working for the weekend

another long shift at work. i'm fuckin beat. i have to open the store for the next four days. i'm on day three on a nine day stretch and six of the nine are opens, which means i'll be getting up at 430am for the next four days. i'm pretty exhausted. i can't do chris's tattoo today because jason is tattooing zane and i'm chairing sacred heart so i have to be there around 730 to set up and it's just not enough time. not to mention how tired i am. ugh. i hate to complain, because life is so good right now. i feel like what i'm doing is exactly right for me at this stage in my life and that feels so fucking great lemme tell you. i did the 8th step yesterday with my sponsor. i made a list of all people i had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. i basically just have to make an effort to be selflessly involved in people's lives that i've hurt in the past, mostly my family. i was suprised at how easy it was, but then again my drinking career didn't last as long as others have. speaking of which, james is drinking again and thommy is moving back home to connecticut. i had a sort of dramatic and potentially harmful relationship with james a few months back and i'm glad i cut it out because he's really dangerous to my sobriety, he was then and he definitely is now. it was such a lesson though, my interaction with him. it helped to identify something really pertinent to making a huge change in old patterns. it's really unbelievable how much i've grown and am continuing to learn about myself through sobriety. the promise that "we will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us" is really coming true for me lately. juggling my job and painting and drawing and having tattoos set up and going to meetings, doing step work, working at the shop, etc etc., basically all of the things that i do now would have totally overwhelmed me to the point of saying "fuck this shit" a year or so ago. but for some reason doing a little bit at a time and having help just makes it so much easier and over time, i just keep gaining more and more perspective and motivation, all the while being happy and free. it's pretty incredible. i used to be so depressed and anxious all of the time. not to say i don't have bad days, but they are way fewer and far between than they used to be. i would've been overwhelmed by the very act of writing this blog a few years ago, then i would've gotten down on myself for not writing anymore and the vicious cycle of self loathing would begin. now it's easier to just do it. i'm go grateful and fortunate to have understood enough a year or so ago that i had to be willing to just listen to someone else for a change. i owe my life to that. and at the very least i owe my happiness to that.

i want these. bad.

so i have an ipod and so far it's been through about three different sets of itunes and everytime i've managed to save all of my music files, until now. i'm about to dump it all and re-start my library because frankly i just don't care enough to try to save them. it's impossible to save what's on there without it being a total pain in the ass, and to be honest i'm kind of excited to start all over with what i've got now. the only thing that i'm going to miss on it is all of the smiths and cure stuff i have. just about everything ever recorded, but oh well. i buy music so much more often now than i ever have before and i must say that i'm enjoying it much much more than just stealing it. i used to get so overwhelmed by the possibility of being able to download anything i wanted. for some reason it's much more satisfying to try to find it at the store. it may sound crazy, but i like going to record stores and when we were in seattle and found a couple of records that i was really searching for, it was so awesome and i realized how much i missed that whole experience. so here's to making things harder on myself just for the sake of fun. yay!

jason and i are both off today and we're going to draw and paint together. i'm making little paintings to go into these tiny little frames that i bought at the thrift store. hopefully i get them done in time to sell them at the convention. i'm pretty excited about the convention this year. it's always a good time and a lot of my starbucks girls are coming. they are all a bit more educated about tattoos now which i'm really proud of. i've got two appointments lined up for the next two sundays. i'm really excited and nervous a little. i don't really get nervous about it until i'm about to go to sleep and i think about it a lot. but today i'm going to draw the images a bunch and paint and hopefully get my hands in tip top shape. this apprentice thing is going pretty slowly, but i'm glad. i feel like it's moving at a comfortable pace. i'm way more comfortable with a machine in my hand now than i was a few months ago. cleaning up the station after jason is done tattooing has been a big help just getting used to being in the drivers seat. it's not the same as actually tattooing but it's definitely helpful. these next couple of tattoos are really going to be good practice and i'm super excited to do them. i'm pretty confident that i'll do a great job. yay!

spoiler alert

i worked a long one today. 9 hours from five in the morning until two in the afternoon. i was so beat when i was done. my back was so stiff and inflamed. i took a couple tylenol and hit the sack for a couple of hours. i've been reading the last book in the aforementioned teen vampire story. very steamy, very provocative, and bella swan is very...pregnant? with a vampire baby. you should hear her talking about this kid, she wants to keep her baby and i don't think it's going to happen. oh yeah and she married that edward guy because she wants to be his forever. give me a break. i really don't like where this is heading, but it is pretty provocative stuff, so of course i'm going to continue to read it. i know it's kind of lame for me to sit here and trash it while i'm still reading the damn thing, but this is my blog, if you don't like it, tough.

