Blogging Hiatus

Officially over!

Even though it was never officially "on." I was just stuck in one of those 'what do I write' ruts, and then that turned into weeks, which turned into months, and then I just felt disconnected and it was weird. But I've decided to come back and just write about what I always write about: arbitrary drama and random anecdotes in my boring life.

And as per usual, we'll begin this journey with a random survey.

23 Deep Questions

or

23 "Deep" Questions, the Quotation Marks Questioning the Deepness of Questions that Turn Up When You Google "Myspace Surveys"

1. What is more difficult: looking into someones eyes when telling how you feel, or looking into someones eyes when they tell you how they feel?

Since I normally try to avoid eye contact, looking into someone's eyes when I'm telling them how I feel is way harder for me. Although, them looking into my eyes is just as painful. I might have Aspergers y'all.

2. Think of the last time you were angry. Why were you angry?

Legitimately angry? Yesterday. My roommate told me she washed my dishes, like she's some kind of martyr for cleaning up in an apartment that technically we all should clean. Fuck that noise.

A) It's not possible that an entire dish washer full of dishes is mine, since you cook for your boyfriend at least three times a week and I eat out the majority of the time.

B) I didn't ask you to do "my" dishes, you aren't required to do "my" dishes, and I'm not indebted to you or grateful that you did them. Since we share dishes, cleaning them is a shared responsibility, especially if you would like to eat off of them. FYI, I fully planned on doing them later, but when I noticed the sink was full, I was rushing out the door to my 8 am Maymester class, and I had work immediately afterwards, so no I didn't immediately get around to it. You could have just cleaned the ones you needed and/or messed up.

C) Where the hell do you get off announcing that in front of a room full of people, right after I walk in from work, and demand that "next time I do my dishes" when you never, ever tell the messiest person in our apartment who leaves food on the stove and doesn't clean anything at all ever that she should clean? Fuck you.

And D) Don't act like in the past two years I haven't cleaned up after you a shit ton. Literally. I was the only one who busted out the Clorox and toilet brush in our shared dorm bathroom, and I never asked you to or acted like a saint even though bathrooms are the second germiest places after kitchens, and we didn't have a kitchen then. I've taken out trash and swept and mopped our floors, and during spring break, I cleaned the dusty baseboards and scrubbed the scuff marks off the walls, and I'm definitely the only one doing that.

3. You will die in three minutes. Last call?

My daddy. The first one would be my mom.

4. If you could do anything OR wish anything, what would it be?

Travel abroad/live in France. I WANT IT.

5. You can have one of the following two things: trust or love.

Trust because to me, that is love.

6. You are walking to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss told you if you are late one more time you're fired. Do you save the dog?

Truthfully, no. I'm a little cutthroat when it comes to work.

7. Would you or have you ever blackmailed someone?

No, I'm not smooth enough to pull that kind of thing off.

8. Think of the last person who you know that died. You have the chance to give them 1 hour of life back, but you have to give one year of your life. Do you do it?

No, but not based on me giving up one year. I just don't see how an extra hour could do anything, you know?

9. Are you the kind of friend that you would want to have as a friend?

Yes. I pay for things, I bake, I don't send stupid emails about how people are bad friends for doing the exact things that I do. All in all, I'm pretty awesome.

10. Does sex=love?

No. The shows Jerry Springer and 16 & Pregnant undoubtedly prove that.

11. Are you old fashioned?

Yes and no. I believe I have old fashioned views on love and relationships, but a fairly modern view of womanism.

12. Would you marry someone if they were unable to have sex?

If I loved them, yes. Although I'm not sure what kind of disease that is.

13. What would be harder for you, to tell someone you love them or that you do not love them back?

To tell someone I don't love them back. I'm too passive aggressive for that. Aspergers!

14. What do you think would be the hardest thing for you to give up?

Sleep. One of our friends said in college, you could get good grades, sleep, or have a social life, but only two out of the three. Guess which ones I kept?

