Illusions of Liz

Last night Wil did a list of sixteen facts about himself that people probably didn’t know, so i figured I would copy. I apologize in advance if I don’t have very exciting things to say.

1) I lived in Germany for three years. My dad was doing a study on historical performance and my mom had yet to begin working. The sad thing about this is the fact that I know absolutely no German. I can speak quite a bit but I can’t read or write at all. This is something that really bothers the German side of my family.

2) I was born blue. Not because I am an alien (that’d be way cool) but because the umbilical cord was wrapped tight around my neck. Aside from being nearly strangled to death, I was perfectly healthy though a tiny bit premature.

3) I was a cheerleader for one year in HS although I am the complete opposite of the typical cheerleader. I mainly did it because I had a strong background in gymnastics and somehow thought that would correlate…however, jumping around in a short skirt and pom poms isn’t exactly what I had in mind. Note: Yes, I still have the uniform .

4) I have never dated someone my age or younger, I have always dated someone who was at least two years older than I was.

5) When I was born I was blonde like my dad but my hair got gradually darker and darker as I got older. Now I go between a medium brown and auburn depending on how much I’m in the sun.

6) My favorite books of all time are (in no particular order): 1984, Brave New World, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, Crime and Punishment, Life of Pi, and The Great Gatsby.

7) I have a weird attraction to asian men and men with glasses.

8 ) When I was younger I desperately wanted braces despite the fact that my friends all complained about how painful. I think it had something to do with the fancy colors. I would go to the dentist and ask them if I needed braces because I was SURE I had some kind of overbite.

9) I’m 20 years old and I still find Spongebob Squarepants to be amusing.

10) My favorite European monarchs are Charles V and Ivan IV.

11) Unlike most women I don’t really like jewelry very much but I have quite an addiction to shopping for underwear. Victoria’s Secret is one of my best friends.

12) I have always been an overachiever. I was valedictorian of my HS and graduated with enough college credits to be sophomore. Now, in college I have three majors (history, biochemistry, and violin perfomance) and am planning on entering a M.D/Ph.D program after I graduate.

13) I am seriously arachnophobic. I have a difficult time even killing spiders I see on a video game without my skin crawling.

14) I’m a little OCD about how long my fingernails get. I think this is from the annoying clicking sound long fingernails make on piano keys. I clip them obsessively. A long fingernail will SERIOUSLY annoy me until I get my hands on a nail clipper. This is why I try to always carry a clipper with me.

15) My favorite words are: ridiculous and wanderlust

16) One of my favorite things in the world is the way clean sheets feel when you first lie down in them.

Ok, so I have a really difficult time coming up with all of those. I started out wanting to do twenty but cut it down to 16 when the going got tough. Yes. I am a failure. I hope you learned something about me though.

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As 2008 comes to a close and a new and wonderful year prepares to rush in I find myself thinking about all that has happened this year. 2008 was an excellent year compared to most to the others I’ve had. I’m not ending this year with a broken heart but rather with a renewed enthusiasm about life in general and a new no-bullshit attitude to match. Because so many things happened this year, I decided I would compile a list of the important things that happened in my life, things that changed me for the better:

1. Twitter: I was introduced to the amazing social networking tool thingamajig by a guy that goes to my school. I originally started it as a joke (I told him I could beat his follower count in ONE DAY) and then got really into it. Although I am no longer on speaking terms with the guy I am still pretty active on Twitter. It has connected me with some one the most interesting and also most annoying people that I will ever meet in my entire life. It has enabled me to grow as a person as I learned that people could really like me for me, or rather my random thoughts squished into 140 characters.  I found love, friendship, and an outlet for my daily stresses and annoyances. If Twitter was a person, I’d do it, male or female .

2. Dance: I danced a lot when I was younger but gave it up around 13 and decided to focus a lot more on my music.  Recently however, I have been aching to dance more and I plan on enrolling in a class next semester. I’m hoping I don’t suck and that I haven’t lost all of my skills .

3. Wil: I met Wil on Twitter what seems like years ago but was really only late August. I realized pretty quickly that we had incredible chemistry although it took quite a bit before we actually talked (previously we had only communicated via @relies and direct messages on Twitter). Now it’s as if were inseparable. I don’t want to jinx it and say that he’s everything that I’ve been looking for but he’s pretty damn close and he’s also one of the most creative people that I know. He is amazingingly adorable and understanding, and also a pretty good cook .

