i don't want to live here anymore

this has been a tough week. end of the month, crazy at work. and on top of that, i can't sleep anymore. not because i'm not exhausted, not because i have insomnia, but because the people living upstairs from me think it's perfectly fine to make obscene amounts of noise from about 12am to 4am EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. i shit you not. i have been a sleep-deprived, overworked wreck. i try calling the police, that ends the noise for one late tuesday evening party upstairs. that's it. the rest of the nights is the same story. i go up and knock on the door and ask politely for them to keep it down because it's 2:30am, they say they will, and then it just gets louder. it sounds like they are moving in or moving out every night, with all the dragging, scraping, banging, thundering noise that they fucking make. i am so fed up i actually started looking for apartments. no one cares at all.

i call my landlady serveral times, leave her angry voicemails and emails, pleading with her to speak to these rude assholes, and nothing gets done. she doesn't even return my calls. i give her all my numbers and ask that she please get back to me to let me know if anything AT ALL can be done about this, especially because i am an excellent tenant and always pay my rent not only on time, but early, and still i don't hear anything from her. i even asked if there are any other free apartments in my building that i might be able to take instead of mine so i don't have to leave my address completely. i don't know what else to do. i was just about ready the other night to sleep out in the hallway with the bugs that come in from the back yard. i was that desperate for peace and quiet.

the thing is, i'm a light sleeper so i always sleep with earplugs. i even did this living at home because any noise would wake me up, even someone's loud talking in the next bedroom. so you can imagine me trying to drown out this noise from my neighbors with some measly earplugs. they don't quite do the trick. especially when it's 3 or 4 or 5am and i'm in a deep sleep and it sounds like some 300 pound person just fell on his ass upstairs just above my bed and i'm jolted awake. i live in a studio, the ceilings are low so these people are practically on top of me. it's so not fun. and i'm not even going to get into how pissed i get that i can never meditate as long as i want to. i was doing so well with it every night and feeling great as a result, but that is virtually impossible now.

now i feel like i live on their schedule. i'll snatch any precious quiet time i can, try to take advantage and take a nap or meditate, or watch a movie that i've been wanting to see. or just plain relax. and turn off the air conditioning when i'm freezing just because i wanted it on to have something else making noise to drown out the neighbor's a little bit more. i thought about blasting some really annoying music at 4 or 5am and see how they like it.they wouldn't have shit to complain about. and at least i'd have some vindication. i'd say i was just doing it to drown out the noise they were making, since nothing else seems to work and nothing else seems to make them stop. i'm the kind of person who cannot get by on very little sleep. i feel out of sorts and like my mind is slowing down. i need a lot of sleep in order to function normally. and i don't see how asking that people not make so much noise between midnight and 7am on sunday through thursday nights is too much to ask.

all these words i don't just say

There is a very painful scene (one of them) in the movie ‘welcome to the dollhouse’ in which the main character. Dawn, is asked to read her essay on ‘dignity’ in front of her 7th grade class. She begins to read and is told repeatedly, like 4 or 5 times by the teacher : ‘speak up! louder!! we can’t hear you!’ I felt this scene because I have gone through it in my own way countless times in my life. I have probably the quietest speaking voice you will ever hear, and people usually struggle to understand what I say. This was not fun in school, and it still bothers me to this day. sometimes I practically scream and I still cannot be heard or understood.

This movie hit close to home for me, except maybe I think I was Dawn in high school, instead of middle school. I was the dorky outcast who ate lunch by herself and was mercilessly teased every day by the same tireless people. It was just that bad. I cannot imagine ever going back to that time and how tortured I felt. Of course now I can look back and think how silly it all was. but everything at that age is so serious and so life or death. That’s when the melodramatic poetry starts coming out, and your paranoia gets way out of control.

I had an overly active imagination as a teen, and lived for fantasy and just being alone in my own head. It was hard to let people in. I felt they didn’t understand and no one could relate to me. I was going through the same adolescent years as all my peers, but for some reason I felt I was not having even the slightest bit of the same experience they all were.

Being a soft spoken person does not go over well. it allows people to feel they can talk over you, discount what you’re saying. I think speaking is a lot like writing, I don’t do it unless I have something to say. And it’s an act of courage every time you open your mouth to speak or put words down for another person to read. You open yourself up to judgment, or the possibility that you will be misunderstood, shunned, or even ignored (which has happened to me). I can’t tell you how fucking aggravating that is. i don’t like people who interrupt, who talk for the sake of talking, who feel the need to fill every silence with words, and who cannot stop to think before they speak. I speak when I have something to say. (It’s like smiling when you have a reason to, not because you are told to).

I write when I don’t think anyone can stand or sit still long enough to hear all that I need to pour forth from my heart, or if there is something to say that is uniquely mine that needs to find it’s form in the written word. when you write, the journal won’t stop you or interrupt you, talk over or smirk at you, ignore you, or pretend to listen to you while it just stares on. my mother tends to do this. I’ll be going on telling her something about my life or myself and all she can respond with is something about my appearance. She’ll say how nice my skin looks, or my eye lashes, or my make-up, or something else completely irrelevant. Like I’m not supposed to have any depth beneath that.

I don’t know why but I have no appetite lately. I never feel hungry and if I do then I eat very little and feel full right away and just stop. And I end up with an upset stomach most of the day. maybe it’s anxiety? Or the heat? It’s weird, but I guess I have always had a pretty sensitive stomach. It’s really a struggle to eat sometimes. I think maybe I need to change my diet.

