I Wish I Could Be Naked Right Now.

I haven't posted anything since last year on Christmas. Epic fail, man. EPIC. Several things have happened to me since I last posted. I am settled in Winston fully now, and I work at a lovely job while living in my lovely house with my lovely boyfriend. Now that the stress is lessening, my relationship with my bodybuilder has entered into an extremely lovely stage (i.e., we are both adults and everything is working the way it should be.) Needless to say, sometimes he drives me crazy and of course I ask myself all the time, "is this really the guy you want to be with?" which is when every molecule of my being chimes in, screaming, "Yes, YES! Of course he is!" Our arguments make me love him all the more. That's part of what love is. Our fourth anniversary is April 6. Fourth as in, four years.

Nova had her puppies. She had nine. They're all strong, fluffy, and boisterous. They were born on February 21. I've been keeping extremely busy because Nova AND the puppies are my responsibility, and Nova AND the puppies all possess the ability to soil themselves as much as possible (Nova is mad at me and likes to punish me by dirtying her crate. Lucky me.)

Here is Nova and Yuma, aka the proud parents.

Like I said, there are nine. Five girls, four boys. They're all in the picture. Doesn't look like that many but really. Count 'em.

I am now twenty years old. Yay for me. I didn't do much, my mom gave me a Nook for my birthday (for those that aren't familiar, a Nook is an electronic reader that Barnes & Noble came out with on the heels of the IPad and the Kindle.) We had a Dewey's Bakery lemonade flavored cake and everyone that is important to me (bodybuilder, mother, and siblings) were in attendance.

We also found a pretty nice gym. It's like fifteen to twenty minutes drive away from us, but they have smoothies, massage, a sauna, and tanning as well as all the equipment we need. I also found the greatest vintage store in my neighborhood. It's called "Puttin' On the Ritz" and I'm sure no one ever goes there because no one knows where it is, it's in a gorgeous house and every square inch is packed with legitimate vintage clothing, jewelery, SHOES, and accessories. Even hats. It seems to span all the decades between the 30's and the 90's, and I'd buy out everything the owner (a charming man named Hans) had in my size if I had the money. Some of the things are a little pricey, they had fabulous dresses encrusted with sequins running like $40, but like I said, legitimate vintage, so therefore legitimately WORTH it. 

I have a new digital camera. I am going to be posting a lot more especially when I get Internet at my house (I am at my mom's right now, my great aunt died so she and my siblings are away in Oklahoma for the funeral.) I want to write some more self love pieces, nurture my Chictopia site, and share more of my personal life and style with you guys. However, I won't be putting months and months between my posts ever again. 

Until we meet again, cheers!

Oh, and this is completely inconsequential, but title of this posting is completely irrelevant, although entirely TRUE. I love being naked.

I know she's not naked, but she looks like she wants to be ;) Don't you just love vintage French postcards?

Merry Christmas

I have been pretty pensive lately.

I don't have any internet at the new house, but yes, the move did go fine, thank you... If you were wondering at all, that is. I'm at my mother's right now. The bodybuilder is in Virginia. He's supposed to come back tomorrow morning while I'm at work (I work at the mall now, weehee, no more bagel shop for me...) but I doubt it. After all, both of our states is swathed in snow at the moment. I hear the roads are perilous. It is the first white Christmas Winston-Salem has had in 41 years. That's really reflective of my life for awhile now. Things have happened to me that I haven't and probably won't understand for awhile (rare strange perilous things, like snow), because I didn't know such things existed. Like how people can be so snarky and mean; I won my case in court, in which my former landlord said he just wanted to ensure I was leaving by using court as a threat. He says he takes EVERY tenant whose lease he terminates to court... Expensive, I think. The office manager promised me my deposit back, but Wednesday I recieved a letter saying I wasn't getting it back, and I owe them over $370 for "damages" to the apartment--damages they refuse to let my deposit take care of. Not only are they refusing to give back my deposit, but they have the gall to demand more money. How interesting. I barely have it in me to fight against them anymore, because if I refuse to pay them then they will get creditors after me. At my age I really can't afford to sully my delicate (and few) lines of credit that I have. ...How annoying.

