Haircuts and hot towels

Sure, they say sex is amazing, but could it really live up to the feeling of a hot, hot towel being pressed on your face, especially when it's contrasted with the cold three-layer winter outside? Or with the feeling of your face being massaged by soothing hands? I had nutella pancakes this morning, and this even beat that in terms of the joy it gave me. I could live in that moment forever.

Hopefully the aftermath of sex is better though, because this bliss was immediately followed by the torture known as blackhead removal, and may I please say that I have never, ever experienced anything more painful? Waxing is a close second, but at the moment even that feels less awful. Like sure, my skin looks better now, but at what cost, I ask you, at what cost? It was so bad I dug my nails into my palm and wrists to get my mind to focus on something other than the pain on my face, but the procedure hurt so bad I couldn't even feel my nails- and let me tell you, in normal circumstances, my nails hurt. They are weapons. This was so bad, I literally had tears streaming down my face. But did this woman care? Nope, she just continued scraping my face like it was a greasy pan, and scolding me (much to my mother's delight) for not taking care of myself. ["How old are you now? If your skin is so bad now, what will happen once you grow older? Once your skin gets bad, it's really hard to fix. What are you going to do when you get married in three-four years (pfft) and you want your skin to look good? Think about how stressed your mother will be, mothers want their daughter's skin to shine on her wedding day."]
Then the process ended and then space cleared up in my brain to feel the pain in my wrists and palm as well as whatever my face had suffered, so that was nice.

But after this, I got my hair cut! By Shahid! Shahid is the guy who cuts my hair every time I'm here. I love Shahid. I mean, I love Shahid. First up, his name is Shahid, and I love that name. Second, he's cute. But third, and most important, he's really sweet and jovial, and will make you feel like a goddess even if you resemble a homeless person more than anything else when you go to him, as I usually do (law school is hard okay). Unlike most hairstylists/parlour people, he is not condescending and does not feel the need to diss each strand of your hair individually. Even when he disapproves- as he did of my hair, which have turned into proper straw this past week- he's nice about it. I love how he handles my hair. I also love that I can tell him to do whatever with my hair and trust him to do something brilliant, as opposed to most places where even detailed instructions leave you with a mess to bring you to tears. (I literally had tears in my eyes after my last haircut, and let me tell you, they were not tears of joy. And I'm no crier.) Anyway, Shahid had left the place he worked at earlier- news which evoked a very shocked, very sad squawk from me- and I thought I'd lost him forever, but then we found him and it was beautiful and then he did my hair and everything was right with the world. ^_^ Then he had to go do someone else's hair and some other guy who knew absolutely nothing and who pulled my hair too hard came to blow dry and set my hair and ruined everything and I glowered at him throughout. Then Shahid came and fixed it with one brush. <3 (I may or may not be seriously biased here.)

Then I had a white chocolate mocha from Starbucks, which completed my winter picture because the classic winter look in my head is basically hot Starbucks + coat + gloves + boots. I was wearing shoes, but that's close enough; and my lovely black gloves with gold threading. And I had on my favouritest coat in the world, which is this red coat that we refer to as my little red riding hood coat. My mom saw it years ago and bought it when I was in the second grade because it was so lovely and she figured she might as well keep it. And now I'm old enough to fit into it, and cold enough to actually be able to wear it! ^_^ I love winter clothing. I only wish I'd had my beanie on as well, but ah, let's leave something for another day.


Love,
~Sam

Life is a car.

I've decided that the best metaphor for life is a car. It is not a train, chugging along peacefully (I have a very romanticized, happy image of trains), nor is it a rollercoaster, rollercoaster-ing away. It is, instead, far more mundane a means of travel: a car. Some people are content with whatever car they have; some people love their cars in all their broken beauty; and some are hunting for a better buy with better mileage no matter what they already have. Sometimes it breaks down because you haven't been taking care of it. Sometimes it decides to stop functioning simply because, and decides that it's a good day for an existential crisis. Mostly, it just gets you from place to place, which is pretty much all you care about, unless you have a cool life like  a Porsche or Maserati, in which case I really don't know enough about your life to be making any sort of analogies, and why are you reading this blog anyway, and can I please have some money?

Okay enough metaphors for tonight, Imma go work or something.

