Mini-Hiatus

Hi Everyone!

Apologies to those of you who check back here frequently to see my lastest updates, life has been nothing short of crazy lately. I'm in the middle of major changes and won't have internet access at home for a little while, plus I'm completely swamped at work.

I will be back, but for now, it's fair for me to let you know it will be a little while... no estimated time at this point.

Wry- I never got your text! :( I was so looking forward to it! The fact that you tried means the world.

Sideon- Thanks for becoming my text BFF!

Meg Slate- I'll never forget the time you told me that texting was a talent you don't have. Trust me- once you start, you'll wonder how you ever did without it.

I'll return soon. My love to all!

-Christy

Christy Savaging Degeneration: Text Messages and the Subject of Borders

It is my opinion that text messages are quite possibly the greatest invention of this century. Or have they been around longer? I'm not sure. Perhaps my friend Eric can give me further insight on that. I think I received my first ever text message in 2003, it was from my sister and it said "Boo!". Quite frankly I was a little afraid of it because I didn't know what it was or what to do with it. The whole "fear of the unknown" thing.

I was sitting in the waiting room of my Dr's office last week, and other than myself, the receptionist (who is probably Scarlett Johansson's identical twin sister) was the only other person in the room. I heard a cell phone beep and I watched as she picked her phone up and read the text message, and her entire face lit up. Then she had a couple of phone call interactions and receptionists frequently do, then resumed to responding to her text. She was giggling to herself and had a special glow about her... I couldn't help but wondering what the message exchange was, or who it was from. It was a fun experience in people watching.

Of course this reminded me of a couple of friends I owed texts to so I got my phone out and probably had similar expressions to those of the receptionist. All of this got me thinking about how great texts are. I believe they are the most convenient form of communication in this day and age. They're instant, and depending on the urgency, you can either respond immediately or take your time. You don't have to deal with voice to voice interactions or potential awkwardness.

Each time I get a text I feel special... I love seeing the little envelope on my display, is it wrong to be so excited over that? I remember when I first got the internet (Prodigy) in 1991, nothing would make my heart skip like seeing the "NEW MAIL" flashing sign. Nothing so small has made me so giddy ever since.

Not all of my texts are happy, wonderful messages. I get some sad, scary, and otherwise upsetting news as well. But receiving this via text allows me to deal with what I need to in my own way, without the pressure of instant response.

The one drawback to texts, is it can disengage people, especially if they're in a crowd of friends. I am so guilty of this! I have been in situations with a few friends where we'll be sitting together, but each off in our own world texting other people to our hearts content, when we probably should have been enjoying the company of each other. Oh, and I also ought to try to not text while driving. Although I have learned that nothing makes a stop light go faster than trying to text someone during the wait.

The point of this post is: If you want to make my day and know my cell phone number, send me a text! If you don't have my number but want it, let me know and if I know you and like you, I'll send it along.

You want to know what's better than texts? Picture texts! (but PLEASE, no chain/spam texts! I'll delete them just like I do the chain/spam emails!)

Does this post make me officially pathetic for being an attention whore?

On this day in history, March 12....

Stealing this from my friend Eric, who did this one week ago today.

Thanks to Wikipedia, we know that on this day in history:

515 BC - Construction is completed on the Second Temple in Jerusalem.
538 - Witiges, king of the Ostrogoths ends his siege of Rome and retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city in the hands of the victorious Roman general, Belisarius.
1664 - New Jersey becomes a colony of Britain.
1868 - Henry James O'Farrell attempts to assassinate Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh.
1881 - Andrew Watson made his Scotland debut as the world's first black international football player and captain.
1894 - Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time.
1908 - The Pan-Macedonian group is formed in Athens to support the Greek Struggle for Macedonia.
1912 - The Girl Guides (later renamed the Girl Scouts of the USA) are founded in the U.S..
1913 - Canberra Day: The future capital of Australia was officially named Canberra. (Melbourne remained temporary capital until 1927 while the new capital was still under construction.)
1918 - Moscow becomes the capital of Russia again after Saint-Petersburg held this status for 215 years.
1928 - In California, the St. Francis Dam fails, killing 400 people.
1930 - Mahatma Gandhi leads a 200-mile march known as Dandi March to the sea in defiance of British opposition, to protest the British monopoly on salt.
1933 - Great Depression: Franklin Delano Roosevelt addresses the nation for the first time as President of the United States. This was also the first of his "Fireside Chats."
1938 - Anschluss: German troops occupy Austria; annexation declared the following day.
1940 - Winter War: Finland signs the Moscow Peace Treaty with the Soviet Union, ceding almost all of Finnish Karelia. Finnish troops and remaining population are immediately evacuated.
1947 - The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed to help stem the spread of Communism.
1951 - The Dennis the Menace comic strip appears in newspapers across the USA for the first time.
1956 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 500 for the first time (500.24)
1958 - In Hilversum, Netherlands, André Claveau wins the third Eurovision Song Contest for France singing "Dors, mon amour" (Sleep, my love).
1960 - A fire at a chemical plant in Pusan, Korea kills 68.
1967 - Suharto takes over from Sukarno to become President of Indonesia.
1968 - Mauritius achieves independence.
1975 - I was born
1987 - Les Misérables opens on Broadway.
1992 - Mauritius becomes a republic while remaining a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
1992 - 13 are killed and several injured when a tram-car crashes into a crowd of people at the tram-station at Vasaplatsen in Gothenburg, Sweden.
1993 - Several bombs explode in Bombay (Mumbai), India, killing about 300 and injuring hundreds more.
1993 - North Korea nuclear weapons program: North Korea says that it plans to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and refuses to allow inspectors access to nuclear sites.
1994 - A photo by Marmaduke Wetherell, previously touted as 'proof' of the Loch Ness monster, is confirmed to be a hoax.
1994 - The Church of England ordains its first female priests.
1999 - Former Warsaw Pact members the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland join NATO.
2002 - In Texas, Andrea Yates is found guilty of drowning her five children. On appeal she was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
2003 - Zoran Đinđić, Prime Minister of Serbia, assassinated in Belgrade.
2004 - Roh Moo-hyun, President of South Korea is impeached by its national assembly for the first time in the nation's history.
2005 - Tung Chee Hwa, the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong, steps down from his post after his resignation is approved by the Chinese central government.
2005 - New SAT is administered.
2006 - Australia score a world record 434 runs in a One-day International cricket match against South Africa. South Africa replied by beating the record again to score 438/9 to win.

Raise a glass for me tonight and say "Cheers to 32!"

Ethnocentric Darkness and the Postmodernity of Orgasmic Penetration in Christy's Following my Energy

Warning: The following writing is self indulgent. Hell, who am I kidding? This entire blog is self indulgent, that's why I started it.

How do you like my title? I need to give nods to my super fantastic friend Meg Slate, she pointed me in the direction of a title generator. I shall never have boring titles again!


I'm going to blog about the therapy appointment I had today. I feel so very fortunate with this therapist that I found, and hope that in sharing some of what I'm learning, I can help other people.

Today, my therapist told me to follow my energy. Since leaving mormonism, I no longer have any kind of spiritual guidance. In place of that, I have become too needy and dependant on other people. I have, in a sense, made other people to be my "gods", and have given them my core. It's either created a great imbalance for me, or else I've stagnated. Regardless, I need to work on centering my core within myself.

I am an extrovert. Any of you who know me in real life can say "duh!" to that. I get my energy by being around other people. I feel most alive when I come to work first thing in the morning and cheefully say "Good Morning!" to my co-workers. When I'm alone, I don't know what to do with myself. I don't really like who I am. I feel lazy and boring. I can look back on my life and count on one hand how many times I have truly enjoyed an evening to myself. So, I need to work on that. I need to love myself, and be at peace with me. Not to the point where I shy away and become reclusive, but I need to accept myself for who I am.

I discovered that I feel like a fraud. I feel like people get to know me and are attracted to my outgoing, positive, confident, friendly nature, but I'm afraid the novelty of that will wear off and people will see that I really am insecure and unaware. This causes me to shy away and possibly damage potential relationships and friendships. Granted, I do believe that I am authentic, I don't think that I intentionally put on a facade for people, I just fear that they think I am. If that makes any sense at all!

She gave me two sheets of prompts for writing assignments, as I wrote about here, and I love that. Blogging is fun and theraputic and all, but these are meant to be intensely private, provoking questions. If anyone would like some of these I'd be happy to share, but I'd rather do that in email, or a more private setting.

Her next assignment for me is to give myself 10 minutes every day, where I sit alone where I won't be interrupted. Also, set a timer so that I don't have to think about the time while I'm there, but I won't lose track of it, either. She said that for 10 minutes, I am to just sit and let my feelings bottom out. Just let myself think or feel however it is that I'm feeling at that moment... don't try to supress anything. Whether it's sadness, anger, happiness, frustration, anxiety, etc. This sounds very interesting, and I look forward to seeing how this helps me.

I don't have another appointment with her until the 30th... ugh, that seems like such a long time!

Thanks for reading. Sorry that the contents of this post weren't as orgasmic as my title! :)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless (?) Mind

I must preface this post by saying I have not seen this movie since it's theatrical release. It's been a few years, and while my memory is top notch, it's not perfect.

This was one of those movies that has stuck with me. When I saw it I loved it, and it's clear that I need to see it again, very soon. I found it heartbreaking, heartwarming, and mesmerizing at the same time.