It's Christmas and despite the snow and my fabulous presents, it passed with a whimper. I consider it over, which makes me bummed. But we celebrated it yesterday because Mom worked today, and I ate tons of ham just now. And banana split ice cream. I worked an overnight shift yesterday, then opened presents right after. I don't think I've fully recovered; right now I am an odd mix of content and exhausted. I will be attending Forsyth Tech on January 10th. Finally getting a real start on the future that I want more than anything. I feel like I'm wasting time, like I'm old, like I am going to die young and my age is just a ticking time bomb, set to merely implode within me and render me to ash, and dust. It's a strange feeling. I turn 20 next Sunday, eight days I suppose, and I watch the date approach with bitterness. I'd like to get roaring drunk, after eating a wonderful meal, and hopefully unwrapping the present that I've asked for the past two birthdays that no one will get me---a cream colored, silky, sexy kimono robe. Short (mid thigh, over my ass definitely) with big sleeves. Please? Why won't anyone get me one? It's $20 at Target. I don't get it.

I've been training at the gym tons. I got a particularly gross cold a few days ago so I've turned my back on it for about a week (feeling too drained and plehgmy), but most weeks I go for an hour and a half on five or six days out of the week. Splendid really. I'm trying to get in wonderful shape so that I can train MMA at a 24/7 gym near my house. I'm training at another gym right now to turn into this hardbody I envision myself as in the future, so that when I do go for my MMA classes, no one there will know how awkward and silly looking I was when I started toying with the idea.

The future does look nice for me, I must say. I just want to sleep. I wish this whole business with my (former) landlord would just fizzle away, so that I can forget I ever lived in stupid Greenville, and it can all be a distant memory. That'd just make everything a little sweeter...

Weekly Things I Love

I'm gonna start doing this every week, coz there's so many things in the world that I love :) Love needs to be shared, don't you think? ....I love Kate Moss. She's gorgeous. She gives me hope, because she's so unconventionally pretty, and yet so successful. Drug addiction and her quotes encouraging anorexia aside. Hey, I never said she was a role model. Just that I adore her. Look at those hipbones. Geesh.

* * * * * * *

Things I Really Enjoyed This Week...

My wonderful boyfriend, he's gotten so amazing. He leaves me adorable messages on my cell phone everyday, and tells me how much he loves me and misses me and "can't get enough" of me. I adore him even more than I ever thought possible. --- All the good news I got today! --- How soft my doggie, Nova, is the day after I bathe her. --- The new steak chili at work. And the gingerbread man cookies. So delicious and so against my nutrition plan. --- Rediscovering the deliciousness of baked classic Lay's. --- Mug upon mug of hot green tea. --- New episodes of Spongebob. --- Wearing shit I never usually wear because all of my favorite stuff I wear over and over is packed in boxes already, ready to be moved. --- Having tons and tons of nookie. --- Having tons of hope that things are going to work out. --- Starting the "no-poo" routine, as detailed by this article. --- Organic apple juice in a itsy bitsy carton. --- The feeling I get when I was really close to E on my car's gas tank, then pulling away from the gas station with my mind at ease because it's full! --- Three words; mint hot chocolate. No whipped cream please. --- "God's Gonna Cut You Down" by Johnny Cash.

What a Tangled Web We Weave,

And You Work So Hard to Deceive Me.

I have been lost in a limbo. I have found myself laying on my mattress, my limbs curled up inside each other, feeling like a bird kicked from a nest... There was warmth and comfort, then nothing but air when I am hurled towards the ground with my wings spindly and furled against me, before I crash to the ground spattered like a thrown egg. I have that feeling on the mattress, and I am crying, because it is so easy for you to hurt me, to desert me... You are a different kind of sell out. You'd sell your soul, your heart, your girlfriend, just to make your point drive home. Just to have the last word. And then when I have gathered myself up again, when I have stitched the wounds on my wings closed all on my own, you are ready to shower your kisses and your love upon me. I am only relieved, and in my fucked up mind I am happy because it's like you're you again... Only, I don't know who you are.