BYE!
~Sam

Napkin poetry

Things written on napkins have such a charm to them, don't they, even when your handwriting is at its worst and your grammar is all wrong and you aren't really saying anything at all? Even then, it's so quaint. It just seems like something important and worthy of attention. There's just something about writing on napkins reminiscent of hurried serendipitous moments at restaurants and first dates leading to true love leading to heartbreak and poetry on napkins.

~Sam 

Disequilibrium

~Super rough draft which probably should not be published without more work, but who am I kidding, I'm not going to improve this later when the feel is gone.~

Fat people are yearning to lose,
Thin people wouldn't mind a bit of gain.
Corporate lawyers want freedom and passion-
Struggling artists money, warmth, a roof.
White people want that gorgeous tan,
Coloured people just want to bleach it away.
Guys want to be able to cry,
Girls want to be able to walk alone at night.
Tall people want to be petite,
Short people want to grow some more.
Blonde wants to be brown, brown red,
And red just about anything else.

They tell us we should be happy with who we are,
But nobody wants to be who they are.
You could smush everyone together,
Cancel out all the insecurities and make that perfect girl,
But even she wouldn't want to be who she was.

~Sam

2015: Note to Self

I made a bunch of resolutions last year. I lived up to most of them for about half the year, give or take a bit, and then failed miserably when everything fell apart at the end. But one of my resolutions last year was to try to be more optimistic, and in that spirit, here are some resolutions for next year! Though they're more like...notes to myself. Whatever, here goes:

1. Emotional stability: Keep your chill. Keep your chill. Keep your chill. With regard to work, relationships, life, everything. This year is probably gonna be hella cray. Keep your chill.
2. Health: Less ordering junk food. More sleeping (preferably at night). More running. You like running. You like early mornings. Do the math and put them together and get off your lazy bum and make yourself happier.
3. Try more new things. You did that a bit this year; it didn't always work out. Keep trying. 
4. Read at least fifty books. Stop feeling sad that you've gone from a book a day to hopefully fifty this year; you're not twelve anymore, and life is different.
5. Watch at least twenty of the movies on your laptop. And at least two of the many many TV shows you've been meaning to.
6. Minimize procrastination. I don't know how. Do it.
7. Write.
8. Learn to save. Save money to spend on things you actually like. Regain that self-control everyone used to praise.
9. Try to put yourself out there.
10. Stop excelling at convincing people you're fine when you're not and then being mad at them for falling for it and treating you like you're fine instead of showering you with love and attention.
11. Take your own advice. 
12. Be okay with failing. Even at all of these. Treat yo self!
13. Grow as a human being. A lot happened this year. You didn't always (mostly) handle it well. Next year, try for more empathy. Less neediness. More awareness that bad things will happen and you need to get better at handling them. "I can't handle this shit, I did nothing to deserve this" will get you nowhere. 
14. Try to drop your phone less. And have a better reaction than squealing and covering your mouth with your hands every time it happens. 
15. Most of all, remember how hopeful and optimistic about everything you are right now, and treasure this feeling, and keep it alive. 

Iloveyouall, thank you for being a part of my life, take care of yourselves. I'll go work now. :D

Smiles and hugs,

~Sam 

December Favourites

I was thinking of adding another element to my monthly favourites: a part about what I'd planned the month to be like and what it actually turned out to be. Monthly Resolutions, maybe? So it's the first of December right now, and this is what I want this month to look like:

• I want to finish my work. I don't really have a choice in this matter, because the deadline is January 2, but I'd like to do a decent job of it. [I'll get back to this on the 2nd.]
• I want to attend the midnight mass on Christmas. I've wanted to do that for two years now, and I'm almost certain it won't happen this month because of the above-mentioned work and nearing deadline, but I'm hoping anyway. [This didn't happen because I really didn't feel like going by the time Christmas eve rolled around, so I don't feel too bad about that. I'll hope again for next year though. ^_^ ]
• On the note, I want to be more hopeful and happy and less upset and unstable. [Pfffffffffffft yeah no, that didn't happen. Here's hoping to a better new year though.]
• I want to be healthier and more frugal and not eat out all the time. I ate in the mess today, so that's started on a good note! [This happened a little bit. Not as much as I wanted but that's all right.]

