I swear the music director here has to be a closeted gay...there's no way this man is straight. His marriage has to be a cover-up.

The exact words given to me by the head TP professor...I am still in.

Today was the last day of Year One.

And I'm still on for Year Two.

And now, I shall commence into collapsing into a pile.

there's a good possibility i may not be asked back to my grad program next year. i'll hear the verdict on monday. my production work is great, but my academic performance is so shitty.

i've really fucked myself on this one.

i don't know what to do.

i don't know what i'll do.

i can't believe this is happening.

...this is what it would have read today:

-Valerie knows that she is wearing the same shirt as last night. Fuck it. She's in Tech, and she did the armpit test. 'Twas passable to her.

-Valerie thinks that Ghosts tech will be in the bag. No problem-o.

-Valerie wants to kick all her math teachers in the shins for saying "you'll need to use algebra in real life someday," because Someday is now. She has been cursed...and she doesn't even want to be a rigger!!! Just tell her to load bricks and take lines in and out, that's all. Fuck this shit.

-Valerie imagines her stomach caving in on itself when she is hungry.

-Valerie knows that most people ponder the question, "Why were we created?" Yet Valerie ponders the question, "Why was I made Master Electrician?" Surely someone had to know that somewhere down the line that this was going to be a bad idea....and that time is now. Fuck you, Channel 31.

-Valerie is infuriated with herself for failing so hard at life.

-Valerie wishes she could explode into a ball of fire. Similar to the Human Torch.

-Valerie does not understand why Bank of America has put a hold on her check deposit...she is royally screwed at the moment and overdrawn. Thanks assholes.

-Valerie wishes she could punch holes through walls. And feels the flames around her growing bigger still.

-Valerie just wants to fall asleep forever and disappear. She wishes she could sink into her bed and fall through into a new dimension. Or a Wonderland.

-Valerie just wants a smoothie...why is there no Jamba Juice on this coast....

-Valerie is contemplating leaving grad school and opening up a smoothie shack.

-Valerie is literally stunned that Cass has just IMed her...hadn't she cut Val out of her life, pretty much?

-Valerie is seriously dumbfounded. Chill this summer?? Hang out?? When did this change happen???

-Valerie does not have Cass's phone number anymore, due to hurt feelings and random impulses. This could be problematic.

-Valerie is laughing at the irony of the situation of the IMs she's receiving from random characters. Everyone is coming out of the woodworks from some point in her life...

-Valerie is determined to kick ass on these lighting notes and prove she can be pretty bomb. Dot com.

-Valerie hates Unistrut with a fiery passion.

-Valerie will make Unistrut her bitch.

-Valerie has won the Unistrut battle.

-Valerie kicked the shit out of her notes...in her opinion, at least. Not that this matters.

-Valerie is watching a man die of syphilis.

-Valerie cries too easily. Or maybe the actors are just doing an amazing job.

-Valerie wants to disappear when she causes a disruption. If only life were as a cartoon, and she could draw a door and go through it to a happy place.

-Valerie can't believe who is IMing her now...this is a strange and interesting day.

-Valerie is happy things are chill with him.

-Valerie is getting reamed by her prof...why do they make her Master Electrician when she obviously is not fit for this job?!?!!

-Valerie just exploded into a ball of flame again.

-Valerie thinks she spoke too soon about things being chill.

-Valerie has that sinking feeling again. Things are never going to be right again.

-Valerie thinks things are okay....maybe...right?

-Valerie has made Lighting Checklists....yaaaaay.

-Valerie wants Brad to think this through first; she's protective of her Braddie!!!!

-Valerie is glad that Brad is happy, though.

-Valerie has three lighting notes...like she said, IN THE BAG.

-Valerie misses her baby love.

-Valerie is ready to go home...sadly, there will be no adventures to the gay bar tonight.

