A SHOUTOUT TO SALLY ROSE.

oh hey there sally. I know you wanted a shout out.

for those of you who don't know sally, let's do a brief biography, shall we?
sally zemmol, born to luna & jonny on april 22nd (earth day and the day after my birthday!) and older sister to david, is currently a senior at the abraham joshua heschel high school. her passions include fashion, yearbook, baby pictures, hello kitty, bloomingdales and her boyfriend daniel. she spends many an afternoon knitting in her rocking chair with her cats (a tribute to hello kitty). tall and thin, she has the ideal model stature and uses it to her advantage. she is fierce, fabulous and always wins spring fling queen. sally is also currently the one (and only!) reader of this blog. mad props.

now on to business:
I had an epiphany at sometime this week that technology is not all it's cracked up to be. maybe it's the emotion-bereft text messaging & bbming that my crackberry allows me to be adept at, maybe it's the fact that I spend a good deal of time trying to make plans (or hear about them) instead of letting things happen, or maybe it's that I get anxious or upset when I don't hear from certain people daily because (like me, of course) they should carry around their phones with them at all times, have them next to them when they sleep, never power them down, and always bring the charger along...just in case the phone dies. oh wait, maybe that's just me. and maybe I'm going technology crazy (dying for a mac even when my pc is more than perfectly fine and still under warranty), or maybe I'm just trying too hard to be connected to everyone always, all the time, because I'm afraid I'll miss out.

now let's not jump the gun; I'm not saying that it's a BAD thing that I'm so reachable. really, I'm not. but is it at the point where I'm too reachable? that if, heaven forbid (!), my parents couldn't find me one night they would think I was kidnapped? partially, yes, but maybe not to that extent.

the greater problem lies in the fact that I'm always trying to feel like I'm reaching out -- and I'm always suffering the consequences for it. that I always have my phone with me pressures me to make plans earlier in the day, before I know what's going on. of course, when things don't work out and people are busy anyway, it makes me wonder if they just don't want to hang out with me at all. on my defense, I do believe I am a bit paranoid, but not overly so. I just think that having my phone on me at all times can make me feel emotionally dejected at times.

but wait, isn't this a huge contradiction? yes, I do suppose it is. and maybe my paranoia is totally justified and I should have reason to worry. but in the end? I always have plans on saturday night, I don't look for plans on friday afternoon anymore (I'm training myself to be good at being bored -- which I will blog about another time), and I do feel like I'm generally in the know.

so while there are pros and cons to both sides of the argument (geez I spend my life debating, debating myself even), I have promised myself to wean myself off my phone. just like I am learning how to not be bored, I will learn how to be alone. it seems, at least, as if the two are somewhat connected. so, I hereby vow to be more unreachable, less reliant on my cell phone and live more presently. I don't really need to talk to people if they're not with me, do I? so the cell phone ban has thus begun.

(and for the record, I like being reachable. it makes me feel reliable. and that's a feeling I don't intend to give up while on my crackberry crusade.)

a little bit'a this, a little bit'a that.

it's crazy that last post was monday -- where has the week gone?
oh yeah, I got that CRAZY computer virus watching glee.

get this: I go on surfthechannel.com, go to vureel, and start watching like ep. 4 of glee. next thing I know none of my programs are executable and I suddenly have porn popping up right and left. yes, for the first time -- EVER -- I had been virused. luckily, really, thank god for the IT staff at my high school; they switched in a new hard drive before first period the next day and managed to recover all my files from my old hard drive. and they're giving me another new hard drive because this new one kind of sucks. really, major shoutouts to j-hutz & scott.

no new music has been coming in, although I'm kind of hooked on Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros' Home but that's about it. got a new iPod, have been uploading major tunes onto it (and will be fighting with apple tomorrow for giving me broken headphones).

looking to help haiti (like the rest of the world?): check it out. a new favorite thing. help haiti stand.

it's an american apparel tri-blend (so it's super comfy), all proceeds go to pih.org (an organization that has always been into helping haiti, even before it became the cool thing to do), and there's free shipping and handling (try to beat that!).

unlike the red cross, which only donates 10-15% of the donation to the actual intended relief cause, pih donates 94% of the donation to the cause. pretty legit, not going to lie.

so do your part as a consumer conscious american and buy a shirt. I'm going to. you should too. (on top of the fact that it'll probably be the most comfortable shirt ever and I'm going to wear it to sleep and/or working out and/or out on saturday nights -- what what!? -- it'll attract positive feedback (tinged with jealousy) from peers. always a good thing. help haiti stand.