so anyway i took a shower and now i'm feeling better. drinking some coffee and waiting for my brother to come over so we can talk some shit and go to my home group. tonight is chip night and i get my one year coin and a round of applause from the other home group members. it's pretty interested to hear the opinions of people who basically saw the light come back into your eyes after coming in all haggard and drunk and emotionally beaten. it feels good. i feel good.

i think i'm going to make a vegetarian mexican lasagne of sorts this evening. i'm going to experiment and hope that it comes out ok. i cleaned my kitchen and organized it yesterday. i went grocery shopping and bought a bunch of shit at trader joes so i feel like a real person. i've been avoiding my apartment lately because it's been such a wreck and i've been staying at jason's a lot lately. i've been working at being self supporting and paying my own rent, keeping up with my place, and not depending on him for a lot these past couple of months. mostly because it's been a pattern of mine in the past to depend on my boyfriend for certain things that i should be doing for myself, and i like my boyfriend, so i'm trying to do the right thing to break those patterns for once. one of those things includes not moving in with him right away. i'm pretty set on not moving in with him until we get married actually. it sounds really traditional and conservative i know, but for one thing i don't want to mess this up and statistically marriages last longer when the couple doesn't live together first. i need to be solid in my ability to take care of myself before i can move to that step. i'm trying the best i can to do this right. things are going pretty well so far.

if there's one important lesson that i've learned over the past year it's that things in life don't happen overnight, that things that are the most important to your happiness take time, and it's not on your watch. life has a funny way of taking a long time to get good, but if i keep on top of it, it's more than i can ever imagine.

WHOO TATTOO

i love margaret cho. it just makes sense that she's getting tattooed a bunch because i think she understands the way that tattoos make a lady feel about her body. i'm going on pure assumption here, but going on her past body issues and her comments on burlesque that i've read recently as well as her show "beautiful" which is totally centered around body acceptance i can really relate to her getting tattooed a lot. she has always been a big hero of mine. when i was younger and trying to make sense of how i felt about feminism, she really made a lot of sense to me. she was one of the first feminists that made me feel really empowered, and it makes me really happy that she's in the spotlight now, and also that her tattoos are getting a lot of attention with her new show and all.

i talk to a lot of people about tattoos. when you've got a lot people want to talk to you and it can't really be avoided. one of the compliments that i'm lucky enough to get about my tattoos are that they suit me very well. i think that this is a matter of just having the privledge of getting tattooed by awesome artists who know that a tattoo should look like it's always been there. i think that this is possible for every person who wants a tattoo, not just me. personally i think tattoos "suit" everyone who wants them and i want people who have them to get the best work possible. having a tattoo that moves with your body and that is a compliment to it's shape is one of the biggest reasons i get tattooed. it's amazing to be able to look at a part of yourself accented by lines and beautiful color. i feel that it really reinvented the way that i feel about my body specifically my legs which i was always a little self conscious of before. some may think that it's hiding behind something, but if i feel better about my body when i look in the mirror because it's got beautiful tattoos on it, then whatever. i'd like to think that ms.cho thinks similarly. the more well done tattoos are in the spotlight, the better i feel and hopefully it will get people to search a little harder for a better tattoo artist.

speaking of tattoos, i've got my next couple planned out and it's really cool stuff. my friend chris is getting a posada day of the dead type thing and i'm so so excited to do it.

we watched gus van sant's new movie paranoid park last night. i kind of hated it. the music and filming were very geared toward inducing a feeling which is guess some people would call pretty genius, i mean i got it and there were definitely parts that i thought were really beautiful, but overall i felt that it didn't have a lot to go on besides that feeling of teenage hopelessness and confusion. i guess it just isn't my artsy bag. oh well. we also watched chinatown which i really liked. now there's a movie with substance!

i finished the third book in stephenie meyer's emotionally drawn out teen vampire saga last night also. boy did that book piss me off! i read the first two with such fervor that i could hardly wait to start the third. wow was it disappointing. and HELLO! BELLA SWAN can you get your head out of your ass and maybe think for yourself for once! sheesh. what kind of message are we sending to teenagers here stephenie meyer?! given i haven't read the final book yet, so maybe she'll come to her senses and stop depending on those dudes for her identity, but c'mon! not to mention that it was entirely too long. 600 plus pages of trite-ass filler. of course i'm going to read the last book, just because i've gotta know what happens, but i'm not falling for this teenage love story bullshit. i'm hoping bella tells them both to hit the road. i'll let you guys know when i'm finished.