Who are you? Are you the person that holds me close? When we sleep, are you the person that entwines your legs with mine? The man that whispers in my ear and clasps me ever so tightly as you move inside me? Or are you something else... The monster with the cold eyes, the hole for a heart, sucking me in but giving nothing, the man that has always been so selfish... I don't know who you are. I am scared to look within you and see the truth, that you are both, and that the person you really are is something else entirely; everything else is fake, a front, a defense mechanism that prevents anyone from getting too close. Even me.

I wonder why you hold me two arms length's away and still find it so easy and appealing to hurt me, why I can be broken and crying during an argument, even after I haven't cried in so long, and you can still snub me so easily, eager to have the last word. It disgusts me to cry in front of you, to be so vulnerable when you are so cold, and the tears choke me and hurt like there's glass in my throat, in my lungs. I have tried to take care of you, tried to make you see in yourself what I see, make you see that when we are together and happy, we are strong and can do anything... That I have trusted you to be the two legs that I stand on, to be the other heart that mine has been searching for, and yet you take a leg from me so easily, relishing it when I trip up so you can say something smart and then rub it in my face. You say I try to mold you, and I guess it is what it is, I just wanted you to reach your potential. I just wanted you to be better. I just wanted you to see the pedestal that I put you on and know that you are capable of flying far above it, if only you'd let yourself. I guess I was wrong for believing in you, and it's always wrong to believe in someone, if they can't believe in me, or in themselves.

I find that I am empty; water rushes through me, and there is nothing in my bloodless veins but the dripping of the water, and I am hollow, with nothing and no one to fill me. Not even myself.

On the Waves of Change...

So today after particularly annoying day at work (due to being insulted by managers, obnoxious customers, and my register drawer being ten dollars short), I came home to a nasty piece of news... My apartment's lease was being terminated (a fancier term meaning hey, you're being evicted, only nicely so it won't affect your credit). Don't even let me remind all of you that I have only lived in this apartment since August. Now, I've written a post before about my shitty neighbors, and they were even shittier than I thought, as is my landlord, a man named Mike. Ever since we moved in, we have been blamed for things; one of our dogs was marking the bushes outside, because we were never told not to, and we were immediately held responsible for the dying bushes, even though they were dying before we moved in. Our dogs sometimes howl when we are gone, as do three other dogs in the complex, but we again are blamed solely for it--most likely because we are the only ones that didn't complain. There are roaches in our apartment and those close to us, and even though it says that any pests are the landlord's responsibility, we are being held accountable for the entire roach problem in the building, and that among the other things is reason enough for our lease to be terminated today, literally with no notice. I had never known that was in the equation. Mike also cited complaints that we have been having "domestic disputes." When Justin and I argue, we give each other the silent treatment, although I can't remember the last time we've had a real argument (let alone a loud one), and that's being completely honest with myself. Maybe we've been having sex too loudly, and our neighbors are jealous because they're not getting any. I wouldn't put it past them, because of how petty they are. However, on one side the guys can sit outside and smoke shitty weed all night so the whole complex reeks of it, and on the other side that bitch can party and blast music til 2 in the morning and come home drunk and yelling, leaving the porch light on all night every night so moths, spiders, and flies take up both our front doors as their new domain. It's so silly, because not once did I complain about them, despite the thin walls (I can hear our neighbors talking on the phone, using the toilet, slamming cabinets) but the entire time we've lived here, they've done nothing but. It's just one more to add to the plethora of reasons that I hate Greenville... I hate the college kids, the traffic, and the cramped roads. I hate the racist, tough attitude of the locals, and how there's nothing to do but get high and drunk. There's no museums, no pretty boutiques, no hip restaurants. Just Mickey D's for miles and an overcrowded Wal-Mart. I despise the strange weather; either too hot one day then freezing the next, but mostly rain. I even hate the name; both Greenville, and that stupid slang name, G-Vegas. I will not be unhappy to leave, especially since I was going to move to Winston Salem anyway next summer, although the timing couldn't be more terrible, which is the thing that really sucks. Maybe this is supposed to happen. I don't entertain myself with the notion that everything happens for a reason, but I can hope that the big things do, and maybe this will all turn out for the best. I'm sure everything will pan out...