15. Romantic love, when was the last time you told someone you loved them?

When was the last time I saw Eric? Tuesday?

16. If you had to go back in time and change one thing, if you HAD to, even if you have "no regrets" what would you change?

Having a crush on Robert. We're okay now, but he's kind of an ass.

17. Imagine. It is a dark night, you are alone, it is raining outside, you hear someone walking around outside your window. WHO do you wish was there with you?

The Marine who killed Osama bin Laden.

18. Would you give a homeless person CPR if they were dying?

No, based solely on the fact that I don't know how to give CPR. If in this hypothetical situation, I do, I probably still wouldn't because I'd be afraid of killing them, even though they're dying.

19. You are holding onto your grandmother's dying hand and the hand of a newborn that you do not know as they hang over the edge of a cliff. You have to let one go to save the other which one would it be?

This question is awful. And baby. It's my grandmother, assholes.

20. When and how was the last time you told someone how you REALLY feel?

I don't know. I think it's harder for me to not say how I feel.

If You had three months to live:

What's with your obsession with me dying?

21. Do you tell anyone or everyone you are going to die?

No. It's like the dude who just had to predict the date of the apocalypse, it would just cause unnecessary panic.

22. What do you do with your remaining days?

Get rid of all of my crap. Seriously, I have so much paper and fabric and books and clothes. I hate to think of my parents or someone boxing all that up or selling it.

23. Would you be afraid?

Um, if I knew how I was going to die, and it was painful or frightening or something, yes, but if I died in my sleep, no.

Because I Am 8 Years Old

I have a job now and I was already going to school full-time, so I have limited time to study/sketch/be a real artist/sleep. So would someone explain why I spend my free time doing this:

Yes, this is a Taylor Swift dress up game where I have made her look like a Real Housewife of Orange County.

The one of her as a vampire is much more awesome, in my opinion.

Lifeoscope

I realized today that I haven't written an actual post in forever, and one of my biggest pet peeves is bloggers who abandon their sites for months at a time. So, to catch everyone up on everything going on in my life right now, I'm formatting this post like my favorite horoscope.

MONEY AND CAREER

Money, I have none, but not for long because I do have a career! Or rather, my temporary position at Academy promoted to a part-time job. You know those people who are super awesome at balancing their lives and they can be on the PTA and bake cupcakes for a bake sale and read to their kids every night while working a full-time job? I've put off having a job while enrolled in school for a long time because I am the antithesis of those people. I procrastinate with everything. My life is barely held together just doing school. But my dad had knee surgery, and a lot of other complications, and the outcome of my income was my income all ran out, and I need to grow up and take responsibility for myself, blah blah blah.

Actually, it has made me a little more productive since I know I have to have things done in a shorter amount of time, but I'm exhausted. I asked my friend Morgan how she double majors (fashion and fibers) and works, and she said she learned to not sleep and it makes her more hyper. I'm the antithesis of her too though because being tired just puts me in full-on bitch mode. I've noticed that I care about things less, smile less, and feel more irritable than my already generally irritable. It makes me wonder how my dad works the graveyard shift, serves on the school and park boards, and does all of that Girl Scout stuff and more without punching people in the face.

And I guess school should go under this section. The night before my media writing mid-term, my clock did something funny and reset itself two hours later than usual. As a result, my alarm went off at 8:30 AM instead of 6:30 AM for my 9:00 AM class. I rose, threw clothes on, brushed my teeth, and ran to the bus stop, where naturally, the bus pulled away as I made it down the stairs. Waiting for the next bus would make me horribly late, so I walked/ran to the general academic building (it's about a 20 minute walk to campus from my apartment). I dashed into the room at 8:59, right as she was passing out the exam, and realized that my pencil bag must have fallen out of my backpack. I had to borrow a pen from Julia. I couldn't answer the entire first page of questions, and I guessed at the next before I finished the writing section. Murphy's Law then dictated that Julia's pen would run out of ink, so I had to borrow another pen, different color ink, to finish my test. I left feeling horrible, like a failure, and dirty.