Wish I had more to say here, I’m not updating as often as I’d like.

you hold the key

I once heard that if ever you find a lost key in a public place, you should always pick it up and keep it with you. It is a sign; it’s your key to something you have been seeking. I forgot where I read or heard that, but I never forgot it. and I have tried to always remember it. I found a small key today during my lunch break. There are some big fountains nearby where I work and surrounding the fountains is a flat short wall where people often sit for lunch. It’s facing a deli that has outdoor seating. Once I sat for lunch I noticed a small brilliant silver key near me on the wall. There were people sitting beside me on either side but neither of them seemed to notice it or could’ve been the ones to drop it. it was a little bit dirty and did not have a key ring attached to it. it looked as if it had been there for a while.

It has a small round top with a hole that is pretty big for the size of the overall key. It struck me as unique because it looks like a child’s diary key or like a key for a safe deposit box. It’s super small. I picked it up and cleaned it off a little (after eating my lunch of course) and put it in my pocket. I think the hole in the key is big enough for me to place it on a chain and wear it as a pendant, so maybe I’ll do that and it will bring me luck. I’m sure I have an unused silver chain lying around that will fit it. for now I have the key in the change part of my wallet, in a flap separate from my change.

I’m always looking for silly, superstitious ways to invite more luck into my life. It can’t hurt to believe in a special talisman placed at the just the right time for only you to find and keep. Sorry to anyone out there in NYC if this is your key that I stole. It was so cute I just had to take it.

drowning in the wishing well

i don't know why i gravitate towards these weird films that no one has heard of or seen. the latest movie i rented was 'finding forrester,' which is oddly facinating and satisfying to watch. i find it so amazing that the lead actor, rob brown, had no acting experience before this movie. he is so smooth and natural that you would never believe he was anyone other than this teenager he plays in the movie, jamal wallace. and to act opposite sean connery who is so out there and abrasive, i don't know how he did it.

it's a really interesting story about how this young boy and his curiosity and hunger for knowledge lead him to the apartment of an old, reclusive writer who has written the great american novel. the author, william forrester, becomes the boy's mentor and teacher, and gives him life lessons and writing rules. in the process, forrester comes out of seclusion. jamal inspires him to re-enter the world. the way that these two characters bond is something so delightfully done and with lots of wit, that it's enormously entertaining. to watch these two men who differ in every possible way have a meeting of the minds over their commom creative talents is really compelling.

there's an interview in the making of special on the DVD where someone (i forgot who) sums up a lesson of the movie which, i'm paraphrasing here, is: you can be afraid of change, you can be afraid of people who are different from you, but if you let them in, you will be rewarded and they will end up giving you new life. that's a perfect summation of this film. that's why i love it so much. it's unconventional and yet has a real feeling to it. everything in the movie does. it's so inspiring. the openness of these characters to new experiences, the branching out into unfamiliar territory, and the willingness to share who they are with the other. i can't say enough about it.

i think it was done by the same director who directed 'to die for,' one of my favorite films ever. something about nicole kidman's character in that movie is endlessly engrossing to me. her drive, her determination, her evil nature, her ice maiden-ness, is all so perfect. she totally becomes this ruthless, heartless bitch who always gets her way and it's done to perfection. i must have seen that movie 30 times or something. it was also so well-made, in documentary style on purpose, to follow the themes of the movie and of kidman's character, suzanne stone. the way she uses her powers to seduce and corrupt is something that i never get tired of watching. that's one movie anyone who's reading this HAS to rent. it's hilarious and powerful and full of reality too. i saw it when i was in high school i think, and watched it over and over. i couldn't get past nicole kidman's perfectly sleazy portrayal.

so yeah, this is my weekend for relaxing, as opposed to last weekend which was all craziness. my boss is starting to give me these extra assignments and analysis to do here and there. i hope they won't be pushing to move me up again. i can't take the stress. i wasn't cut out for this kind of work. i'm hoping it will just go away. as soon as i get comfortable they have to start in on me and then it gets hard to get up and go to work. i really don't want that to happen because i don't think i can be pushed much further. unless they really don't mind me constantly asking for help, hopefully they will back off and things will resume to how they were before. although last summer was when i got my last promotion, so i wonder if that's the timeline they are following. god knows i can't teach the girl assisting me to do my job so she can move up too, that would be so unpleasant and difficult, then again, maybe i could finally take a 2 week vacation someday.

i am loving the 'superbeautifulmonster' bif naked CD. she does this cover of 'nothing else matters' by metallica that's absolutely surreal and lovely. i don't know why she's not more well known. her voice is so moving. she sings with everything she's got. 'drowning in the wishing well' is a line from the last song on the CD, called 'after a while.'

lackluster

i've been in a bit of a creative rut lately. not enough time for anything. and little inspiration. so i thought i'd share this quote that i read recently in the book i'm reading called 'anyone can write'

"the truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. to him a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, a failure is death. add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create-so that wihout the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. he must create, must pour out creation. by some strange, unknown, inward urgency, he is not really alive unless he is creating."

-Pearl Buck

isn't that the truth?


today was tiring. just like yesterday. i wish it could be friday. sometimes i wonder why i stay at my draining, stressful job. then i come home to my apartment and say, oh yeah, there's no way i'm losing this and all the perks it brings. like freedom, privacy, sanctuary. i wouldn't want to ever give that up. even though it's tough sometimes to do the laundry or clean when i'd rather be doing something else. when i'd rather be writing.

i finally got to buy 'confessions on a dance floor' today and heard it at work. it was pretty ok but somehow i thought it would be a lot better. seemed kind of bland. i probably have to give it a few more listens. i also picked up bif naked's CD, 'superbeautifulmonster'. i gave a quick listen to some of the tracks at borders using the headphone things that only give you a short preview, it sounded pretty promising. i need to keep my mind occupied if i ever hope to remain patient, serene, and pulled together. getting lost in the worlds of new music is one way i do it.