For obvious reasons, my address is blacked out, but here's my "lease termination" notification letter for a bit of a fucked up laugh.... ;) 

How to Get A Significant Other

I am a champ at dating, and you know why? You're probably scoffing at the fact that I just said that, because I have been with the same guy for four years, but our relationship hasn't always been rock solid, and I've managed  to let several other guys fall in love with me, though really on accident, just for being myself, and unconsciously using the tips I'm about to give you, because really, these tips are just part of who I am as a person... And I'm really sorry that they work kinda, coz they've hurt a few people in the long run, mostly because even when another guy has fallen for me, there's only been one for me. Even when that one was SO wrong, he was and still is absolutely it. So then I thought, how can I make all this worthwhile? How can all that trouble for all those fellows come to fruition for the people that know me? And this post was born. (Not only that, I have a few tricks up my sleeve that I used when I was single and flirty that normally worked, but hey, who can swear by them, because there's nothing out there that will work on every single person in the universe. Impossible.)

I am a really honest person, ha, isn't that funny? I am really open with everyone I meet, mostly because I'm scared that if I hide something I'll let it slip later and look dumb. Whatever the reason, I try to just be honest from the get go. Honesty is the best policy. Stupid cliches aside... No, really. Cliches are such for a reason, and they all have a grain of truth to them. Maybe even more than a grain. When I thought a guy was good looking, I would tell him so; and of course, when I was single, because this is about how to get a new boyfriend, not how to cheat on the fabulous guy you have now. So don't try to trip me up on technicalities! HA! This is for guys or lesbians or whatever, I don't care, we all deserve someone to love and cuddle and have sex with... Please be honest about your intentions. If you're in love with someone else, and it's clear your friend is wanting more than what you're willing to provide, say so, and pray to God that their infatuation for you doesn't grow, as it did in a situation or two of mine... EXAMPLE; you just met a guy, and you think he's cute so you want to hang out with him. Don't play games. Don't try to get him to make the first move. Tell him you think he's gorgeous and ask him when you're gonna hang out together, period. He will think you're refreshing. And in a way, it is still kinda playing games because it's definitely a tactic, but he will appreciate that he didn't have to do all the work. Plus, lots of guys are shy. And it's not hard to be easygoing about it; just drop a compliment, and then say, "So when are we hanging out?" like you know he already wants to... because don't you know he wants to?

Speaking of shyness.... Being shy sucks. I used to be shy, like to the point of being crippled by it, which actually was a turn on for guys because they liked my vulnerability and innocence and shit. Turns out, I wasn't innocent or vulnerable. Just scared shitless. It's not hard to push shyness out of your system. It takes a lot of awkwardness, and maybe even rejection and plenty of stupid moments where you look like a stuttering, bumbling idiot, but once it's gone you won't miss any more opportunities because of your shyness. I ruined my entire high school "career" because I was shy, and so people wrote me off as unapproachable and stuck up, which wasn't it at all. Once I realized that this part of my personality was taking away some valuable elements from my life, I started putting myself out there. I smiled at strangers. (Baby steps, guys. Baby steps.) I took a job that forced me to speak with over 100 strangers daily and convince them to sell things for the company I worked for. Not only did I have to speak to these strangers, I had to be charming and endearing, and later I had to meet them in person when they came for their job interviews and be gracious about it. Oh dear, what practice. That job killed my shyness in a week or two. You can do it by taking speech classes, or by making as many new friends as you can. You wouldn't believe how many people passed on you because they were intimidated by you... Trust me, they probably told you later. I know they told me.

