Today is known as Single’s Awareness Day or what I like to call “Make Single People Feel Like Crap” Day. Since I am single and have been single on every Valentine’s Day since I was born, I have certain traditions for celebrating this day. But since I am striving to try something new every day, I discovered something at Target yesterday that has enhanced my celebration. I discovered Red Velvet Pop Tarts!!!!!
So now, I am sitting here and starting a new tradition. I am eating my Red Velvet Pop Tarts while watching the 1967 film, The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Following this glorious holiday film, I will watch Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho followed with a Ghost Adventures Marathon. Since I highly doubt I will find a man who would enjoy my February 14th traditions as much as I do, I think this is going to be my Single’s Awareness Day celebration tradition for many years to come.
Friday night started Pasadena’s Art Weekend with ArtNight, a night where the local museums are open to the public with free admission. There are free shuttles to take patrons to and from the participating museums. Food trucks and live performances would also be available to the ArtNight participants at specific locations. I read all about Art Weekend in the Pasadena Weekly and I was excited to check out some of the exhibits–specifically the Pages exhibit at the Art Center College of Design’s Williamson Gallery.
Pasadena City Hall
According to the ArtNight website, Pasadena City Hall would be the transportation hub where patrons could catch the free shuttles that would transport them to any gallery of their choosing. There would also be live entertainment and food at the City Hall hub. So I decided that I would begin my night there. I took the Metro Gold Line to the Memorial Park station, located near City Hall. Pasadena City Hall is a work of architectural art. It is a stunning sight to see, especially at night. Once I arrived, I was greeted by an ArtNight volunteer who gave me a map of the museums and shuttle routes. I was also given the official Art Night sticker, proof of my participation in the nightly event.
I looked at the ArtNight brochure and noticed that I needed the North shuttle to reach my destination, Art Center College of Design. So I sat on the steps of City Hall, enjoying the live music as I waited for my bus to arrive. Many shuttles showed up and many shuttles left. I saw the East shuttles, West shuttles and Central shuttles go past me, many times. I didn’t see a single North shuttle. I kept looking at the brochure but it was too dark to really see the map of the routes–I couldn’t make out one route from the other. I saw several others waiting around, waiting for the North shuttle as well. There were ArtNight volunteers roaming around but they didn’t seem to notice all the people standing around looking confused. No one seemed to understand which shuttle went where or how to locate the North shuttle. Finally, a woman (perhaps one of the event organizers) stepped forward to assist with the buses. Several people asked her when the North bus would arrive. Her reply. “The North bus doesn’t come here. It leaves from the Pasadena Museum of History. That is the only place where you can catch the North shuttle.” Seriously? I had wasted all this time waiting for a shuttle that was never going to arrive.
Live music at Pasadena City Hall
I quickly hopped on the first shuttle that would take me to the Pasadena Museum of History. I managed to catch the West bus, a bus that actually traveled very close to Art Center (when it stopped at KidSpace) but backtracked to the Museum of History. I end up chatting with a family that was just as frustrated as I was. But they had actually started the evening right at 6pm–I waited until 7pm). They managed to stop at the Pacific Asia Museum first. So we all arrived at the Museum of History and had to wait in line for the North shuttle. Thankfully this area was well-organized. They had signs for each bus so you knew where to wait to catch the appropriate bus (they should have done that at City Hall). After three shuttle loads, we were finally on the North shuttle headed up to the Art Center gallery. (This was not a short shuttle ride).
I was so excited when I finally arrived at the Art Center’s Williamson Gallery. I made my way past the student work and into the new Pages exhibit (this was the opening night for the exhibit). At first, I was in heaven with an exhibit focused on books. There were some beautiful photographs of books and a floor to ceiling sculpture of stacked books (I wasn’t allowed to take photos of the artwork).
As you made your way toward the center of the exhibit, you had the opportunity to view books and book pages on loan from the Huntington Library, USC Special Library, and Caltech. For me, this is where I started to feel like the Universe was playing a cruel joke on me. Many of the books on exhibit were books I had seen before, when I went to the Huntington Library. It was January of 2011 and I was at the Huntington Library on a date with Big. However it was the manuscript poem, entitled “Beer” by Charles Bukowski, on loan from the USC Special Library Collection that led to my “Mr. Big” freak out. When Big and I went to the Huntington, we were going for the Charles Bukowski exhibit. Big and I are both book lovers, the book exhibit was our agreed favorite part of the Huntington (I hadn’t yet explored the gardens when I went with him). Big and I met when we were at USC so the whole Charles Bukowski (and Beer, another story I won’t mention), Huntington and USC connection was more than I could handle. It was too weird of a coincidence–the Universe is trying to tell me something, in my opinion. Plus, as a lover of books, I don’t like to see books being destroyed, especially in the name of art. Cutting up books or whiting out the majority of the words just feels like a crime to me. So I was done.
