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One Revolution Around The Sun from MTV c/o Richard Turley on Vimeo.
I started wearing my wedding band again. To remind myself that I’m stronger than I feel. I recently interviewed Amy Jo Martin, who wore red nail polish every day for 5 years as a confidence trigger whenever she felt unworthy.
This is my wedding band. It’s an ouroboros. Eternal chaos and renewal. My physician told me that my life has been series of crises, one after the other. He referred me to a crisis therapist, but I never called. Because I never feel stressed or sad unless it involves a broken heart.
Otherwise, I’m stronger than I feel.
In our time of shiny happy social media feeds, I figured I’d try to review my year in earnest and show you all of the darker periods and how it’s ok. How I’m doing ok and whatever shit you’re going through – that too shall pass.
THE CRISES
Divorce
This was the year that my divorce was final. And although I haven’t spoken to Chris since I filed a restraining order against him, it marked a real sense of closure. I don’t talk about this often, as it is a particularly painful story – but it is over. The important lessons are to always put your personal safety first and never let a broken person, break you.
This was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to overcome, which is why I’ve chosen the ring as my talisman for courage.
My boss, the CEO of American Apparel, Dov Charney gets booted from the company he founded
This has been covered extensively in the news. And while it may be fun schadenfreude fodder for those who have participated in the culture of American Apparel in some way for the past decade, this had very real and difficult ramifications in my life.
While I had been living out of a suitcase since 2009, I was accustomed to the organised chaos and rhythm in which we ran the company. I’d written about my thoughts on this here. There was an extremely high level of uncertainty and instability.
When you’ve dedicated most of the waking hours of your adult life to working there as I had, it often feels like your career is all you have. Some malevolent force was fucking with the one constant, my every day, my foundation, my family.
I was fired
After 7 years of tenure, I was fired from both of my positions at American Apparel as Marketing Director and Retail Director of our Australian subsidiary. Under new management and within 2 weeks of a new supervisor – I encountered hostile bullying and discrimination, filed an HR complaint, 48 hours later I was out of a job, my US work visa, and $40,000 worth of unpaid bonuses.
This didn’t stop them from taking credit for positive work that myself and my colleagues were responsible for, after throwing us out the door.
American Apparel has filed for bankruptcy which make my shares worthless and legal claims effectively frozen. But bad situations give us the best ideas, my views changed in ways I never thought they would.
When cash is scarce, you figure out what your life essentials are. In things, in people, in beliefs. This means that I no longer put up with a lot of bullshit out of loyalty, obligation, or mercenary reasons.
My dog died
Miss you, Albert Einstein. You were a great physicist.
THE CURES
Now, remember how I said it’ll be alright? I had a destabilising year, but the pros always outweighed the cons and I thank Based God for the generosity of all the people in my life. Here’s what kept me afloat.
Great Sex
Incredible sex will change your life. Let’s not discredit how something so basic can alter your entire mood. I thought I was doing alright in this arena until I was dumbfounded by a specific experience. I asked my partner at the time how he became the best I’d ever had. For someone who never says much, his response was sweet and profound.
“It’s not me, it’s us. It’s about two people connecting, and we’re just very connected.”
Imagine going your entire life having never been vulnerable enough to share that kind of connection with someone.
Sometimes you have to love like you have nothing to lose.
And who knows? Your entire universe might expand in a moment of surrender.
Female Friends
No relationship is stronger than that of a female bond. I wholeheartedly believe this. I just broke up with someone I really, really, really liked. For every time I’ve been in a tailspin, the unconditional support and humour from my friends and sisters have always brought me back to some semblance of sanity.
Women confide in each other and listen, really listen and care. It’s a type of intimacy that may never be achieved through romantic relationships. For romance to work, there has to be some suspension of belief and female friendships are as real as they get. Ugly cries, guilty admissions, secret slobby behaviours, and mental hospitalization levels of cray are all safe territory in the context of BFFs.
Love you, bitches.
Home
I’d never been to Europe before, and this year I made it a priority to get to Paris. It wasn’t all that.
My favourite moments were centered on one-on-one time spent in my air bnb with some very special dear-to-my-heart dudes.
Hot showers shared, home made breakfasts, listening to lesser-known Bieber tracks. It made me miss home.
Home being a person, and not a place.
Here’s to you, my people.
Happy New Year.
With love,
your girl.
This entry was written by , posted on December 31, 2015 at 5:09 pm, filed under Friends, Joey Ng, Los Angeles, Love, New York, Sex, Writing and tagged Albert Einstein, American Apparel, Amy Jo Martin, Divorce, DJ Slow, Dog, Dov Charney, DTLA, Echo Park, Endless Love Ring, Ilirjana Aлусхај, Kiara Sayer, Lena Vanderford, Lower East Side, Marie McNally, Marketing Director, MTV, Nora Kogan, Paris, Penelope Trunk, Refinery29, Silverlake, Social Media, Susie G, Thina Desancic, Thomas Duval, Tiffany Tyson. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Let me tell you about travelling. It’s lonely.
