Pumpkin pie latte with a side of interesting please?

I spent my morning in a coffee shop today, being the sterotypical java junkie, studying, then working on my novel and now blogging away. A lot of interesting people walk into coffee shops. Some just pop in to get their daily decaf, others are here catching up with friends, some our learning new languages and some are here not even drinking coffee, so I'm not really sure why they are here. I wonder if people walk into the shop and look at me and wonder what kind of a person I am. I wonder if they think about what I am studying, or what I am typing away about looking os intense into my work, barely able to take a pause from typing long enough to take a sip of my pumpkin pie latte. In thinking about the type of person I am again, I am not doing so well on my addictions. I think it is impossible for me to give up chocolate and caffeine. Personally this is something that makes me who I am. I love chocolate, and kind, I'm addicted. I love caffeine. I again, am addicted. I'm doing really well on the cigarettes and casanova addiction, however, so a fifty percent success rate on the four things I was going to try and give up is good enough for me for now!

More to come later, even though my life has not been all that exciting, but I do have a "anti-date" to blog about but I have to go to work and it will have to wait until I don't have to study.

Addiction Diaries

So I am attempting, successfully surprisingly, to quit smoking. I have not been a non-smoker in years and in some very sad and disturbing way, it was one quality about me that actually made me who I am. Throughout high school and struggling through identity crisis' and deeply searching your soul for answers, I was a smoker. It defined me. I smoked. I know it sounds horrible and I know how bad it is for your health and I've read all the studies, but it was something that I did everyday. It was one thing in my life that I was always committed to and it committed to me. Mr. Marlboro was there for me in the car on my long hours of road tripping. He was there through the many bar stool sorrow sob stories and tequila shots. Mr. Marlboro was there for me even after a workout, because running a mile cancelled out the effects of at least two cigarettes right?

So now here I am, struggling with my identity a little bit now because I have recently redefined myself as a non-smoker. And since I am making such healthy choices for my life, I have decided to try and quit a slew of other addictions that often times occupy my mind, my lifestyle and my time. For instance, tequila. I love tequila. Everyone knows I love tequila. Everyone loves me on tequila. But I am going to quit drinking tequila. Even though it has created some very fond memories, lately I often find myself rubbing my head with one eye open in the morning grunting "fuck my life" over and over when I drink tequila. So I am not going to have anymore tequila.

Since I was giving up cigarettes and tequila, I decided to try and give up another vice of mine: sugar. Sugar and I have a very intimate relationship. I eat it everyday. I even eat chocolate for breakfast with the excuse that it helps make me thirsty so I start my day off right with two glasses of water. So today is going to be my last day of eating sugar, for a while, giving up sugar completely for a lifetime is a goal even I know is unattainable.

And while I was on this path of self discovery and health, I have decided to give up my addiction of model-Esq males. Yes, I admit, I am shallow. I date only for appearance at times and it never ends well, in fact I can even tell you how it will end before I even go out on a date with them (if there is a date). Because let me tell you, these pretty boys only care about themselves, so if they can drag themselves out of their state of narcissism long enough to ask what YOU might want to do, then you might get a date. If not (and usually not) you (I) get a blue eyed snake who spits venom in the form of sex appeal and I go numb every time. Well not anymore. I am going to date outside of the box, when the situation arises and I am going to run far away from these modern day Casanovas and never look back.

They have done studies that says it takes six months to develop a habit and it takes a lifetime to break one. I realized while I was in the hospital that I needed to make a drastic change in my life. A change for the good, and this was something that I was terrified to do because it is different. I was the tequila shooting, womanizer dating, red smoking beautiful disaster. But this is not how I want to be viewed when I do meet people. I want to be interesting. I want to be fit and healthy. This is going to be a struggle everyday and I will keep you updated in the blog on my addiction diaries. I am excited to turn over a new leaf!

The black scarf

So today I feel most out of character. I am surprisingly at ease. I have many things to do, many things I want to do, but slowly my to do list is dwindling and I am now in a shocking place not quite knowing what to do with myself when I am not in a hurry or a rush. There has been no hustle to my day. I was late to chemistry lab, but it was fine. I was late to genetics, but we didn't even start on time. I was late into work and yet, find myself sitting with no work to do until my class begins.