Drawing of a typewriter at Pasadena City Hall
I made my way back to the shuttles. One was leaving and the other still had space. I boarded the shuttle, watched as it filled up and watched as we all just sat there. The shuttle driver was on break. It was 9:25 pm when the shuttle driver finally decided to return and begin our journey back to the Museum of History. Once we arrived at the Museum, then we had to catch another shuttle back to downtown Pasadena, were the majority of the museums live. The event ended at 10 pm so there wasn’t any point in trying to make it to another museum when the shuttle I was on had just departed the Pasadena Museum of History at 9:40 pm.
Pasadena City Hall
I arrived back at Pasadena City Hall at 9:59 pm. I wasted the ArtNight experience on the Art Center–and shuttle experience. (And the whole Big connection didn’t help matters). Once again, the Pasadena “bus” service did not work in my favor. At least now I know that next year, I should arrive at 6 pm and stick to the Museums closest to downtown. Or as my California sister advised, “stick to the food trucks.”
I am taking part in a writing challenge from WordPress’ Daily Post. The challenge is to use the Post via Email tool and to write the post as if you are writing an actual email. So I decided I would write to you, my former self–a young woman who always hid behind the written word.
As your future self, I want to warn you of your habits of expressing yourself only through writing. You have this bad habit of holding in your real feelings until you explode through a written, verbal regurgitation that tends to make matters worse. I understand your fears. You are afraid of rejection and getting hurt. But the problem with email is that you don’t know if the other person even read your heartfelt diatribe, if they interpreted it with its true meanings and feelings (teasing and flirting doesn’t always come across in email), and you will never know how they feel if they decide not to respond. With verbal communication, yes, it is scary but at least you get responses right away, ending the "what is he thinking" loop that plays in your head. And no matter how scared you are to express yourself live (or even in-person), always remind yourself that what is the worse that can happen–you will lose something you never even had?
You started this habit of expressing yourself, especially in matters of the heart, at a young age. You used to write notes to the guys you cared for in Middle School and High School but then with the addition of email in college, your bad habit soared. In college, with Big, you used email to tell him how you felt. Then the one time you stored up enough courage to tell him in person what you wanted, he gave you what you thought was a rejection–thus causing you to further hone your written communication skills.
You are a writer. You have a college degree in the subject to prove it. It should be a skill, not a crutch. One in-person rejection (your interpretation, not his) and another one on the phone and you developed what Big would probably call "long ass email" syndrome.
This is going to be a very hard habit for you to break. Through therapy, meditation, and a lot of soul-searching, you are going to do your best to get over your fears. But your daily interactions with teenagers who conduct the majority of their communications through technology–texting, tweeting, Instagram and the like–is going to make this one of the most difficult challenges of your life. But remember, you are from a different generation. A generation where your parents made you get your own phone line so you could talk to your friends for hours. Go back to your roots and work on your Verbal communication skills (and do your very best to convince your teenagers to do the same). Stop using your pen (or keyboard) as a sword, a weapon to fight off your fear demons, and do your part to help stop a future of tech zombies who would rather text the person sitting on the other side of the table instead of having an actual conversation with them. Remember, the benefits of an actual verbal conversation is instant feedback and responses. I mean isn’t that why you go to "talk" therapy? This will improve our future–and end all the misunderstandings that have occurred via email.
On Twitter, I follow several zodiac feeds, specifically those for Libras. The other day, there was a tweet stating that a Libra will only tell you they love you if they really do and they don’t take love lightly. For Libras, the “L” word has to have meaning or they won’t use it. As a Libra myself, I can say this is completely true.
Here in Hollywood, so many toss around the “L” word like a disposable commodity. Industry people will tell you they love you while stabbing a knife in your back. It makes it really hard to trust the sincerity when someone uses the “L” word around here. So I can completely understand why someone from my past, a native Angeleno, never believed me when I told him I loved him.
In my 33 years, I have only ever told two men that I loved them. The first didn’t return the gesture and the second didn’t believe me, telling me “that’s impossible.” If the second really truly knew me, he would know that such a feeling is difficult for me to express and that due to my own trust & relationship issues, I would never lie about this particular emotion. And after an incident that occurred today, I still feel this way about this man and I probably always will.
Lately, the Universe has been sending constant reminders of this man. This week, it was like a fireworks attack and today was the finale.
Whether this man and I have a romantic future is of no real concern to me. I would be happy just to be his friend again. But we had a falling out last fall and he won’t respond to any of my inquiries or attempts to repair our friendship. Not knowing whether or not he is OK is like pure torture for me. I am one of those people who loves hard and would do anything for the ones I love. I don’t handle disconnection well.
And I really don’t deal well with the gut feeling that someone I love is suffering. When someone tells you that they want to go off to be alone and depressed then you don’t hear from them for months, your worry alarms go into overload. You do everything you can to reach out, let them know you are there. You practically turn into a stalker but it doesn’t matter. You have this need to help them, protect them, take care of them because you love them. It doesn’t matter if that love is romantic or friendly. You love them and you want to be there for them. They will test you and push you away but unless I am told to “go away” in a clear manner, I am not about to abandon anyone I care about.