To be ready, jet-set at the drop of an Expedia confirmation may seem like a cool job, and if I have to think about it, it really is. But ask me how I feel and I’ll tell you that “I don’t know, I don’t have the time to consider these things” because it’s easier to pretend that too much is going on in my life than to admit that I am completely, emotionally wrung dry.
You basically take your usual hipster non-committal nonchalance and put a giant, erratic, ticking clock on every relationship (romantic or otherwise), multiplying any sense of isolation ten-fold.
I meet someone. And I have to declare:
“There’s only one thing you need to know about me. And that is.
I will leave you
– unwillingly.”
Which usually lends to the other person behaving in one or two ways:
1. Like a total dick. The I can do whatever the fuck I want with you. It doesn’t matter. You’re leaving anyway.
or
2. In fear of attachment. Making it known that I’m not going to emotionally invest in you. Cold and infrequent.
They both suck.
When you operate every day knowing that someone you’ll grow to care for and like is actively suppressing your significance in their life, it FUCKING SUCKS.
When you relate to people knowing that you are merely transient, not important in their grand scheme of things, well, it essentially nulls the point of relating at all.
It makes me feel like shit.
So you have a good cry and chalk it up to the experience, the situation, the occupational hazard and move on to the next city.
And then you have to do it AGAIN.
So for people to assume that I’m always running away from something, taking the easy way out, that it’s always easier to leave than to be left behind… no.
It’s not that. Ultimately, I do have a choice.
It’s just that no-one has given me a reason to stay.
Not even tried.
This entry was written by , posted on September 11, 2010 at 4:45 am, filed under Babes, Friends, Jokes, Love, Self-diagnoses, Sex, Writing. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
You ask, I tell. Selection of questions get posted on Tuesdays.
You dated morgan waters, correct? Did you enjoy it?
Yes, I dated Morgan Waters.
Why do you hold on to this concept of ‘love’ so endearingly, when the chemical romance phase diffuses out so quickly? Why not have someone who can both love and support you? Why cling on to such an idealistic dream, and wallow when you cannot obtain it?
I hold on to this concept of ‘love’ because all my relationships diffuse before the chemicals stop firing. People need something to hold on to, a prize, a goal, something to aspire to, hope and long for. It keeps you going. I’d like to know what it’s like to get there. All the things that happen while you’re going for it, are pretty great as well.
I’d love to have someone who can both love and support me. Sometimes I feel like I already have that person in my life, I’m just not in a romantic relationship with them. So maybe it is idealistic, to try to find it all in one person. I don’t expect that I will, but I’m damn sure going to try. Practical people have ideals, too.
I think for someone who likes to write, tragedy is romantic. Hanging on to the moments that make you angry or sad juices the creativity out of you. The published word is just a snapshot of the whole picture. I assure you, 90% of the time, I am thinking, talking and taking pictures of what I had for lunch.
How did you lose your virginity? What was he like? Where did it happen?
I met this guy at the open mic night at Einstein’s bar. He was dreamy and lovely. I still see him around from time to time. It happened in my dorm room twinkling with blue fairy lights.
Do you like having sex?
Yes, it’s my sport.
What are the three things you most want to experience in your lifetime?
1. Having a family.
2. Producing something creative that I can be proud of.
3. Seeing my mother truly joyful again.
Who is one person you look up to and why?
Tony Pierce. I only hope to one day be as honest, endearing and dork nasty of a blogger as he is. The blogfather tells it like it is, nay, ought to be. When he tells me what to do, I usually say ‘no’ then end up adhering to his advice anyway. He has built a life of rock n’ roll, hot babes, blogging and true love – what’s not to look up to?
Who are your best friends?
I have a lot of really amazing friends, but if I ever found myself crying in the parking lot of a gay bar in a foreign city because a boy dumped me over text, these are the people I would call.
Toronto: Jacquie, Masha, Meredith, Sam
LA: Candis
SF: Hana
Hong Kong: Sharon
When are you coming back to the Big Smoke?
Not in the foreseeable future.
Have a question for me? Ask away here.
This entry was written by , posted on June 15, 2010 at 9:23 pm, filed under Friends, Love, Sex, Tell-all Tuesdays and tagged California, Hello Kitty, Joey Ng, Kitsch Gallery, San Francisco, Tony Pierce, Toronto. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
You ask, I tell. Best questions get posted on Tuesdays.