I've been thinking about my own life lately, and the recent roller coaster of emotions that I've had, my being in therapy, learning to discover who I am and really loving myself. I'm so far off from it, but I do see a light at the end of the tunnel.

There are moments in my life that I have loved, and often replay them in my mind over and over again. It makes me sad that with time, parts of the memories fade... sometimes it's the exact look of the person involved, the voice, the surroundings... eventually all that's left is the specifics of the moment in and of itself, and the details are hazy. I wish that the opposite of mind erasing were possible, where we could record these moments and replay them in their entirety, and get all of those feelings back again. It's these moments in life that I look back on with such fondness, and they really pull my out of my darker times. I need these incredible moments.

There are moments in my life that I loved while in the moment, but replaying them in my mind brings too much pain. I do my best to try to ignore and forget about these moments, but it's not possible. It's moments like this that make me wish that mind erasing were indeed possible. If I could forget that certain things were said or done in my life, then I could avoid heartbreak altogether, and more easily move on. I hate heartbreak with a passion.

I suppose heartbreak is necessary. Without heartbreak, you're not able to really enjoy and appreciate something good when you have it. If everything in life comes to you easily and without any effort or work, then what's the point? But where is the line when you're able to trust again, or allow your heart to open and accept again? At what point are we sabotaging ourselves and forcing a life of misery, when not necessary? As my mom says often, we tend to cut off our noses to spite our face.

My point to this, is that broken hearts suck. Healing takes a long time. Memory erasing is not possible. Permanent memory is not reachable. I guess it's true when they say that you can't appreciate the sweet without the bitter.

But it still hurts.

And now it's time for some random thoughts by Christy.....

Hello to everyone in blogland!

I can't think of one specific topic to blog about... I have a few ideas in my mind, but none of them warrant an entire post. So here goes. In no specific order.

Celebrity look alikes. There are now three different celebrities that I've been told that I look like. Two of them I can see some minor resemblence in, they are:

Julia Stiles:



Or:



More than one person from different walks of life have told me that I remind them of Julia Stiles. Perhaps... it's a huge compliment, but I also think it's a stretch.

I've also been told that I look like Renee Zellwegger:



Or a brunette Renee?:



I can see this one. We both have the same cheekbones.

I went to a bar on saturday night and some drunk chick in the bathroom freaked out and told me that I look like Maggie Gyllenhaal. This was the first time I had ever been told that I look like her:



Before anyone gets all self righteous on me, I'm just sayin' that this is what I've been told, and I don't have a professional hair dresser or beautician every day. I am not going to post any pictures of me right now, but you can go through my photo label archives and see me there. My question, to my readers, who do you think I look like other than Christy? Any of these three? Anyone else?

Next random thoughts:

I know I shouldn't, but I can't help but giggle knowing that Switzerland unintentionally invaded Lichtenstein. Perhaps my dear friend Wry Catcher can chime in on this. I've been to Switzerland more often than I've been to Idaho, and living in SLC most of my life, that's saying something. I love and adore Switzerland more than just about any other country. To think they could unintentionally do something like this, and the fact that Lichtenstein downplayed the incident, restores my faith in peace and humanity. I think I should move to one of these countries.

Even though I've had colleagues in the United Kingdom for more than a decade and work with them often, I still have a thing for a British accent. I'm just sayin'....

I met a guy last weekend that had "coelitus mihi vires" tattooed on his left arm. (Although I think his Coelitus was spelled Caelitus, is that possible? Who knows... I was drunk!). He told me that it meant "Heaven is my Strength". He lost his mother at 26, and got this tattoo in memory of her. Even though I don't believe in heaven or hell, I somehow found this touching and comforting. I still like the idea that even though some of our loved ones have passed on, they are watching over us or still somehow there within us. Even if they're not in heaven. I don't like the idea that a person dies and that's it, end of story.

It's no secret that I love and worship U2, and think that Bono is an amazing poet and philosopher. Sometimes when I feel lost in life, I listen to or read some U2 lyrics for guidance. May sound cheesy, but it's what I do, and it helps me through some rough times.

One of my favorite lyric moments is from the song "Mysterious Ways":

One day you'll look back, and you'll see
Where you were held now by this love.
While you could stand there,
You could move on this moment
Follow this feeling.

From "City of Blinding Lights":

The more you see the less you know
The less you find out as you go
I knew much more then than I do now

And now you know what's been on my mind.

Priorities! Or.... It's a Mad World

So I have to go give a presentation to my entire department in about 20 minutes (my boss just told me yesterday that I have to do this!) and instead of studying what I'm going to speak about, I'm blogging.

I just checked out Sideon's blog and he posted his most beautifully written poem, it was absolutely mesmerizing. But, he got some lyrics stuck in my head. Thanks Sideon, I'll try to return the favor someday!

I love these lyrics and song, so I'm going to share.

"Mad World"
Tears for Fears

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
And their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
'Cos I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me