Be open with your sexuality. No, I mean this. I am a female. I have soft skin and I like to smell pretty and I wear heels sometimes. I adore showing the beginning cleft of my cleavage and I know my lashes are long. If you're a man... guess what, the smell of your sweat turns us (women) on, and I like your hairy knuckles and veiny hands and broad backs. If you're lesbian and you are more masculine, flaunt that shit, because somewhere your next catch is eying you like "Whoooooa, Momma." If you're a feminine homosexual male, wear your scarves and coif your hair perfect and oil your skin because first of all, you're hot, and second of all, I want you to be my best friend. :) Your sexuality can be however you want it to be, and you have to be comfortable with that side of you to be comfortable in your own skin. It's part of the body peace, it's like being comfortable with freckles or cellulite or red hair. If you're not comfortable with the procreating, sexy part of you, how can you expect someone else to be? I'm not saying, hey, go fuck everything and anything that crosses you, you crazy slut, you. I am saying... you are what you are, and someone thinks you're sexy, so go for it. If you think you're sexy, and I stress again, SEXY not SLUTTY, then someone else will too; and sex is a vital part of every healthy relationship.

Lastly (kinda), confidence doesn't mean not nervous, it means knowing what you want and going for it, while being scared out of your pants. At least in most cases. Like, I respect every guy that comes up to me genuinely, not the guys that say "Hey baby, lemme stick my cock in you!" but the guys that summon up their courage and ask me out for real, because that shit is hard. Lots of attractive people are taken (yep, sad truth) so when you ask out somebody on the fly, and you're about to puke and everything, the fact that you did it is so respectable, even if you get rejected. I'm sure you're wondering, Pft, respectable? Who gives a fuck? I just got rejected! Rejections are valuable, because a lot of the time, it's not you, it's that the other person is blind or prejudiced or having a bad day or taken, and it happens. But if you're sitting there thinking, "God, that person is too gorgeous, I can't ask them out, they'll say no" then you'll miss out on the person that says yes to you, every time you don't take the plunge. Plus, it's great practice on killing that shyness.

I said "lastly (kinda)" because I have oodles of dating advice, to be completely honest, and I'm tired of typing and I'm sure by now you're tired of reading. Actually, I'm sure that you've probably been skimming this entire thing anyway, and I appreciate the fact you're on this page at all... But I'm gonna stop here, because I put the key facts out there, and if I get personal requests for more, I can satisfy those however, depending on the volume of requests.

;)

Why Have My Posts Been So Dumb Lately?

Not that I get a lot of traffic on this shit anyway but still, it's important to me and maybe a few other people and I keep fucking it up. Gah.

Normally, I don't have anything important to say and then I'll either get to thinking really hard or I'll get something stuck in my craw and I'll have tons to write about. I've been thinking lately but nothing has been interesting or enlightening. All articles I've ever read about how to start up a decent, somewhat popular blog advise you to pick some sort of topic and stick to it on your entire blog; something I find impossible. There are tons out there; in fact, all the blogs I follow, except one, revolve around fashion and bettering yourself but I don't think I can do that. I have my own fashion, of course, but I don't feel like posting about it because most of my days are spent in workout gear (shitty stuff too, nothing sexy or functional at ALL) and Panera stuff, followed by ripped jeans and trapeze tops. And maybe earrings, to add variation. I love fashion and have tons of clothes, but I stick to a few essentials because the little time I have in passing weeks to wear what I want, of course I want to wear my favorite things. I wish I could find a homeless girl or two to give some of my clothes to.... And I don't write extensively about bettering yourself because I feel I am an intensely silly, flawed person, and that life isn't really all about being all you can be to the point of the most complete perfection, it's about being yourself and living your life to its full extent, even if that means embracing all your flaws. That isn't to say I don't like bettering myself, or that other people shouldn't... Just that I won't write about that.

Which leads me to something vital; what IS my blog about? Silly tidbits that even I don't care about? My life? Advice? Various recollections? Occasional fashion/makeup tips? Everything sounds kind of stupid, plus I have posts that fall into all those categories. I am going to be posting again today, because my mind is on fire with things to write about, and I'll probably schedule these posts to be up later in the week (because that's how cool Blogspot.com is) but don't come looking on my site for something specific because I can guarantee that it won't be here... Unless of course, it is asked for, which is what my next post will be focused on ;) Cheers.