Captain Narcissism

A while back I think I mentioned that I was reading the Narcissism Epidemic. And by reading, I mean I read a few chapters until I got bored. (Oh... and I did the self-test to determine how narcissistic I am, and I was pleased to find out that I was only at medium levels!)

Well, after some more introspection spawned by my insane addiction to all things that a teenage girl would be obsessed with (namely Twilight, Hannah Montana, and nail polish) I have decided that a long-ago thought of conclusion about my own psyche is now more of a truth than ever.

In one of my psych classes, we discussed Erikson's (that cute little German dude to the left!) stages of psychological development. An interesting point that my professor brought up was that when a child goes through a trauma during one of the stages of development, the child can remain stuck in that stage of development long-term. So after years of being focused on me, I've decided that I'm perhaps halfway stuck in the fifth stage of Erikson's 8 stages. This is the stage during adolescence (13-19) where adolescents are concerned about how they appear to others. One of the defining psycho-characteristics of this stage of development is that the child feels that they're constantly on a "stage", being scrutinized by others. This stage in development really stuck out when I was learning this originally in college when my professor said that children in this stage assume that everybody is watching them.

Well, I hate to break it to myself, but that's how I feel! That people are watching what I do. I mean, I suppose I know they aren't really, but even today as I was eating breakfast on the way to work I was concerned with what the car next to me would think if she saw me eat in the car. So I glanced over at the driver expecting them to be judging me and my breakfast on the run, and of course she was just doing her own thing!

My theory that I'm stuck in stage 5 came up again when I was discussing Eclipse with a co-worker. Now granted, every woman and her dog practically loves this book/movie series, but I'm obsessed! (Not that this is so abnormal, but combined with my love for Disney Channel shows like Wizards of Waverly Place and Hannah Montana, I'm starting to notice a trend.)

Finally, today I was discussing with one of my college besties my need for a life plan and how I want to go work in the movie industry doing promotions. We were talking about movies and famous people, and how I'm the ultimate escapist. I know movies/books/TV isn't real life, but oh how I struggle sometimes! (I mean, honestly.... I'm sure Rob P. would be my buddy if we ever met!) Now not that being the ultimate escapist is directly related or mentioned in Erikson's stages (at least not that I've researched so far), but I can't help but think that my unnatural longing for something more, that most likely isn't reality, are the same desires of an adolescent with the world at the fingertips. I'm a bit unrealistic, and am in-turn disappointed when life isn't movie-tastic! Surely it's related!

So today brought me back to college psych 101, and Erikson's stages of development. My trauma was the whole Dad dying thing when I was 17. All of the aforementioned thoughts are those, too, of a 17 year old version of myself. Thus, I officially declare myself stuck between stage 5 and 6. Not sure how I feel about this. I suppose I feel ok, as I just do what I do! But after all these years, it just goes to show that sometimes people never grow up, and that major life events affect people for years to come in unimaginable ways!

(For more info on Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, click the title!)

Prancing in heels

As I mentioned in the last post, part of my resolution was to pay off credit cards. To aid that goal, I have not only cut expenses, but also got a part time job at a high end handbag and shoe store. I've been there for a couple of weeks now, and had a most interesting experience yesterday!

A young man (I would guess between 20 and 25) came in asking if we were hiring. I told him, "No, sorry. We just hired our fourth person. Good luck, though!" To which he told me thanks and started walking out the door. On his way out, he grabbed a pair of our highest heels and said, "Oh My GAWD! I LOOOOOOVE these shoes!" It was quite apparent to me that he was of the homosexual persuasion, so I thought he was just admiring our handiwork. He eyed the shoes up and down, so I went through my normal selling points...

"Yeah, those are a great pair of shoes! All of our shoes have memory foam, so they stay super comfortable all day long. And I know the heels look a bit daunting, but since there's the inch platform in addition to the memory foam, this pair is so easy to walk in!"

I assumed that he was interested in the shoes for a family member of a friend. WRONG!

In response to my sales pitch his eyes lit up and asked me what size we go up to. I told him a 10 (by this time I'm catching on that maybe the shoes aren't for a friend, but rather for himself.) I told him that's my size, too, and he asked if he could try them on, and if so, did he have to keep his socks on. I told him that he should of course try on the shoes with whatever he'd wear them with, and that if he wanted, I would be glad to give him some of the little hose used for trying on shoes.