-Valerie needs a shower.

do you ever just wake up in a funk? everything in your life can be going okay, only some minor details that aren't so fun, but just sometimes you wake up in just an off-mood?

that's me today. i don't know where my head is. it's everywhere but here. i've fucked up my cues in both shows today, and i should know better.

i'm worried about certain things here and there.

twenty-two is a weird age. it feels like a conundrum of not exactly being a true adult yet, but not a lonesome teenager either. it's this odd purgatory. i want more responsibilities, i want to be taking more charge of my life, and yet i know i'm completely naive to everything the real world holds, and [financially] i'm not ready for it yet.

i guess it's more of a thing of proving to myself that i can make it alone, that i can be full-out indepedent, that i won't need to depend and fall back on my parents forever.

schooling is exhausting. my classmate told me last night, "val, i love you, but why the fuck are you here? you're insane for going straight into more school." i really am starting to hate the question, "so what do you plan on doing after graduation?" i've gone through two graduations now, and in 2.5 more years, my third and hopefully final one...i don't know what my plans are. i know what my dreams are, or rather, things i'd like to do. but i seriously have no idea.

in junior year of undergrad, i had to take "career workshop." Tromovitch made us create a 10-year plan, with guidelines and goals outlined for every aspect of our lives. and everything i had outlined and planned did not happen. i've gone a completely different route than where i thought i would be. i'm not exactly sure if that is good or bad, to tell you the truth.

in high school, i had planned that i would be married by now. i was going to grow my hair out all through college so that i could have long, beautiful hair for my wedding. i was going to have a job and an apartment with two bathrooms and a balcony.

that's one of the things i've always been set on as far as goals go -- someday living in an apartment with two bathrooms...one for me, and one for whoever else. significant other, guests, parents, friends, whoever. after growing up in a household with only one tiny bathroom, and with a father and sister who like to spend way more time in there than what is fair so that it forces you to run outside with a box of kleenex and shit in the backyard, i've decided that i have to have my own bathroom someday. especially considering how much i shit.

this is like a weird quarter-life crisis. but not really.

 I think I achieved Technician Dream Girl status for the day today. Loooonnnng day of striking "Imaginary Invalid" and installing "Of Mice and Men," but a lot of shit was accomplished, so that's always rewarding to see. 

My skills are developing and I'm surprisingly confident...I'll be Technician Dream Girl yet. 

 HOW COULD THEY VOTE JAMIE OFF!??!?! 

Fuck Leah, man. Leah is shit compared to Jamie. That sucks hardcore. 

.....

yeah, I get pretty passionate about Top Chef. 

 i'm having trouble trying to sleep...[[dun nun dun nun dun nun....cue Green Day song.]]


but really....brain, i would really like for you to turn off so i can go to sleep. you've been keeping me up half the night for the past couple weeks. you are not playing fair. 

 NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF [I[ 

PIUSSSSSSSYYYYYYYYYYYYYY AND







.??/OR


OR 


ACTION





AND/OR 


LOOOOVVVEE

 I know it's really stupid and something so small, but I hate that I have to reregister my car and change my plates from California to Maryland. I hate it so much. 

I feel like a car is a display of a person. It's almost like how your clothes are a display of your personality, the same is with your car. And I'm proud that I'm from California, it's a part of who I am, and I hold onto the fact that my car lets others know that yes, I'm a Californian all lonesome and by myself in fucking Delaware. 

I know I whine about it all the time, but I miss Cali so much, and I fucking love my state. Being out here makes my love for California grow even more, and I feel like having to change my plates is taking Cali away from me. It makes me feel like I'm losing a huge part of myself. 

Fuck car titles, tags, and all that registration shit. I just want to keep my California plates. 

 I have a love/hate relationship with sex dreams. I had one last night in which I was back in undergrad, and in my dorm room with my new roomie....who just also happened to be queer and pulled me to her bed. I remember thinking to myself, "this is going to be a good year." But then my teammates pulled me away from her and I had to go play in a hockey tourney, but it had all these other rules to it, and the field wasn't flat turf but was hilly grass....I woke up being one, extremely confused as to what type of tourney we were in and wondering if we won since I woke up halfway through the game, and two, being extremely sexually frustrated because the supposed sex in my dream did not happen in real life. 

So I guess I'll just clean my room and do laundry instead. 

On a side note, it is snowing outside and I think the lake is solid enough to walk on...at least there were people on it last night. I want to be Clementine from 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' and go lay down on it. 