we stood at the turning point with complete abandon

getting sober is so much more than just abstaining from using drugs and alcohol. they call it a complete psychic change. i've heard other people say "it's easy, the only thing you have to do is change everything." being an alcoholic doesn't just mean that i drank funny and couldn't do it anymore, it means that ever since i started using substances (and i use that term broadly because it can mean anything that i'm "using" to escape: sex, people, sleep, food) to escape reality, i began to think and behave funny too.
i'm a little over a year sober and have done 7 of the 12 steps that the progams of alcoholics anonymous suggests of me. the steps are designed to basically teach you three things: trust a god of your understanding, clean house (meaning taking personal inventories of the harm you have done others and making the proper amends), and helping others. the 12th step says "having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all of our affairs. doing the steps is a spiritual awakening, working this program is a complete psychic change. lately i've been noticing ways in which my brain automatically reaches for the easiest escape or most instantly gratifying behavior that it can grasp. the trouble with being like i am and also why going to meetings and keeping alcoholic friends is important, is because along with this tendency to grasp for the easy things, i also have an incredibly short memory for trouble that these behaviors have caused me in the past. meaning that if i didn't have a network of sober alcholics or a daily reminder of my condition, that it makes it much much easier for me to just do these things without even thinking about the harm that i'm causing myself of the people who love me the most. in aa we learn from each other the ways in which these things can be avoided. we look out for each other and give each other a hard dose of reality when we see each other fucking up. i'm very fortunate that i've got a sponsor that is one of the best at doing this sort of thing. but the hard thing about all of it is that i'm just at the beginning, and that uneven emotional rollercoaster still seems appealing. being sober doesn't just mean not using drugs or alchohol, it means living a sober life, which to some people seems pretty boring, especially for a newly sober alcoholic. it means paying your bills, having a mortgage, having a steady job, having children that are provided for in every way, it means going to bed at a reasonable hour, not eating too much, caring about your health. all of these things seem so boring to a crazy ex party girl like me. but sometimes, when i force my brain out of norm and i do this stuff, other really amazing things start to happen. things that i wouldn't have ever expected and that are beyond anything that i could ever imagine. things like being peaceful and content and getting a promotion when i was only ever fired, the respect of my family and friends. its then that you realize that the real gifts of sobriety aren't on your terms. they aren't in your realm of good stuff. that's the gift of sobriety. that's my complete psychic change thus far, because i would have never ever in a million years have listed those things as being better than getting what i thought i wanted. it's just the weird way that surrender works. or should i say the weird way that god works. i've got a concept of that now, and i feel really fortunate.

what the fuck is the internet!?

jason and i are back from seattle. it was an awesome trip. seattle is a really beautiful city, very easy to get around, and the food is great. i ended up getting a really amazing tattoo from hannah aitchinson. i really couldn't believe that it happened but it did. i feel really honored to have been tattooed by her not just because she's booked years in advance, but because she only tattooed friends who already had work from her at the convention. i felt very fortunate. she was a very positive and encouraging person. we talked a lot about tattoos but about life stuff as well. i really enjoyed the whole experience. definitely a highlight of my year.
i had so much fun aside from the tattoo also. drank a lot of great coffee, ate indian, thai, mexican and even greasy diner food while we were there. i went to an aa meeting which was really cool, and saw the sights. we went to the aquarium and pike place and shopped our little butts off. seattle is really a lot of fun.
back in pittsburgh things are the same. i've got a couple new friends in my life that have been keeping me busy. they are both working artists and do a lot of public art and designing for events sponsored by the sprout fund. it's interesting to see how other artists get their inspiration and we've been having a really good time. we've been going to the movies a lot lately. went to see hitchcock's strangers on a train and dario argento's new movie mother of tears recently. i also saw stepbrothers which was amazingly hilarious. i'm helping them to construct their latest event hothouse that starts in a week in a half. good times.
i'm really looking forward to fall. i love fall fashion!!! tights and boots and jackets, so exciting. i'm thinking that it's really all about the boots, so i've got to start looking so i can build from them. i'm thinking something sort of victorian inspired, brown leather, mid calf. i've got them in my head, now the problem is finding them. keep your fingers crossed!
life/sobriety stuff has been good. on saturday it'll be 11 months, and on sept. 16th, 1 year. it's totally crazy that it's been a year already, but i can honestly say it's been the most interesting and fruitful year of my life thus far. i'm painting and drawing on a regular basis, done a couple tattoos, travelled a bit and haven't killed anyone or myself! it's been a good year.