He proceeded to try on the 4" pair of shoes and tell me about how the other day he bought a $300 pair of 12" platforms. I was impressed.

After trying on a champagne colored heel, he spotted the same shoe in black. "Oh my GAWD! I HAVE to try that pair on too! Do you have a 10?" We did, and after asking for another hose bootie (his big toe ripped a hole in the right bootie from the first try on), he tried on the black pair of heels. He was in love and pranced around the store in heels.

At the same time the young man was frolicking in the back of the store, another gentleman walked by outside and did a double-take. After comically blinking he decided that yes, he did indeed see a man walking around in women's shoes in the middle of a high end mall. He gave me a questioning look to which I replied with a shrug. I mean, a sale is a sale, regardless of who wears the shoes!

At the end of the whole experience, the young sir asked me to put both pairs of shoes on hold for him, because he'd have to ask his husband if he could get them. Apparantly, he has a bit of a shoe and skinny jean fetish that his husband is getting a bit tired of paying for. I said, isn't that what husbands are for?

Certainly it was an experience I won't soon forget! Not only did the young man provide me with some humor (how often is it, really, that you see a man prancing about in high heels), but he also astounded me with his confidence. How remarkable that he was so sure of himself that he felt comfortable telling me, a complete stranger working in a high end store, that he was a) a part of the gay community; b) was a male with a husband (in the state of TX no less!) and c) was so sure of himself that he could try on and walk around in women's shoes!

This was surely a 4th of July I won't soon forget!

Wow.... I suck at this blog thing!

One of my New Year's Resolutions (yes, one of them... I had one main theme, which was then broken down into 5 parts) was to blog every day of the new year so I could eventually write a book. Well... I'm not much further on either of my short stories for a book, and you can clearly see when my last blog was. That's ok... No time like the present to start something back up!

So my NYR was 5-fold, all falling under the theme: The year to WIN is 2010! (Getting fine in 2009 was a bust, so I figured something a bit more ambiguous was in order!) The 5 parts of my resolution were as follows, including their status 6-months in:

1) Blog regularly (FAIL!)
2) Lose a substantial amount of weight (SUCCESS!)
3) Pay off all my credit cards (SUCCESS- well, in 9/10 total success!
4) Travel to SF and NYC (in the works... have plans to do so, at any rate)
5) Start a book club. Eat, Pray, Love has been our first book, (which we will eventually finish!) and then see the movie (Quasi-SUCCESS!)

So over-all I've done pretty well! (I'm counting last week's trip to Yellowstone as a half success for traveling, and we did have 1 book club meeting, and the other will happen, I'm just sure of it!)

So today I'm starting my 2nd half of the year resolution. To seriously consider doing something adventuresome. The more I think about my life, the more I get frustrated. Yes I have put a lot of pressure on myself to do something great, but here I am, 26 years old, in a job that's not going places as quickly as I'd like, living with Spaggy (which has been the most inspiring year of my life, but let's be honest... I'm too old to rely on someone else as much as I do), and about to overcome the peak of my personal mountain. I can feel that something exciting is just around the bend, and I just need to convince myself that the time is right!

My thoughts of adventure entail legitimately writing a book of short stories about my favorite topic... me! Also, I think I might travel to Thailand in the spring of 2011. Thailand in '11, it's gonna be heaven! Sound like a new theme to anyone else?

The main point of this rambley post is to share what has kick-started my adventuresomeness tonight(it's a word.. I just used it!) and it's a person. Anais Nin. I feel like I've been familiar with that name from random song lyrics or HS lit classes or something, for quite a while, but had no clue who she is. (Or even that she's a she!) So I did a bit of research, and have found a new muse. At least new to me, and a muse for the time being. Read the following and I dare you to not be inspired! (Don't just stop reading here... the best 2 are at the bottom!)

