Join Me For a Shot

This is my relationship with alcohol:

• Never on special occasions (those should be remembered not diluted)
• Never with people I don't trust (parties, acquaintances, people not in my top 5)
• Only hard liquor (vodka, stronger or nothing, beer tastes awful to me I might as well get a buzz quick with fewer calories)
• Usually no more than once every two months.

I've learned that if you tell people you don't drink they will make it their life's mission to get you drunk. Even if the bar is ridiculously expensive, even if you've drank with them before, even if the two of you are young females who will have to walk to the train through a dangerous neighborhood. Nowadays I don't tell anyone I'm trying to be straight-edge I just grab a beer and sip, leave my full bottle on a table somewhere and trade up for an empty one. I try to get some sugar in me cuz' I always act wonky on a sugar high and allow myself to be a bit more wobbly and affectionate than I usually am. Everybody's happy.

Don't get me wrong, I like doing shots. The smooth burn of vodka/tequila/w.e going down your throat and that tipsy feeling is pretty amazing but I'm a lush and if I don't have anybody to dance with or my boyfriend to rub up against I get depressed.

I have to point out that my mother is an alcoholic (more on this later) but I wanted to be straight edge years before her drinking became a problem. Maybe I smelled disaster but I think it has very little to do with her.

Inebriation is a mask that makes people feel like they're not accountable for their actions. Yes, sometimes it allows us to be vulnerable when we really need it but most of the time it's a veil that prevents us from interacting with each other in a genuine way. The thing that gets me is; why rely on liquid courage/confidence when we can find our own?

Some links on Alcohol and the Placebo effect:

Being Drunk is a Mind Trick

Understanding Alcohol Expectancy Effects: Revisiting the Placebo Condition

Just Thinking About Alcohol Makes People More Aggressive

6 Things Fanfic Taught Me (With Links!)

1. You can have more than one soulmate...simultaneously and it can still work out.

Living Proof White Collar: Peter/Neal, Peter/Elizabeth

2.“Reality isn’t always about proof, about what you can see and hear. Sometimes it’s about what you know. What you believe, what you choose to make real.”

The Birdwatcher Stargate Atlantis: Sheppard/McKay

3. There's television in the afterlife and your mum may be watching you have sex but it doesn't matter cuz' it's heartwarming and uplifting.

The White Road Harry Potter: Snape/Lily, Snape/Harry

4. History is written by the victors, but it's a lot more complicated than that.

Written By the Victors Stargate Atlantis: Sheppard/McKay and others

5. Magic can be found in the middle of nowhere in Arizona, but the well-adjusted need not look.

Snape: the Home Fries Nazi Happy Potter: Snape/Harry

6. When you've lost almost everything, you have to lose what's left to keep what you've got.

Named Supernatural: Dean/Castiel

There's much, much more but I've gotta go to sleep.

Finding Work w/a BFA and Almost Zero Experience

Yesterday, a full week after I finished my last class, I sat in front of the computer for eight hours sending out my resume, applying to various jobs and setting up profiles in Monster.com and LinkedIn. The amount of anxiety (and back pain) was ridiculous but I think I have a good start on things. Right now I want to make sure I have a steady job so that I'm not screwed when it comes time for me to pay back my student loans and I feel like if I can do that the rest will fall into place.

So far it's been overwhelmingly discouraging with the only offer being a group interview for a "Financial Service Representative" and I suck very badly at group interviews. The people who excel seem to be obnoxious and so very fake (then again I don't know who actually got hired).

Additionally people keep telling me to go to grad school as if spending an exorbitant amount of money as an undergrad on tuition weren't enough. I don't have the money to do this even if my grad school tuition (which is HIGHER than undergrad credits)were fully paid. I have to start paying back loans in 6 months. This is far too awkward to explain to peers and teachers but I haven't yet mastered the art of dropping the subject without seeming like a gigantic bitch.

I want to work somewhere special like at my school or at Papyrus or a poetry place, but I haven't gotten replies yet and being the completely impatient person that I am I'm completely freaking out.

Despite all this I will prevail and become a household art name (even if I have to work myself into the grave to do it)!

CRAAAAACK.

I'm still a young 21 and right now I guess my life could go anywhere. Even though I feel as if I'm nearing my 90th birthday I haven't lived much and am still searching for a grand catalyst.

The oscillations seem to be consistent of home, education, love. Inspiration is lost in between searching for a job, getting upset at myself for not having a job and questioning EVERY SINGLE THING I DO.