Well, we got the tests back yesterday, and I made a 92, the second highest grade in the class. I choose to take this as proof that I am a boss writer. Seriously, the first page was arbitrary guesses.

HEALTH: MIND, BODY, AND SOUL

Extremely tired. I miss yoga. I'm really hoping that now that I have a job, not only will I have enough to pay for a pass, but I won't have to work during the class.

Also, since I've been slowly running out of money, I haven't been eating well. Not that I was super healthy before, but now my diet is exclusively soda, coffee, pasta, rice, or oatmeal. Being a college kid sucks.

Sidenote: Some kids in my fibers class are vegan, which is interesting. I think I could give up meat, see menu above, but I could not live without eggs, butter, and cheese. I would be amazed that they can do it, but I read a magazine article about vegans, and they are committed to it, so kudos to them.

LOVE AND ROMANCE

Weirdly enough, I'm dating someone. See, when my ex broke up with me, he seemed way more confident than I have ever been that I'd find someone else because "plenty of guys like me" and "I deserve someone who loves me" and such. Well, that or he was feeding me a bunch of cliche lines because somehow men are born with a teleprompter in their brains to guide them through breakups. But I digress.

I consider myself a fairly confident person. I think I'm good at writing and art. I'm competent, intelligent, and generally nice. Like every other woman, I do have my body issues, but I choose to focus on my excellent rack, straight teeth, and long eyelashes. But I have absolutely no faith in my abilities to attract the opposite sex. At all. When I was younger, the guys I liked seemed actually repulsed that I liked them. I was an awful flirt, I could not speak around the guy I liked, and I think they thought I was retarded. And if any guys liked me in high school, they didn't tell me about it. So, I gave up on dating. I actually planned to move to New York and get a job and go at my life completely alone. But I have to admit that I've always been jealous of girls who could get a boyfriend no matter what. Even if I felt like they weren't as smart as I was or as pretty, something about them made guys take notice, something I lacked.

I'm still awful at flirting, although now I can flirt with people I have absolutely no interest in. And I've had two boyfriends now over the course of a year, so I guess I'm getting better at having allure. Sure, I'm still no Angelina Jolie, but I guess just accepting that makes me more attractive. I actually think the guy I'm dating now likes me because I'm a complete weirdo. But I've been lied to about that before, so I don't know.

OVERVIEW

My life's pretty sweet right now. As soon as I smooth out the bumps of poor and tired, it'll be almost perfect. And I promise that I'll post pictures of some art stuff soon. I just never take pictures before because I rushing against the deadline, and then it takes weeks for the professors to finish grading, and then I forget to photograph stuff. Excuses, excuses.

Growing Pains

You know that syndrome women seem to have where as they get older, they slowly turn into their mothers? Or as the poem my sister and I chant when we catch ourselves acting like our mother:

Mirror, mirror on the wall; I'm my mother after all.

Today, I cleaned the baseboards in my apartments with a water and bleach mixture. For everyone who doesn't know what baseboards are, they're little decorative strips of wood that go on the base of a wall, right next to the floorboards.


And ours looked dusty. So I used one day of spring break to clean.

However, I didn't move any of our furniture to clean behind it, my mom definitely would have moved everything around, but I just cleaned the exposed baseboards. Maybe I kept some of my dignity?

30 Days of Truth - Day 14

This post took a long time for a reason.

Day 14 - A hero who has let you down (a letter).

I don't really have heroes who are current, if that makes sense. Like, I like Taylor Swift, but I try not to base my hopes/dreams/actions off of anyone is Hollywood because they're all insane, but here goes:

Dear Lindsay Lohan,

Just admit that you're crazy, go to jail, and dye your hair back to red.

Love,
Essence B.