* "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
* "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."
* "For me, the adventures of the mind, each inflection of thought, each movement, nuance, growth, discovery, is a source of exhilaration."
* "Creation which cannot express itself becomes madness."
* "Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death."
* "The only abnormality is the inability to love."
* "I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing."
* "Each friend represents a world in us, a world not possibly born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
* "Dreams are necessary to life."
* "The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment with it, that was the miracle."

And my two favorite truths (well, truths to me):

* "It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before, to test your limits, to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

* "I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I cannot transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls."

Hoping to remember this as I enter the last half of 2010, the year to win! I can feel an excitement stirring (or maybe I'm still suffering from butterflies from seeing Eclipse, but doubtful!) and hope I make some exciting decisions in the nearish future! After all, it's just life... no one get's out alive and we can sleep when we're dead!

My theories on love

One of the best things about living with Spaghetti is that she has lots of smart, interesting things just laying around. Take, for instance, the book eat pray love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I had first spotted this book several months back on the table next to Spaghetti's chair, and thought hmmm.... I should read this before the movie comes out. So that's what I started, about a month ago. So I just picked it back up tonight while waiting for the potatoes to be done for dinner.

Within the first 5 minutes of reading, I came across this idea, which really resonates with me. Elizabeth is talking about a relationship she fell into after the demise of her marriage. She talks about how she fell into a desperate love with an actor who was playing a character from one of her short stories.

"He was playing a character I had invented, which is somewhat telling. In desperate love, it's always like this, isn't it? In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding that they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place."

Maybe this idea of desperate love is a girl thing, or maybe it's a loneliness thing, but I'm finding that her summation of this desperate love and creating the partner you want, is particularly poignant at this juncture in my life. I have friends who have been in long term relationships who are now realizing that perhaps the person they're with is not the person that they've created in their heads. I mean, I know I've been there. I've fallen into this trap of a desperate love (granted, mine is one sided, but isn't most love like she's describing usually one-sided?) and have been continually disappointed when the object of my affection fails me in some silly way.

But the point to all of these musings (and yes, I'm finishing this blog post MONTHS after it began) is that Elizabeth recognizes that she creates these characters, and these fictitious people will not lead to her happiness. And I think that's worth noting. Knowing what will lead to dissatisfaction in a relationship is in itself a step closer to finding a true and lasting partnership.

Random thought of the day...

Growing up I was always told that I had a smart mouth that would eventually get me into trouble. Seriously, I can't count the number of times my dad would tell me that me smarting off was going to get me punched in the face. That a) doesn't make sense, and b) is nonproductive because the phrase merely promotes the bad behavior. Why would a smart mouth ever get me into trouble? Clearly it's smart enough to get me right back out of it. And as for the punching.... If my mouth was really smart, would it not alert me to the impending danger so I could pull a super-sweet punch-dodging move? I should think so! Also, if a child is told their mouth is smart, isn't that really like a compliment? I mean, who doesn't want to be considered smart? Just a thought...

7 Things

Across the blogosphere, fellow bloggers are letting their readers in on seven “little known” facts about their blog’s writers. My friend over at A List Baby(a most fabulous blog about all fantastic things for baby)tagged me to clue you in on myself! Here are some tidbits you may not know about me:

1) On past mission trips with my church I jumped off a couple of things. First I jumped off of a bridge (I say it was about 30 feet tall, but that was a guess from looking down) and into the river below in San Marcus. It was scary and fun and for that trip I earned the nickname Kerplop. On another mission trip I jumped from the roof of the house we were building onto a pile of dirt. It's amazing what you'll do when boys you're wanting to impress are doing it...

2) Like my friend Mary, I too adore Diet Coke. It is by far my favorite drink of all time. Especially when it burns my throat and makes my eyes water. That's just the best!

3) My favorite thing to do and daydream about is traveling. I have been to 12 countries (other than the US) on 3 continents: Belgium, Belize, Canada, England, France, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Luxembourg, Mexico, The Netherlands and Venezuela.

4) I have aspirations to get my Ph.D. either in Communications or Psychology.

5) I don't like creasing paper. It gives me the heeby jeebies and then I fear getting a paper cut. Especially construction paper. If it's construction paper, I won't even try- I'll use a pencil or ruler or something other than my finger to crease it.

