Hopper

Here's the thing people, I have a dog. Meet Hopper. Hopper is about to turn 3 years old in nine days, and that picture right there, was taken a year ago. What I'm holding in front of the camera there, that's her birthday sandwich. At a closer inspection, it looks a little like this photo below. It's peanut butter with broken pieces of dog biscut smashed throughout. She gets it once a year on her birthday. (I'm pretty strict with all table food the rest of the year. This one day is the exception.)

Because if there's one thing Hopper likes, it's peanut butter. God forbid she ever get an entire jar, or that jar's fate would be, well, not pretty. Licked clean shards of plastic would be all that remains when Hopper is done with it.

I got Hopper when I was in college. I was sure that I was responsible enough: I had a yard, the spare time, and emotionally, was looking for some campanionship. (Whether I was actually ready to get a dog is still up for debate.) Hopper's name comes from artist Edward Hopper. Not Dennis Hopper, as some so wittingly like to suggest. Edward Hopper is by all counts, my favorite artist. In every single one of his paintings, he conveys this humanly loneliness, that we all possess, at or against our own will. For this reason, the mystery of Hopper's name can begin to become less of a mystery.



Here's the other thing, Hopper has a bad past. I got her when she was six months old, and between her and her sister, she seemed to be the more calm one. A little shy when I first met her, but allowed me to rub her stomach, which is always a good sign when adopting a dog. I got her in the car when I started to notice that something was a little off. She was in the backseat, trying to get in the front seat with us. She peed in the backseat and any loud noise made her cower. When we stopped halfway home to let her use the bathroom, she nearly escaped her leash when people tried to come up to her. She was scared. And it seemed normal enough I guess, at the time thinking she was just adjusting. But that day, things went from bad to worse. She wouldn't let anyone, besides me and my friend who had picked her up, near her. She would cower under my bed, no matter how many treats I laid right outside of her comfort zone.

Yes, something was very off with this pup. She had been abused. I took her to the vet and they confirmed my fear. At the lift of a hand, she would wince thinking she was going to get hit. She trusted no one but me and my roommates. It was a sad time. I dealt with it the best I could, taking her to socialization classes and trying to integrate her with other dogs. Luckily, she had no problem getting along with other dogs, it was just the people that she couldn't handle. But she was a great dog, pretty well-behaved, sweet, not overly active. And I fell in love with her.

Today, after 2 and a half years of working with her, she has improved greatly, but is still far from "normal". She is overly afraid of strangers, sometimes so desperate to get away, knocking down any and everything in her path, including me. Loud noises or startling motions frighten her. She has gotten better, as it takes her a lot less time to warm up to people now. But her past can never completely be reversed. And it's hard. It's stressful, and sometimes it's so damn frustrating that I can't see straight. I'm 23, and this dog is hard to take care of. It's hard always wondering if I'm doing the right thing or if I'm being overly-compassionate or cold hearted. When she's scared, sometimes I just want to yell, "What's your damn problem!" Or pull her to the person in question and be like, "They are nice! People are nice!!!" Of course I don't, especially the former, it's not her fault. It's the bastards that abused her. It's their fault. And there's a high chance I made some mistakes when I first got her. Too much coddling, being the worst offense, or so I'm told. She went from an abusive atmosphere directly to me, who would cater to her every need and desire. No wonder she thinks everyone else sucks.

But I love her dearly and know that I can't give up on her. It's damn hard. It is. I have to sacrific a lot for her, but I made this commitment long ago, and have no intention of going back on a promise I made to her when I first got her. "Till death do we part, baby."

I would like to believe that she doesn't hold me back, but alas, sometimes it's hard not to concede to that thinking. Moving new places is awfully difficult. And here's the last thing. I need to move to a new place. I'm as far as I believe I can go here, career wise. Or as far as I'd like to go. My time in NYC is up. I've recently realized that I must move to LA. My first thought, when I realized this was, she's not going to be able to come. It was subconscious at first. I take you back to my post from last week, "10 Hours Separates The Freshly Cleaned and Coffee Stained", where I was trying to decide what to do in March when my lease is up. Admittedly, LA was in last place. I didn't admit it then, but I will now, It's because of Hopper. I was scared she wouldn't be able to come. This realization and vocalization of this realization made me have a breakdown a few nights ago. I couldn't give up on her now.

Night time is always the time where I think less rationally. By morning light, I had a plan.

In March when my lease is up, I will return home for a short period to regroup. Hopper will be boarded for a couple of weeks, and I'm going to fly out to LA. With the help of friends already living there, I will start to try and find a place to live, a job, a life. That's right. I'm going to move to LA. After finding some sort of semblance of a place to live, I will then make the desicion if I am going to be able to have her. I'm thinking that I will. I've discussed this with many people, one of which is currently in LA with her dog, living happily. I know I can do it. If I can do it here, I can do it anywhere. That's how the saying goes right? I will return home, collecting my belongings, purchasing a car, (no easy task, but a necessity), retrieve my pup, and head cross-country. One step at a time. If, and I am going to try and make this not so, but if I discover that I would not be able to have her there, I will deal with it then. But I'm fighting for her. And for what I need in my life. It's not fair to either of us to hold each other back. I don't want to feel like by living there, her quality of life will be compromised. And same for me. So Hopper and I will have another chapter in our lives together. She can't get rid of me that easily!

And once again, I'm at peace.