I went shopping today. I was on a mission. One, I had many coupons and gift cards to my favorite store, so I wanted to spend that, but I also was on a mission to find this black scarf. I wanted a black scarf and bangle bracelets and I had them perfectly pictured in my head. I was already coordinating all the outfits that I could put together with these pieces of accessories and I was so excited that when I got out of lab early I raced to the store without hesitancy to complete my mission.

Upon arriving to the store, I was dissappointed to find that even though they had a black scarf and bangle bracelets, they were not exactly what I was looking for. Instead of giving up the search or leaving to find exactly what I wanted, I purchased them because they were close enough and why waste another trip and more time when I didn't really know if the perfect scarf or bangle set truly existed.

I realized that this was what I was doing in my life. I have these ideals in my head that are fantastic. I get excited about searching for them. I hunt for them, I prey on them. When I think I find them, even if they are not exactly what I want, I accept less than perfection because I feel that close enough is good enough for me.

Close enough is not good enough, because close enough is not what I want for my life. I want my ideal, I want my dream job with my dreamy husband and my dream car. My dream job is not one in which I make a lot of money, it is one that makes me happy. My dream husband does not have to be six feet tall with muscles a tan and lots of money, but he does have to have the qualities that I value which might not be the same to everyone else. My dream car is not a mercedes. It is a small SUV that doesn't squeal when it rains nor has rust on the side of the car.

My point is, is that life is like the perfect black scarf. Sure black realistically goes with everything, but why settle for a scarf that you are not in love with when you could simply accessorize with a fabulous hat!

At peace with the Universe

For the past two years, something that started as a fun Halloween party at work, has turned into a bright light at the end of a very long dark tunnel. We had this lady come in who was a medium, a saint, a spirit guide, a clarvoyant, however you chose to view her based on her experience. With the wonders of technology and facebook of course, I have managed to connect with her passionate wisdom from above on a daily basis. I use her as a guide to life. She has the ability to stay still and connect to the Universe. A Universe that places people and signs in our path on a daily basis, but we are just too wrapped up in our mundane tasks to be still and see them, to listen to them. We all have that inner voice, intuition, that funny feeling in the pit of our stomach, but often times we choose to ignore it. We my recent perils, my inability to make a decision, my quick wit and thinking, my move from my apartment, the devastation from a broken heart, the unwillingness to settle and so much more, I needed to be sure that I was on the right path. Tears, forty dollars and a phone call later, this is what the universe had to say for me...

Lion- leader
Greetings
There have been many people leading without authority. You have actually had the answers all along
but have been unsure in your leader role to take a stand with all of these larger energies.
This is the dawning of a new day.. This hurdle/obstacle will set the pace for all of the other leadership
roles that you are playing, and will become very simple to overcome. Since they are all reflective of your
confidence to know what is needed for your life.
Your intuition is developing and as you begin to trust the inner knowing will get stronger and you will
identify these familiar scenarios before they begin…….

Those are words directly from my spirit guide, watching over my life and evaluating my decisions on a daily basis. Of course we discussed what this meant and why it had any relation to my life. But even if you do not believe in any of this, it was a pretty strong message.

Silence

I realize it has been a few weeks since I have written. I find myself consumed with nothing but tasks that I have to complete, deadlines I need to meet and an overwhelming sense of desire to bury my head in the sand again and ignore the trials and tribulations of life. However, I am now an adult and remind myself everyday that this is not an option and somehow I find enough strength in my coffee grounds to keep going at a pace of an olympic sprinter. The homework keeps piling up, time keeps slipping past and it seems that even with no sleep, there is simply only one of me and that is not enough to maintain this pace for much longer.

I came home last night from a twelve hour day of work, filming a reality t.v show for m.t.v and when I walked in the door to silence, I broke down. I have not had silence for so long. I have not simply been able to sit in the stillness of a dimly lit room alone with my thoughts in months and it was the most joyous feeling, I couldn't help but just cry. I was able to separate myself from the whirlwind of thoughts and things to do in my mind and just be with myself, alone and I was able to crawl into my bed, alone and sleep. Just sleep and wake up feeling refreshed and rejuvinated with the knowledge that God would not give me anything that I cannot handle. He is placing all of this on my plate as a true test of character. A test of my ability to prioritize, not procrastinate and to help me along my journey in self discovery. It is in this hardship that I am figuring out the most about myself and the most about what I need without even having to put it in the forefront of my mind. Subconsciously I am realizing what path I want to take in my life. I may be at a crossroads right now, but I am at least able to read the sign at this fork in the road and I have faith that I will soon have courage to joyously skip down the path I choose instead of run scared down a self destructive path.