 This morning I had a dream that I had a tattoo on my back. Yet in the dream, I had forgotten/didn't realize I had this tattoo. And I first noticed it in the lower back aka tramp stamp area...it was this weird pattern that somehow resembled a Pokemon. Then it slowly evolved [no pun intended] as I looked up my back [as I was looking in a mirror to make this endeavor possible] into a Transformer tat that took up my entire back...which then kind of morphed into Rei's Evangelion from 'Neon Genesis Evangelion.' It was intense and looked pretty badass. 

Moral of the story/dream: I am considering a Transformer/Evangelion tattoo for my back someday. Maybe. Possibly. 

 

 Paint. 

I miss the damn Paint program. 

Apple needs to get on that shit. 

I was looking through my old entries and seeing all the old emo Paint pics I used to draw. 

I've decided it's time to get the creative juices flowing again. And illustrate my emo feelings through Paint. 

It would be much more productive than craiglisting. 

 

 Completely ridiculous, I know, but I'm a total craigslister. 

And I like checking the 'missed connections' with the hopes that someone is missing the connection with me. And would like to get connected. 

Ideally, it would say, "You were the little Latina with the short, dark hair and the sweet Nikes. May I just say that your honkytonkbadonkadonk has got it going on like Donkey Kong? Because it does. Your laugh is adorable, I'd love to meet up with you and hear it again [in bed.]" 

Alas, someday it will happen. 

 I'm coming home. 

And even though there's supposed to be showers all week, I can't wait for California sunshine.

I can't wait for Tamale Day,

I can't wait to shoot the breeze at Coffee Society,

I can't wait for sake bombs and sushi,

I can't wait for big city lights, 

I can't wait for Thursday night clubbin,

I can't wait for mountains,

I can't wait for ocean waves slapping on sandy shores, 

I can't wait for mexican food full of all the right flavors, 

I can't wait for churros at Christmas in the Park, 

I can't wait for California sunsets,

I can't wait for the crisp San Francisco air, 

I can't wait for family and warm embraces,

I can't wait for friends and shenanigans, 

I can't wait for California, the land that I love and where my heart will always be. 

 Being away from home does funny things to your mind. 

I haven't been able to let go of the fact that I'm 3,000 miles away from California, the land that I love. And yet it is the place that I was longing to escape. I wanted to get out, I wanted to be on my own and see new places. 

And I still do. But there's a part of me that feels empty. I feel as though I've lost an identity, a sense of home. 

I'm out here on the East Coast, and it doesn't feel right. I haven't become comfortable yet. And yet at the same time, I don't want to go home. I'm not ready to go back to Cali for good, but I don't know where exactly I belong. I'm waiting for things to click, I'm desperately searching for that moment of clarity when I no longer feel like I'm lying on a bed of nails trying to find the spot where the weight is evenly spaced and I can lie there without discomfort. 

I'm writing this as I'm sitting in an apartment in downtown Cincinatti, on the tenth floor of an amazing apartment that overlooks the city and beyond....I know I'm lucky for the chances I've been given and the places I've been able to travel to and see. The quote that has been swimming in my mind lately is that tired line from 'Garden State'....

You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone....You'll see when you move out, it just sort of happens one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this right of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.

 Sometimes at night I get inside my head and just need to drive.

Need space to think. Space to talk things out. 

My gas tank was practically on E, but I didn't care. I just kept going. Kept going faster, as though the speed would blur the thoughts in my mind, making them incomprehensible and incoherent, thereby disappearing. 

Yet they remained. And on I drove. And the midnight sky with the lonesome moon were the only company I needed and could ask for. 

I feel better now. 

 I don't think I belong here. 

I feel completely useless and moronic. 

I feel like the biggest idiot in the shop. 

I feel like everyone wonders why the fuck I'm here. 

I feel like they overlook me. 

I feel like I don't belong here, I don't deserve to be here. 

I feel like I'm punished for asking questions. 

I feel like they forget we're all here to learn. 

I think it completely sucks to be the youngest one here. 

I'm contemplating quitting. 

I'm tired of playing the fool.

And it's only the second week. 

i want to be Kerri Walsh.