6) Speaking of fears.... I have a fear of escalators. But only going down. I think it stems from my aunt ripping open her leg running back up the down escalator. I wasn't even there, but I'm always afraid I'll overstep and tumble to my demise.

7) I'm great at feigning confidence. If I don't know the answer to something (especially directions), I'll act like I know. Surprisingly, I'm usually correct!

OK- There's my 7 things. Now time to pass it on. The Dallas Morning Hughes, let's hear your 7 things!

Movie Reviews!!

With all the big fall movies coming out, I've seen several articles on what's creating Oscar Buzz. My list of Oscar-worthy movies to see is made (as well as my non-oscar, but I want to see anyway list)and I'm slowly making my way to the theaters to space out the contenders for favorite movie of 2009 (let's be honest... it's going to go to New Moon, what with my ridiculous 14-year-old self re-emerging with a vengeance!) But here's the two movies I've seen in the last week and what I think...


So I actually had great expectations for this movie. I LOVED The Day After Tomorrow but who can really blame me... Jake Gyllenhaal was in it... but that's neither here nor there. I liked that disaster film. It had enough extra oomph in the plotline so that when the end of the world got to be too much, or a bit cheesy, I could refocus onto the relationship side of the movie. 2012 had none of that. It was seriously ridiculous, I'm sad to say. So if you don't know what it's about (then I don't know how we're friends and you're reading this because I'm CLEARLY a movie fanatic...) let me give you a brief synopsis. It's 12/21/2012 (my 29th birthday!! EEPS!!) and the end of the world predicted by the Mayans or Incas or someone back in the day is upon us. So when the tectonic plates start shifting there's earthquakes, fire, doom and gloom. Basically, the perfect plot for some amazing stunts and graphic stuff. And I'll admit that I thought the graphics were pretty cool. At this one point, Santa Monica is sliding into the ocean, and I thought it looked really realistic. But that's about all that was realistic and awesome about the movie. The acting was ok, but it was the writing that I just couldn't get over, in addition to some cheesy camera angles that I probably wouldn't have chosen. Instead of adding to the heart of the film, some of the lines were literally laughable (Emily and I were cracking up). Also there was a particular camera angle used when someone was falling off something and it just cracked me up! This guy is plummeting to his demise, and I'm cracking up because the camera is falling with him, a close-up on his face, while his mouth is just opened in a wide "O" of shock.

I guess there's really not much more to say, other than I wish I hadn't spent my $5 on the Saturday matinee. It was amusing, yes, but probably the biggest movie disappointment, and certainly not worth all the hype for the last few months.

Luckily, my faith in film was restored last night when I went to see the long-awaited Precious.


Precious is about a 16 year old girl in Harlem in 1987 who lives with an abusive mother and is pregnant for the 2nd time by her father. This is probably one of the most intensely heartbreaking films I've ever seen. I can't even think of a movie where I felt remotely the same after watching. I guess the closest thing I can think of is how I felt at the end of Atonement. That was another film that was just heartbreaking (I honestly can't think of another word to describe it). The cinematography was more raw in this film, much less of a sweeping epic look like Atonement, or other high budget films, but it was perfect for the story. The angles and movement of the cameras just added to the rawness of the film. Even the music was an amazing fit. I would have never thought to include the upbeat music that was scattered throughout the film, but it just helps to add a depth to the main character, Precious, that was almost hard to believe existed after seeing the desolate, abusive life she had.

This brings me to the actors. I mean, wow. There has been a lot of hype and Oscar buzz already, and with good reason. Every actor was phenomenal, but I absolutely cannot get over Mo'Nique. I've seen her on talk shows and she's bubbly and personable, but in this film she was an absolute monster. And she was believable, and unrecognizable. For her to deliver the verbal and physical abuse she inflicted upon her daughter was hard to watch, and I can't fathom having to actually live it while in character. This is the first time I have ever had a physical reaction to a film. I wanted to puke in disgust a couple of times, while there were several other scenes that of course had me tearing up. The climactic ending was almost too much to watch.

The film does have a hopeful ending, which is nice after such an emotionally draining couple of hours. So far, this is my favorite film of the year.

More movies to come (if I remember!) Let me know if you've seen either of these and if you agree or disagree with me.