I have to prioritize now and begin studying for an exam. Hopefully I will have enough solitude in my evening to write again later.

100 days of my life; 100 selfish acts; 100 self discoveries

As I have mentioned in a few other blogs, I have made lists of things that I want to do. Without much success, I haven't completed any of them and it has been close to two years since I have made my first list. In retrospect, it doesn't seem that long ago, but two years time is a lot of time to waste when that is a total of 730 days and my list was only about 30 activities long. That means that since I complete only about 10 things on my list, I accomplished nothing but mundane tasks for 720 days. I am sickened by how much time I tend to waste and flustered by the amount of things that I want to experience, but use time as an excuse as to why I never do it. This year, I want to do something different. I want to complete something in my life, since I am the type of person that starts a hundred projects and cannot finish one. I was going to make my project last a full year with 365 things to try and accomplish. I thought this might be a little too ambitious, since realistically I am a full time student and I do work full time. So I have cut the list down to 100. 100 things to do this year and each thing that I accomplish on the list I will take a photograph or a self portrait so to speak. This will be my year long masterpiece and I will blog about the experiences I have had doing the things on my list. I have to go to class, but I will start thinking of 100 things I want to experience and I will update this later.

Distractions

Today I am finding myself to be consumed by distractions. Not by people, but by the thoughts that are swirling throughout my mind today so I took a break from what I had to do to see if blogging would help to clear away the fog from my mind.

I woke up today in a rush, not because I was late or because I had slept in, I had just slept in longer than I had particularly wanted to. I wanted to get up and print out my notes for class tomorrow, but I didn't. I wanted to wake up and charge my bluetooth, but I didn't. Instead I was so overwhelmed with the idea that I had woken up 30 minutes later than I had intended, I just laid in bed with my coffee and thought about what I should be doing instead of actually doing it. Take for instance this very moment. I should be using this time to write my chemistry lab report, however, I am so consumed by all of these thoughts that if I do not get them out I cannot further concentrate, thus being an enabler to my own mind. So instead I am blogging.

Last night I had an odd dream, one of many that I have had in the past few nights which makes me believe that the cosmos are either trying to tell me to settle down, you are in more control than you think, or they are saying that no amount of therapy will be able to decipher what my innermost subconsciousness is trying to say to me these days.

I dreamt that my boyfriend and I were at a party and he was paying attention to every girl in the room except for me. Usually this does not bother me but in my dream I was quite disturbed by it. I noticed him paying particular attention to an ex girlfriend and after they were done flirting, being the bold person that I am, I approached him and asked him why he was doing this and if maybe now he felt as if we should split up. He said to me..."If I can get this many chicks with a girlfriend, imagine how many I can get without one." There it was, the decision was made, the immature, chick magnet had re-emerged from within which made me realize that it was that persona that made me fall out of love with him the first time and I bowed out gracefully. Upon returning to our apartment after the party, which was of course only a resemblance of our apartment, but a much nicer and larger, two story version, he was of course on the couch and as I walked to the bathroom, I found it clogged, with the seat up and the toilet paper roll empty. With the exception of the toilet clog, this is the disarray I often times find the bathroom was makes me angry in our waking life, so it is no wonder I dreamt of this scenario. In my dream, I simply exasperated and then I awoke, wondering if he wasn't lying next to me because he had gone to work or if I had simply gotten what I seem to be dreaming of: brutal honesty and an endless supply of toilet paper.

The night before this I was in the water, rapids, in a row boat with my family and my mother was steering in the front of the boat with her orange and blue life jacket on and her yellow helmet. I was the perspective at the far rear of the boat, watching her navigate through these rough waters and then she simply stood up and said to me, "Michele, take the paddle and come to the front of the boat." I awoke feeling a sigh of relief. This dream made me feel as if she was subconsciously telling me that she trusts my judgement in hard times and trusts me enough to be able to paddle through the rough waters of life. I of course, am no dream interpreter but this is what I would like this dream to signify!

Well blog, it is almost 11:30, which was the time I said I would pack up and head to work. My compulsive scheduled nature will not allow me to stay a minute more or my life will further more be in a panic (I should probably see someone about this OCD problem). I will write more later if I finish my lab report at a decent time this evening and get all of my schooling out of the way, for I still have a million things to say and I know I will not rest if I don't remove them from my consciousness.