I don't really consider Lindsay a hero or anyone I would want to model my life after, but I did think she was cute and a good actress, and she's disappointing me. Here's a list of my real role models:

1. My mom. She drives me nuts, but I love her to death.

2. Taylor Swift. I think we've discussed how much I adore her enough. For now, at least.

3. Angelina Jolie. This is probably weird, but I love Angelina Jolie so much. I don't even care that she's a man-stealer or that she used to wear vials of blood around her neck or that she kissed her own brother, all that matters now is that she's amazing. I just want to adopt tons of kids and wear elbow length gloves too and have people be ridiculously in love with me for no reason.

Plus, the fact that Jennifer Aniston is still whining about Brad Pitt leaving her for Angelina makes me like her more. They have 6 kids now, 3 biological okay? Just stop talking about it.

4. Michelle Obama. I want to be Michelle Obama when I grow up. I love her clothes. I love that she's BFF with Carla Bruni. I love her super toned arms. I love her family.

I want this.

But anyway, I just want Lindsay Lohan and Emma Stone to go back to being redheads, even if Emma's was fake to begin with.

30 Days of Truth - Day 13

It just occurred to me that not only have I not blogged in two weeks, I'm not even halfway through my 30 Days of Truth.

Day 13 - A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days (write a letter).

Dear Taylor Swift (you had to know it was coming),


When your first couple CDs came out, I made fun of you.

Okay, okay, I still make fun of you. Most of your songs are about how you love a guy but he likes someone else and you want her man or that you're in love or that you're falling out of love or whatever. But now it's a loving type of joking because I realized that I am exactly like you. At least emotionally when it comes to love because we're both super naive and fall completely without any regrets and it's only in hindsight that we have clarity. I've watched you in interviews and you're quirky and cute, but still with a really beautiful grace that I think so many women our age are missing. I say I want to be you when I grow up all of the time even though you're only a year older.

Sure, your songs a little ridiculous sometimes (If you're reading and you haven't heard "Last Kiss," just listen), but I believe those feelings come from your heart, and when I'm as ridiculous and weepy, you help with the pain.

Also, you're living proof that there are tons of fish in the sea. I'm not calling you a slut or anything, but you date a lot more than you think you do (she said in an interview with Seventeen that she's not always dating someone, but I can name twice as many people she's dated than I have, so....) I still love you.

Maybe one day when I'm rich and famous, we can be friends and bake cupcakes together. We'd totally be friends in real life if I'd met you pre-fame. I wouldn't have made fun of you, and you could teach me how to play guitar and we'd be weird together. Maybe we'd even be a duo instead of just you.

Love,
Essence Beasley

P.S. - I'll admit that I listened to "Last Kiss" on repeat for hours at a time when I first bought your CD. And also that listening to it now still makes me teary, as long as you know that none of this makes it less creepy.

P.P.S. - Also, I dig the straight hair. Almost as much as I like it curly, but not quite.


Also, this is my favorite interview with Taylor Swift. I want that dress, and I love her.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm not a romantic at all, but I love any and every holiday that I can celebrate by baking and giving away cupcakes, so it should come as no surprise that I adore Valentine's Day! Pink, hearts, love, roses, and all that jazz, I'll take it! This year, I made cupcakes with, wait for it, strawberry Laffy Taffy buttercream frosting. You know how Laffy Taffy tastes right? Like kinda sour fruit? Well, Laffy Taffy buttercream frosting tastes like a creamy version of that, if that makes sense. It's not really sour, just buttery and light. I was really skeptical at first, and I thought it would taste differently, but now I believe that strawberry Laffy Taffy buttercream frosting is God's gift to mankind.

Normally, I hate sprinkles (I don't like extra chewing), but I made an exception for VDay. Three choices, hot pink sugar; red, pink, and white nonpareils; or red, pink, and white heart confetti.
They look super sweet, but I countered the candy attack by heaping the frosting on plain white cupcakes, then passed them out around Bruce Hall. I hope your Valentine's Day yielded as much sweetness (but less diabetes) as my pan of cupcakes!