weekend plans? who knows. maybe dan will get his shit together and we'll hang out. who knows, seriously. the met on saturday afternoon with a friend, major brunch plans for saturday & sunday, rehearsal on sunday, maybe even yoga tomorrow? when you have nothing to do, you just want to do everything.

we're not enemies; we just disagree.

time for a weekend recap and some thoughts. my saturday night stupidity has already been noted, so let's not recount. (although it was pretty fucking hilarious.)

so let's see:
countless hours spent watching glee? check.
a perfectly planned train rendezvous (a la The Perfect Score)? check.
laser tag with cousins? check.
Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's? check.
brunching with old friends? check.
yeah, pretty much an awesome weekend.

as for me, let's do a check in. saw dan today on the train (we planned it, yes) on the way home from westchester. it was pretty nice. squeezed in half an hour of cuddling that I f'sho won't be getting for quite sometime. I gave him some lip and pretty much told him that I'm done making plans with him because he blows me off to frequently and it's not okay (this, ladies and gents, is me standing up for myself). and if he wants to see me before he goes back to college until may, he'll get off his ass and make plans with me. he knows that. and if he doesn't do that, then bless the chick he meets at cornell who is many more good things than I am. I predict a call from him this week asking to hang out. let's see if I'm right.

if you're looking for music love, check out: tanlines (opened for julian casablancas on thursday at terminal 5), yeasayer (brooklyn-based indie band, performed at bonnaroo last year) and the new ke$ha cd, animal (southern belle turned rapper).

I'm working so I don't have to try so hard.

I'm really quite the belligerent drunk. and last night I did a few of the stupidest things I've ever done. ready?

1. picked a fight with dan...again.
2. slipped and fell while talking to a cute boy.
3. passed out on my best friend's couch while waiting for my dad to pick me up...and woke up at 8am to 50 missed calls and 5 new voicemails. apparently he was up all night.

so it wasn't a terrible night, I just did some stupid shit. nothing unusual there.

looking for some music love?
check out the 10 best rap mixtapes of the decade, courtesy of npr. that's love right there.

a quick note...

I want to be alone from now on. no more relying on people. no more looking for other people.

I'm happiest alone. (all I have to do now is repeat it a hundred thousand times.)

get up off your ass...and learn for once.

face it. we all, pretty much all the time, take the easy way out. that means we need to all pull our heads out of our asses and take a challenge. I realized today that I don't want to make the same mistake I made during high school: I don't want to pick a course or a topic that will seem "easier" just to alleviate some of the burden. I don't think I missed much in terms of high school projects, but I could have certainly learned more, explored more. I envision myself as this intricate, complex, constantly changing character with a wide range of interests and knowledge -- pretty much the person that I won't be unless I actually challenge myself to learn things I didn't already know.

maybe I can phrase it up in the common idiom, "staying in your comfort zone." you know what you know, you like what you like, you know what you like, you like what you know. I do it, we all do it (this isn't just a silly generalization). how many times have you, or I for that matter, done a project or a paper on a topic you were already knowledgeable about for the sheer fact that you (or I) didn't want to work as hard and invest as much energy to get a good grade?
...I'm embarrassed to raise my hand.
point proven. and here I stand, ready to go to college and be an adult, ready to face psychological, emotional and physical challenges...and I'm not mature enough to step out of my comfort zone and invest more effort to learn something new?

now I'm not one to stay within my comfort zone. I've done different summer programs each year, I have ventured to foreign countries by myself, I take classes by myself, I have a job (which gives me a totally new group of people I expose myself to), and the list continues. but, when it comes to schoolwork I always want to relearn things so I can get a good grade as opposed to new knowledge. it's time I grew up, and quite frankly, cut the shit. how will I ever change and grow and develop as a person with real interests if I don't explore new interests when I have the opportunity to? I have my whole grown-up life to live when I'll be expected to be knowledgeable on certain topics, and a to be a neophyte when it comes to others.

therefore, I challenge myself the following:
when it comes time for college, electives, summer programs, papers, projects -- any opportunities to expose myself to something new, I will try my best to take interest. I will push myself to learn new things. it sounds silly, but it's going to be surprisingly hard. in learning new things I will sacrifice the time I'll have for things I already love. no matter the outcome though, I'll come out with new knowledge -- maybe it'll reinforce my preconceived beliefs, maybe it'll shatter them; either option is a good thing.

and hence, time to step out of the comfort zone.

aside from taking up an extra pilates class (with a new teacher, mind you!) and trying free yoga, I'm also seeing the strokes on thursday with my older brother. and there you have it: breaking out of the comfort zone.

above all, think.