Also, I have an incredibly inspiring idea for a continuation of one of my comics and (despite setting goals, marking dates, organizing) I haven't done JACK-SHIT.

I need another year, my senior year, to become something better. To galvanize an entity that is suave, art savvy, proficient at everything (that I need to be) and free.

Too nice?

I'm sick of hearing all this bullshit about women not liking guys who are "too nice". It's a lie guys tell themselves when they get rejected and a lie women say when they don't want to say "too dumb" or "too immature" or a myriad of other more accurate but abstract reasons. We think saying "he was too nice" is saying "I had a guy who treated me really well because I'm great and I deserve that but I wanted more mystery and romance" but it sends the message that it's ok to date an asshole as long as the drama is juicy enough.

We feel guilty for saying "I was just not attracted to him" because the response is usually "but he was sooo good looking" or "you were so good together" it feels shallow but it's not. The person who feels right and gives you enough energy to get out of bed in the morning is the person you should "settle" for and it'll feel amazing.

Anyway Strictly Sexual is great movie.

P.S guys, "nice" might also mean "he didn't have an opinion", "he was agreeable to the point of being fake"...etc. it never means "he treated me too well, I want someone more abusive"

Wish I had something intellectual to say but...

In 5 years time I hope to be nowhere near where I am now. I want to make something of myself that doesn't include a marriage, kids or a mortgage. I want my art to be displayed in galleries, my books to be published, my comic books read. I want to make a difference in the way people think. I want to have a hand in stopping racism and homophobia and be the person my friends can lean on for support.

The problem is it's hard to justify not wanting a family or security to my family (sometimes even to my friends). Believing in your art is difficult when you don't have the courage to believe in yourself and friendships are far more complicated than that.

I just wish I wasn't so shy, but I'm working on it (all of it).

Quotes, Harry Potter Fanfiction Edition

"Harry leans against him. 'You were fifteen. Your father had taught you nothing about the world as it really is, and you loved him. I can’t fault you on that. My father wasn’t perfect, either. The only reason I grew up questioning everything was because no one ever loved me enough to teach me certainty.'"

An Act of Simple Devotion
~
"Maybe it's not who you're with that matters. Maybe it's who you are with the person you're with."

Glass Half Full~
When Severus answered, his voice was soft and low, his face shadowed by the long strips of black hair hanging down the sides. “If you start changing yourself to suit the world’s expectations you’ll never stop. You’re fine just being who you are. If others don’t see that, it’s their loss.”

Commonplace Magic
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"The way customers often treated him was shameful, the way society ignored the necessity of a paid sexual outlet and marginalized those who either chose or fell into the occupation was shameful. Being a prostitute wasn't."

Touch and Go
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"Because you'd sit there with your jaw open and ask ridiculous questions. Love isn't all grand passions and dying confessions, Sirius. You read too many Russian novels."
– Remus

Stealing Harry
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"Some small and rather childish part of Harry wanted to giggle hysterically about the sheer absurdity of the fact that Severus Snape was touching him, Harry James Potter, willingly and without any apparent intent to kill."

In This World For You
~
"With another sigh, Harry leaned against the door frame. 'You're right, is all. About love, I mean. Everybody says it's meant to be this brilliant thing -- that it's meant to be pure and wonderful, and all you need, and stronger than Death, and all those stupid things they write in the songs.' The ghostly taste of his liquor and kisses he'd imbibed earlier returned to him, far more bitter in retrospect. Harry swallowed against it, and shook his head. 'But then they turn around and treat it like some great bloody game.' If Harry couldn't keep the disgust from colouring his voice, at least he liked to tell himself he managed to conceal the self-pity reasonably well.

Everybody's Fool
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"Even the title is ridiculous. There is something about Mary? Honestly. They should have named it: There is something about the way Muggles lack a complete sense of humor and deserve to die violent deaths." - Voldemort

The Semblance of Peace
~
"Dumbledore chuckled. 'Of course you fought; all lovers do. The more passion between lovers, the deeper the stakes, the more volatile the arguments become.'"

Better Late Than Never
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"He takes this as an invitation to apply his tongue, which fails to startle me: he never did understand the scales of power, or how unattractive eagerness is."

Our Masters In The Flesh
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"When we are young we believe that we know everything, and so we believe that if we see no explanation for something, then no explanation exists. When we are older we realize that the whole universe works by a rhythm and a reason, even if we ourselves do not know it. It is only our own ignorance which appears to us as insanity."

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
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"You had to break in half to love someone. He was not that much of a fool yet." - Snape

Where the Heart Moves the Stone
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