Now this particular person has trust and relationship issues that far surpass mine, making him quite a challenge to reach. I have seen his good side as well as the bad and I am still here. But I made a mistake last fall. I let my trust issues come into play and I pushed him away. I picked a fight over something stupid because I was afraid. And he did what I asked, he disappeared. When I realized I made a mistake, it was too late to fix what I broke . . . what we both broke.
But today, a scare snapped me back into reality and I realized that I want him back in my life, even if it is just as friends. But I don’t know what to do. I promised him that I wouldn’t write about him but I am breaking that promise for a good cause. I am hoping he will read this someday and realize that our friendship has turned into a whiteboard. We can keep clearing it off as long as we want to, leaving the past exactly where it belongs, in the past. We don’t have to even look at the future. We can live one second, one minute, one day at a time. All that matters is the here and now. I promise I won’t bring up our past ever again as long as we can try to be friends now.
At the very least, he could just find a way to tell me that he is out there and that he is OK, that he is surviving. When you love someone, you want them to be happy, even if that means you can’t be in each other’s lives anymore. But for me, a Libra with tons of issues, before I can let someone go, I have to know they will be OK and that they don’t need me anymore.
Tomorrow’s Full Moon is the Pathfinding Horse Moon. With the moon in Sagittarius, it is a time to choose a new path or direction to take in our life’s journey.
How do we do this? Well, you look at where you are and where you really want to be then you have to decide how to get there. Simple, right? I’m a Libra so I would have to say this is pure torture. Trying to make a decision on which path I should take is an extremely difficult task for a Libra. I will use my trusty Pros and Cons lists. I will think of all the different possible outcomes for each decision. I will ask my friends and family for advice. I will go see a psychic or ask my own Goddess or Angel cards. Then I will pray for a sign from the Universe, guiding me toward the right path. Then I will finally make a decision. But once I make that decision, I will constantly wonder if I made the right choice. But once again, I am a Libra.
Ironically, I am in a weird place where I do feel like I have to make a lot of life choices about my future. So today, I turned to someone I know and trust, Hot Dog. I had just told him about my accident a few days ago so he was anxious to see me and get me whatever I needed. He picked up dinner at my favorite Mexican restaurant and arrived at my house, ready to take care of my needs. What I really needed was someone to talk to and he was ready to listen. We went for a walk in my neighborhood (mainly to walk off the carnitas) and talked about what was bothering me. Like any close, good guy friend would do, he poked fun at some of the decisions I made and actions I took. But mostly he was in agreement with me that I needed to change things in my life.
I know where I want to be I just have no clue how to get there. I need to let go of the past once and for all. My past is holding me back. So I guess whatever direction I wind up choosing, I need to make sure that it is in the opposite direction of my past with the future I want directly in front of me.
Now, if you are like me and you have a hard time making decisions, Kristen Madden from Llewellyn’s Witches’ Datebook suggests:
“To explore your path and any new directions you might take, you will need a pendulum (a ring on a string will do), and your life-adventure map. Create your map by drawing a large circle on a piece of paper. divide the circle into a pie graph, with one section representing your current path. Into the other sections, place your potential paths, hopes and dreams. Take your pendulum and ask what paths are most aligned to financial, academic, spiritual, or emotional success, then let the pendulum help find your direction.”
Now if the pendulums, tarot cards and psychic guidance methods freak you out, you can always ask the Magic 8 ball. I have a fortune telling Yoda doll that I often ask for guidance (yeah, I’m a Star Wars geek) when my Magic 8 ball seems to be having issues (when it tells you “Future Unclear. Ask Again Later.”)
When tragedy strikes, it becomes very clear who really cares about you. I don’t have any actual family out here in California but on Wednesday, I learned I have a very large extended family.
On Wednesday, I was driving home in the 5pm bumper to bumper traffic. I was at a dead stop when I heard tires squeal behind me. I looked in my rearview mirror and had enough time to say “Oh Shit” before the car behind me plowed into my back end, lifting the back of my car into the air before slamming me down. I was in shock and I suddenly felt pains shooting through my neck. I had enough sense to pull over to the side. The 20 year old girl behind me had been texting and didn’t see me.
So we went through the accident protocol and I wound up at the local hospital with severe whiplash and other minor injuries. At first, I was in a panic. I am single. I live alone and my family is on the other side of the country. So I called my best friend from the ER. Then they took me back into a room where the cell reception was bad so I started to text my friends and co-workers. To my amazement, everyone rushed to help me in any way they could. My California sister showed up at the hospital to be with me (and to tease me about the nice new neck brace that I will be wearing for a week). She started contacting people for me and giving updates while I endured many tests.
Since I was released from the hospital and put on bed rest, I am unable to act like my usual independent self. So my friends and their families have stepped in, taking me to appointments, getting me groceries, taking care of my fur babies, and picking up my meds.
So it no longer feels right to simply call them my friends, they are my family. They have been there when I really needed them. And going through something like this, you really do see who truly cares about you and who doesn’t.