Off-Kilter

I used to think I had the perfect life. Honestly, when I was younger, I'd be like, "This, all of this. It's enviable." I had the perfect family, tons of friends, I knew what I wanted in life. Everything was just perfect. I mean of course there were bad days, or days where I'd walk out of my house with my head so high, the perfect outfit on, walking around confidently, knowing I was looking good, only to trip and stumble or run out of gas a half a mile from school, for everyone to see, including my ex-boyfriend, (who didn't stop). Those were the days that I thought evened out everything that was right in my life.

Now it seems I can only have one thing good going on in my life at a time, and I constantly wait for that to implode, as they so often do. I feel like I'm in a bad place in my life currently. Like I need to make major life changes.

When I was younger, I did everything for everyone. I was the doormat that people stepped on. I took hits for people, and did embarrasingly, belittling tasks to remain a part of the "cool group". I realized I was trying so hard to make everyone else happy, I wasn't making myself happy. As it goes, I got tired of being the selfless whipping board I was convinced I was. I made a conscious desicion to be more selfish. Silly, I know. I trained myself to be selfish, which would be good for someone like me, but I did it all wrong. I didn't do it to make myself happy. I still couldn't focus on that. Instead, I got to a place where I had a hard time being happy for people who had good things going on in their life, that I didn't have. I should have focused on being a doormat no longer, instead I became this strange self-involved person who talked all about themselves and lost interest in other peoples' lives. And the worst part? Somehow, I still felt like a doormat. I could talk about myself for hours, but how other's were making me feel, not so much. I did it all wrong.

Today, I'm too selfish for my own good. I sometimes forget to ask people how their day was, and mean it. It becomes like this courtesy thing for me, and while they tell me, my mind is off thinking about what I have to do that day or the jacket at J Crew that I want and can't afford. I find myself hogging all the phone time with friends, going on and on about how I'm so tired from my day and going off about how I need a raise. I hate it. I don't know why I do it, or why I can't seem to stop doing it. And I'll catch myself doing it, but not stop. I try to make that effort, but it never works, and I end up making strange segways and apologizing for being side-tracked when they ask me a question about what they've just said, and I haven't heard a word of it because I'm thinking about how I need to be listening. But I feel like I'm losing people in my life, slowly, because of it. It becomes a sad thing when I can't grasp the concept of friendship anymore.

And I have a hard time confiding in my friends, or anyone for that matter. Me and four of my closest friends were playing truth or dare the other day, (yes we are grown women who have jobs and make salaries and still play truth or dare), and I kept deflecting the "truth" portion of the game. That bothered me. I couldn't even stand to be asked a question that may force me to confide in my closest friends. What I don't have any trouble with, is filling their heads with too much trivial knowledge of my life and day and week. It makes me sad.

I feel like my closest friends are always those that I never see, no matter which group of friends I am with. When I'm home visiting, I feel like my college friends are the people in which I belong with. When I'm here, I feel like it's the people from home. I feel like I have tons on friends, and but no extremely close, attached-to-the-hip, friends forever type of friends.

All this rambling could be the effect of me living alone for the past few weeks, and me just finding myself very lonely without a roommate. But being without a roommate is what I kept saying that I wanted. It's not all that I thought it would be. And still, I have a year of it when this lease is up. It makes coming home from work a sad thing. It makes watching my favorite shows, much less exciting.

Too many aspects of my life are off-kilter right now. I feel like I'm losing touch with my family, friends, and even, excuse the over-dramatic sentiment, myself. I don't even know what I want right now. The only aspect of my life that I am happy with is my job, and that's slowly losing it's greatness as the weeks keep going by without that promise of a raise coming to fruitition. I'm waiting for the fallout that leaves me on my face, wondering where I went wrong and how I'm going to dig myself out of this hole, (that I fear I am already halfway in). I feel like I'm having a quarter-life crisis, where I'm wondering what I have to show, beyond my professional life, for my almost quarter-of-a-century life on this earth. And just fear that I'm going to wake up in the same place in another twenty-five years. I feel like I'm pushing so hard for things that I think I want in the future, I'm forgetting about the here and now.

I need to make some changes in my life. I know that. I need to send people birthday cards and call to see how they are doing. I need to call my brother and talk to him about his life, and school, and girlfriend. I need to try and focus on what makes me happy, which is ultimately, my friends and being with them. I need to tell them that. I need to stop the self-pity party and make things happen in my life. I need to stop throwing myself in my work because it seems like it's the only aspect of my life that I can be successful in. I know all this. Now, I just need to do it. Why is that always the hardest part?

I Have A Crush On John Mayer

In his, "Your Body Is A Wonderland" days, my heart was far from soaring. It's now, when he sings of how our generation will one day take over the world and how we are waiting for the world to change, that I truly begin to fall head over heels.

I admit this announcement comes on the heels of going to a bar last night with a doorman that looked strikingly similar to Mr. Mayer, only a little bit more tired, a little more worn, a little more about to tie up his upper arm with elastic between his teeth. What does this have to do with me acknowledging my obsession for John Mayer? Well I kept picturing fake!John Mayer with a guitar and his trademark smile, walking under a beautiful bridge in black and white and I couldn't stop myself from getting giddy. I think I freaked fake!John Mayer out a little bit.

I've been trying to push aside my crush--writing it off as my uncanny ability to fall for any guy who holds that guitar just right. But no, this crush extends my mere fascination with musicians. Sorry Chris, Tyson, that guy who played at The Knitting Factory on August 3rd of last year, Nic, Brandon, Jason, and even you Rhett. There's a new man on the block.

When he put on that bear suit and walked around in the parking lot where people were tailgating for his own concert... hilarious.

It's official: I have a crush on John Mayer.