I had two really great ideas for blogs (and a really good line for a poem) but I totally forgot everything.

all I really want to do anymore is read my nicholas sparks book. I love him. too bad miley cyrus is going to play ronnie (the protagonist) in the last song. ew.

maybe my thoughts will hit me again. who knows.
this time I'll be carrying around my moleskine to write them down in.

music update: check out the high road by broken bells, the kick ass pseudonym of danger mouse (producer of the genius and mad illegal "grey album" and co-conspirator of gnarls barkley) & james mercer (lead vocalist & guitarist of the shins). the high road, pretty much their pre-album single. their album comes out march 9, but if you're super daring I would download the album that was leaked to the internet in december.

much love.

a future in feminism

I think about what I want to do with my future and I know that I want to study people. people watching, analyzing other people, picking other people's brains, looking at gender roles in society -- that's what I love to do. so I thought to myself today, why don't I just major in gender studies? I know that's a major at Barnard and it's probably a major at most other places, so why don't I just do that?

then I was talking to raymond and he told me he's taking a gender psychology course next semester and I wondered why I had never thought about that. I want to study psychology at college, I want to study gender roles and sociology, so why don't I study gender psychology (sociology, I think, is more of an umbrella term)?

also, I've been reading these wonderful feminist books and it almost makes me wish that I had lived during the women's revolution in the 1970's. there were so many radical ideas and yes, the movement did have a huge internal rift once the porn wars rolled around, but it was really a time of change.

so the books I've been reading have been from the early 2000's. it's a new decade (corny, I know). so what will feminism become now? what will be the new definition of "new-age" feminism?

these are the keywords (yes, yes, how truly futuristic of me) of what I see in my generation: sexual liberation, image discomfort, a constant desire for improvement, perfectionism, beauty in choice, breaking the double standard. maybe that's me being idealistic, but it's what I see my generation (that will be 27 by the start of the next decade -- WOW). let's hope that this is what our college years and 20's bring. seems like a good thing to ask for.

in the meantime, let's do what we can to bring awareness to women's issues. we're in the 21st century; read a feminist blog, read (and critique if you want!) womenomics online, check out all the courses offered in gender studies (an area of growing interest, I hope). no matter what, do your part. stay informed on the latest court decision about emergency contraceptive, and figure out who you want to be and what you want to do with your gender in this decade. it's a time of change and everyone is on the bandwagon. I hate to sound like I'm a follower, but for the sake of intelligence and change, are you in?

much love.

yep, thought so.

texted. imed.

(I feel silly and inadequate saying those things as if they're significant because it only further shows how the growth of technology has lead to the decline of human interaction.)

not lonely.

for those who are?
check out the vampire weekend cd, Contra, that comes out on the 12th.

enjoy some love.

music & more.

I'm trying hard:
...not to miss you. (but I do.)
...or think about you. (I'm failing.)
...or have feelings for you. (I can't help it.)
...or regret sleeping with you. (I was an idiot.)
I want to forget about you. this sucks.

on a lighter, more positive note, one thing getting me through is npr's All Song Considered, Listener's Pick the Best Music of 2009.
check it out: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121103815

download some love. I did.

sometimes it's just that easy. (but most times it's not.)

at what point do we give up? when do we realize that the fight just isn't worth fighting, that it isn't worth it anymore? do we always coast along until we get hurt? if yes, why is that the case? why can't we stop the hurt by means of retrospection and introspection?

I guess this is the problem I'm facing right now. it's going to be so hard to give him up and move on, but we just don't see eye to eye. and, the sad truth is, we never will. he will never want the emotional attachment that I feel for him. in many ways this is a flipped situation: I usually don't let myself get attached, but I did. he usually loves being in relationships, with me he doesn't.
this whole situation is fucked up.

welcome to january 3rd, 2010. I'm still living in the la-la-land of august 1st, 2009. 5 months later and I'm still not over it when I should be. giving him up will be so hard, but I need to. even if it's just not calling him or texting him or talking to him daily. let him talk to me. let him initiate a hangout. it's going to be hard, waiting. waiting is always hard. but I can do it. willpower. a strong, competitive female spirit. ignoring the debates in my head. caring again. throwing myself passionately into something.

it's not going to be easy, but at least I know that.