4. Difficult People: I will be the first to admit that for the majority of my life I have been a major pushover. If you look back at what I have dealt with with previous boyfriends and friends you’ll see that I tended to attempt to make them happy before being concerned with myself. I have had MORE than my share of difficulty this year and this has led to my resolution not to put up with it anymore. Quite frankly I am really tired of the whining and the annoyance and I don’t have time to put up with it anymore. Therefore I won’t.

5. Music: I am a musician so music has always been a huge part of my life but this year I feel that it has had a particularly strong impact. It has been more than just music that I have to learn for my major or even really classical music. I have stumbled upon some amazing artists such as Max Richter, MGMT, and The Decemberists and my music library has probably doubled in size and continues to grow at this very minute. I’ve discovered songs that can make me cry regardless of the number of times I listen to it, like Max Richter’s On the Nature of Daylight, and I have discovered songs that strike a chord on my heart, making me remember what I have been through however painful the experience may have been. As I begin preparations for my Junior Recital next semester I think I will draw influences from much of the music that I have grown to love this year in the composition of my piece.
I have also gotten more into my own songwriting and playing more of the guitar and piano. I have been neglecting a lot of my own personal musical interests because I have had to focus on violin for school  but this coming year I hope to change that and play my guitar and piano even more and hopefully get more engrossed in my songwriting and composing.

So, because I am having a difficult time thinking of more things I think I should draw this to a close. If 2008 is considered AWESOME I hope 2009 is even better. Happy New Year!

-Liz

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I paid twenty-five cents to light a little white candle for a New Year’s Day and I sat and watched it burn away
Grace Cathedral Hill – The Decemberists

I don’t know if it has been dramatically obvious to everyone else, but I have been going through a lot in the past month or two. I thought about this as I talked to a friend last night and he mentioned the change that has come over me in the past week compared to how I was before.

It is amazing how having one person in your life, someone that you want so badly to be there, can change you for the better or maybe the worse. I recently ended a quasi-relationship I was in with a guy I met on Twitter.  I won’t say the relationship was bad, he was and still is a very great guy, just obviously not the guy I’m supposed to be with I guess. The point is, I feel distinctly different after ending it. It’s as if I was a completely different person when I was involved with him. I stopped talking to a few of my really good friends and my conversations with even some of my best friends became incredibly strained. All the while I of course didn’t realize this, who would really want to think of themselves as putting a guy before their friends? It’s hard thinking about it even now considering the way in which things have gone. Having someone that you invest so much of your feelings in walk away really does suck and it would suck even more if I didn’t have friends to turn to…the very same friends that I neglected in my effort to be perfect for this guy.

I’ve been listening to The Decemberists a lot lately and came across a song that I haven’t listened to in a long time, it’s called Grace Cathedral Hill. I often play it on repeat a lot with my eyes closed, absorbing the words. I can say that it has a lot of meaning in my life right now, particularly the chorus:

And the world may be long for you,
but he’ll never belong to you.
But on a motorbike,
when all the city lights blind your eyes tonight,
are you feeling better now?
Are you feeling better now?
Are you feeling better now?

The lyrics strike a chord in my heartstrings but I can honestly say I do feel better. Maybe I was losing myself in something that would never have worked but at this point I know there will never be a chance for us to be together again and I don’t think I’m really that upset about it. I finally feel like myself again and I don’t want to lose myself in someone ever again if it means being a complete dick to those around me who only care about my well being. I feel…free…the kind of freedom that you imagine when you see the cheesy scene in a movie where the girl rides on the back of a motorcycle with her head thrown back and arms outstretched. It’s a nice feeling.

And for your listening pleasure:

Grace Cathedral Hill

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My love life has recently taken a turn for the worse. In an effort to broaden my horizons and potentially find that one guy for me I am currently taking applications for THE BEST BOYFRIEND EVAR!!!!!1111!. I have made a pdf of the application and all those who are interested are urged to apply. Good Luck.

application-for-the-position-of-best-boyfriend-evar

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Recently I was thinking about my freshman year at my college, Oberlin College, and recalled my FANTASTIC roommate who we shall refer to as “Rebecca”. I have absolutely no clue why Rebecca chose to come to Oberlin, let alone why the hell she was my roommate because we were incredibly different in most ways. While she was really naive and innocent, well…I wasn’t exactly, and anyone who knows me knows that I’m not exactly what ANYONE would call innocent save maybe Jenna Jameson.  Rebecca however, seemed to exercise Puritan levels of…well “purity”. She was appalled at any conversation that mentioned drugs or sex and probably had never seen another person naked, or half naked in her life. This frustrated me greatly. I mean, this girl is at OBERLIN, we are known for being hippie potheads, and while I don’t smoke pot and I’m not a hippie, I don’t cringe at the thought of either of those things. Anyway, when thinking of her a particular anecdote comes to mind, well several:

1. SHOWERS: Like most colleges we have communal showers. There is usually a gender-neutral bathroom and probably two gender specific ones, male and female. At first everyone is worried about the showers; you’re new to the school and you’re not sure what to expect but most people eventually get over that and are fairly comfortable. NOT REBECCA. Instead of wearing a towel to walk to the bathroom that was across the hall or upstairs, she’d wear all of her clothes, change into to the towel in a bathroom stall, shower, and then get dressed in the stall. I can only imagine the amount of trouble she had to go through to accomplish this, but I suppose this made her more “comfortable”. On top of that, she was so uncomfortable with the idea of communal showers that she only showered every other day and for a maximum of five minutes each time. I can remember being completely shocked when she returned because it was the fastest shower ever (this even includes washing and conditioning her hair!). It was very odd.

2. GETTING DRESSED: We had a divided double which is basically two rooms combined into one. You have the comfort of having a roommate but there is a wall and a door separating the rooms so you also have privacy when you want it. I think I got comfortable with the idea that she might see me with my top or my pants off occasionally long before I came to college, but she was very comfortable. She was SO uncomfortable that she’d jam the door shut while getting dressed even if I was ASLEEP. I don’t think that I would really be able to watch her get dressed/undressed if I was asleep but everyday I was awaken by the slamming of the door shut. How can anyone be that uptight? I lived with her for a year and she did this the entire time.

3. SEX AND/OR ANY ROMANTIC ACTIVITY THAT COULD POSSIBLY LEAD TO SEX: I think I have already confirmed that Rebecca was pretty damn uptight. She was probably the most uptight about anything mildly sexual. I think I mentioned masturbation to her once that entire year and she said something like “oh god, can we please not talk about this?”. Rebecca decided that when we signed our roommate agreement that we would have to agree to ask the other person before inviting any visitors, particularly boys, and that most of the time we would refrain from having boys over. Needless to say, she was not very enthusiastic to have my current boyfriend hanging around in the room for fear of walking in on us kissing or having sex or *gasp* TOUCHING. This annoyed me as well as my boyfriend, he even suggested that we have sex just to see what she would do. It was indeed very awkward, I couldn’t even hold my boyfriend’s hand while sitting on my bed because I was afraid she might spaz out and douse me with holy water or something. I don’t think I can go into this anymore for fear of offending someone who might randomly read this, but if you want to hear a very funny story regarding Rebecca and I feel free to ask.

So, basically, Rebecca was pretty much the opposite of who I am. I don’t know why they would pair us together, but of course the roommate survey said nothing about awkwardness or purity. I’m sure I could think of about a million more things to prove that she was in fact super awkward, but that’d take entire too much time and I should probably be doing more productive things…like homework .

1 Comment | In: Life. | tags: college, roommate. | #

IThis dream isn’t anything special, but it’s the first that I’ve had since I decided to start writing them down. I’m hoping that by writing them all down I will be able to remember more of them, but my brain has obviously decided that it doesn’t give me anything to write about.

I don’t remember that many concrete details about this dream, so I doubt that it means anything in particular. Here are some basic things that happened:

• I think I was a Playboy Bunny or I worked in a Brothel. There were a lot of girls there and Hugh Hefner like figure who apparently owned a grocery store that was located in the basement of the house/brothel/ whatever.
• I met this one girl who had recently moved in and she had a kitten when she came back from Target. I automatically decided that I wanted a kitten and her kitten really seemed to like me for some reason.
• There was a carpool to Target and on the way we went through this really bad neighborhood near a really crappy elementary school. The kids were really loud even though there were only 20 of them and they were hanging around on the jungle gym.  I decided to ask this random little kid about adopting animals and he took me around back to where there were cages of animals all covered in blankets.
• I inquired about adopting an animal and found out that this adoption center was out of kittens and that I’d have to drive 30 miles away to find a kitten at another adoption center.

Overall, I’m sure it’s a pretty meaningless dream. I have no hopes of becoming a Playboy Bunny, although I do want a kitten. I’m not willing to pose nude to get said kitten though, so don’t get any ideas.

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