Okay I think those are enough goals for me to deal with now, in a month. The month of December. A month which will end with the advent of 2015. Wow. What in the world is time doing?! My baby cousin who is still a baby in my head when I don't think about things, and five years old in my head when I try to remind myself that time moves and people age, is apparently EIGHT now and another baby I used to play with is TWELVE. I just do not get this. I don't. Let's abolish time, please. I love that quote about how the rabbit is never late for anything because rabbits don't have the concept of time, and I know we need time because we aren't rabbits but please I cannot handle this I need a break from time. Also, while we're at it, let's abolish money and we can all work for free doing things we like and live in a happy utopia. That sounds doable, right? 

_____

Okay so coming to the actual favourites this month:

1. This music fest I briefly attended, where I ate strawberries with chocolate and hung out with nice friends and got lost in nice music. Favourite moment: Leaning against the barricade-fence-thing, front row, my back to the band, the the music pouring through me, my heart thrumming to the rhythm, looking back at all of the people with their arms up and faces upturned, cheering and screaming and entranced by the music, and beyond them, to the treeline shadowed by the smoky sky and the lights crisscrossing above like our very own aurora. 
2. Other favourite moment: this blues band (Chronic Blues Circus) which performed, and which was my favourite of all of them (followed, weirdly enough by this loud metal band called Inner Sanctum- I guess I was just feeling that music then, but I really liked it, to the point where I just shut my eyes and maybe-sorta headbanged a little and just felt the music), and whose lead singer was this very old-English-grandfather looking guy with the most amazing cultured English accent in the deepest voice. The woman's voice was also absolutely heavenly, and the keyboard player's voice just skipped my brain and ran tingles down my heart. All in all, I loved them.
3. Other favourite moment: this guy who kept repeatedly stealing my santa hat (which was out of the closet, and enjoying the evening breeze almost every day from the 14th), to the point where I once had to run after him through the crowd and grab it back. I miss running, I miss playing tag, I miss all of my childhood games. 
4. As I said, my santa hat is out and has been my favourite companion this month. Unfortunately, I only remembered it somewhere around mid-December (I think I got it out towards the end of November, last year) which people somehow still seemed to find too soon, which I just do not understand. Hello? All of December is dedicated to Christmas? Duh?
5. This one time when I was really upset and sitting outside mournfully texting the Cookie, and this (really cute) exchange student passed me by and smiled at me and said he really liked my (Santa) hat. I love strangers being nice to each other, and to me. 
6. I went to this amazing place for breakfast and then slipped down the stairs and then tried to get up and then fainted and then hit my head and then got taken to the hospital by my friends and then got two shots and a sugar test (that's three needles- three- in the span of three minutes) (AND THEY WERE MOST CERTAINLY NOT "just a small prick") and then had really low BP and then freaked my mom out and then freaked my other friends out. That was fun. But then I adopted the role of the "sick person" or so my budding psychologist Marshmallow tells me, and let myself chill and not work without feeling guilty about it. I watched Chasing Liberty (again) with Doobie and the Cat and fangirled over Mathew Goode and his voice and his cheekbones and his hair and his eyebrows and you get the point, and hated on Mandy Moore's super-annoying character (to the extent that we didn't really hear most of her dialogues because we just kept talking over and laughing at her) and basically had a great night. 
7. This one day when I got work done.
8. Talking to my mum. 
9. I got back in touch with an old, old friend of mine from way back in sixth grade, whom I hadn't spoken to since about 2011, and it was awesome and I smiled at my laptop for the entire conversation.
10. Laughing maniacally with Doobie on two separate incidents, like the twelve year olds we all are at heart,  because the name of the family in Life After Beth is Slocum. Oh, also, watching She's the Man with them. BEST NIGHT EVER. 
11. This impromptu Britney Spears/Madonna/Linkin Park/Venga Boys/Spice Girls singalong with Doobie and sparkykitty one night(perfectly timed because I'd been reminiscing that very evening about a similar Britney singalong Doobie and I had a couple years ago, which remains one of my favouritest memories of all time ever in the history of the world) which led to intensive stalking of the entire Beckham family (Romeo is 100% on his way to becoming David, in terms of looks at least. What sort of thirteen year old has a jawline like that?! Also, all the pictures of David and Harper together are absolutely heart-meltingly adorable.) 
12. Daydreaming about all the amazing things I'd do (basically, watch a move and read a book and go out for breakfast and lunch and dinner and meet my friends- real crazy stuff like that) on my one free weekend after my work finishes and before a new  load of work drops on me. 

All in all, it's been an okay month. I'm just really glad this year is over. 

Hi, 2015. ^_^

~Sam