Your so bloody hot…why don’t you have a boyfriend?
I’m no good at men.
I don’t expect men to consider me for anything more than just sex and so the self-fulfilling prophecy plays its inevitable part and hands me exactly what I expect.
I’m too cool, too detached to start off.
I don’t call when I want to, I don’t reveal much about myself and certainly not how I feel about the person I’m dating.
Once I decide I actually want someone to be my boyfriend I become too intense, too insecure, too jealous, too obsessive. Too much of everything.
(Now that I’ve admitted this, I’ll NEVER have a boyfriend!)
Because of the nature of my job, I’m always running away.
No boy has ever asked me to stay.
Maybe that’s why I don’t have a boyfriend?
Or maybe not.
Why do you think?
What’s the deal with women or your age? Is it all about being desired? Is that it? You just want people to pine and be all doe-eyed over you and then your “not attracted” to someone who is genuinely interested, because its not thrilling. Its BS.
What’s the deal with women any age?
What’s the deal with MEN any age?
Doesn’t EVERYONE want to be desired?
Doesn’t everyone like the thrill of finding someone where there is MUTUAL ATTRACTION?
Ay, there’s the rub. Women my age, and of any age do want to be desired. YES, they want someone who is genuinely interested. Just like you do. It is BS that not everyone can be genuinely interested in everyone who is genuinely interested in them. That’s why it’s so magical when it works out.
Why do you always get involved with assholes and douche bags when nice guys are always near?
Here’s the thing about attraction, it happens instantly. Before you get to know a person and I mean really get to know them, attraction brings you together. How much can you get to know a guy in a few weeks? Probably not a lot, but lately, that’s all the time I have with someone. If they end up being an asshole or a douche bag, my involvement with them also tends to end. Then you get to hear about it because it’s juicy.
I’ve dated nice guys. I like nice guys.
Nice guys don’t get write ups. Except for in secret blogs.
The problem is that I am nowhere near them anymore. Even when I want to be.
if you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?
I just want to live where I’m in love. I don’t know where that place is yet, which may as well be seeing as I lead a nomadic life.
What is the best part of your life?
I have the greatest friends. Knowing that the most tolerant, intelligent, beautiful people I know are only a phone call, text, e-mail away be they in Hong Kong, Toronto, LA or the UK is the best part of my life. (I know, right?)
If you could go back in time 10 years and give your younger self one sentence of relationship advice, what would you say?
Be patient, if he wanted to, he would.
Have a question for me? Ask away here.
This entry was written by , posted on June 8, 2010 at 8:59 pm, filed under Friends, Love, Self-diagnoses, Sex, Tell-all Tuesdays and tagged Attraction, Boyfriend, Boys, California, Dating, Friends, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Love, Relationships, Sex, Tony Pierce, Women. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Sex is easy, it’s everything else that’s hard. The paradigm has shifted and sex isn’t love anymore. I find that all the supposed pre-cursors that we skip for the sake of non-commitment are what have become taboo.
Sleeping next to someone is difficult. You never really do. It begins to feel like a timed game with too many variables. Obligatory, almost. And you can’t sleep with a giant pea wedged in your consciousness. Unless you’re really drunk.
The most intimate moment I can recently recall was when a man kissed me on the forehead, ever so lightly when he thought I was asleep. It was the sweetest thing anyone had done for me in the past 3 years and we were barely lucid.
I feel violated by the simplest of touches. Fingertips on shoulders, hair being played with, hands on smalls of back. But you could hit me, throw me around, bruise me from the inside out and it would all be fair game on familiar ground. Pretty backwards, eh?
And you know what makes me nervous? Holding a man’s hand. It’s fucking unnerving.
I can’t do it. Not without fear.
And you think you’re shy?
This entry was written by , posted on May 20, 2010 at 6:12 am, filed under Love, Self-diagnoses, Sex. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Sexually cannibalistic mating systems provide an excellent opportunity to examine and gain a better understanding of male mate choice, that is, mate choice between two or more individuals and/or the more extreme form of choice that manifests as mate rejection.
….
[M]ales rarely rejected poor-condition females in the more ecologically relevant scenario of only one immediate mating opportunity.
….
This lack of male mate choice… may be partially explained by the strong/intense scramble competition selecting for efficient mate location…; the cost of not finding a female may exceed the cost of not being choosy.– (Barry et al. 2010)
Reference:
Barry, K. L., Holwell, G. I. & Herberstein, M. E. 2010. Multimodal mate assessment by male praying mantids in a sexually cannibalistic mating system. Animal Behaviour, 79 1165-1172.
This entry was written by , posted on April 30, 2010 at 3:18 am, filed under Science, Sex and tagged Coping Mechanism, He's Just Not That Into Me. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.