fine."

everything is moving so slowly today. the whirring of the fan seems calmer, quieter. even the water in the shower seemed to fall slowly at my feet. i'm not tired, i'm not awake. i'm neither bored nor busy. i'm just here today, in the strangest way. i feel no peace, no chaos.

yesterday was chaos; everyone working so hard to be among the first to spread the news of death. i have no passion for bad news, i just edit it. i collapsed into bed after midnight. in the midst of running around the newsroom, all i could think about was being in his arms, in our bed. i worked so hard yesterday just to make it home, but i crawled into bed, let out a sigh of release, and felt no reward for what i had done.

when i do my job well your television will show you images of planes falling out of the sky, natural disasters consuming lives, trains colliding, gunshots fired into a crowd of people simply searching for peace.

when viewers call, i'm sometimes tempted to ask what makes them turn on the television every morning. is it routine? is it truly just to be informed? i believe some become so enamored with the news, as if it was a movie. the graphic images make their heart race. some out of fear, some out of intrigue. i imagine their faces watching in disbelief, as reporters flock to the scene to bring you back images of the world nearly coming apart.

i want to edit documentaries, films... images that make people travel and dream from under their own roofs. i want to inspire. i want to edit something that appears on television that i had enough time to truly create.

yesterday and today i'm covering the shift of another editor, and instead of working 2:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., i'm working an exact 12 hours difference: 2:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. you'd think i'd be so glad to see the sunshine, to sleep through the night. instead it made me thankful for the shift i have, and the people i'm surrounded by in the early mornings. even on the busiest morning there are just so few of us there so it feels as though we are all in it together.

i never thought i would say this, but i miss my old shift, and am entirely at peace with the idea of waking up at 2 in the morning this monday.