Monthly Archives: December 2009

Goals for 2010

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The only resolution I set for myself for 2009, as far as I know, was to set up a feed reader. Does that make me a nerd?

This year, I have a few resolutions:

  1. Save more money. I’ve fallen out of the habit of saving money every week. My savings account has never seen more than $1,000, and the one time it saw that amount was about five years ago, for maybe twenty-four hours. I get paid biweekly and don’t make too much with my regular day job, but with the work I do on the side with my business, I make a hell of a lot more. I need to start saving 50% of each paycheck of what I make with the business, and $50 out of each regular paycheck from my steady job.
  2. Play more video games. I know this sounds really childish, but hear me out. I work. A lot. More than is normal, I think. I need to take more time to just chill and have fun. I used to play video games all the time. I miss them. Mike and I are each buying a Nintendo DS after the holidays. I plan on making full use of it to de-stress.
  3. Pay off my student loans. Now that my wisdom teeth surgery is paid off, and since I’ve officially dropped out of school and decided I don’t need to go back until I am absolutely positive that it’s what I want to do AND until I have resolved my health issues, I should probably pay back the loans I took out. You know, before Chase comes after me and takes my mansion, yacht, unborn children, etc. I need to make that phone call and let them know I officially won’t be returning in the spring, and need to make a payment plan arrangement.
  4. Get an apartment with Mike. Hi, we’ve been together for over three years. We are more than ready to go to the next level of our relationship. We KNOW we are going to get married and that we want a life together. We’ve already discussed a plan of saving money, obtaining sufficient stable income, and picking up little things we’ll need here and there before getting the apartment (such as a toaster, utensils, plates, a vacuum, etc).
  5. Finish Secondhand Mom, then go on and revise it again and again until it’s done. I may have lost my momentum because of the holidays and because of work, but I will finish it, dammit. I will resolve all issues I have with my plot and characters, and I will submit it to agents.

I’ll continue with my Monthly Goals, and work on each of these goals for the year during each month.

Movies that didn't suck in 2009

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I only saw a few movies this year. Honestly, I thought most of 2009′s new movies were garbage and didn’t bother. There were a few I wanted to see but just didn’t get there, so I’ll probably rent those at some point. I really want to go see The Princess and the Frog, and will probably be going sometime this week with my mom and sister.

Unfortunately, Hollywood no longer thrills me. All of the supposedly “scary” movies look like they were filmed to frighten three-year-olds, and all of the supposedly “funny” movies look like the same stupid shit that’s already been done. Maybe I am a movie snob. I didn’t know I was a movie snob, but here we are. I’m a huge horror freak, so I take my horror movies very seriously. (I’m looking at YOU, lame ass 3D My Bloody Valentine. Your trailers made me giggle.)

I did see a few movies this year that absolutely blew my fucking mind… and a few that kind of just, well, didn’t do any blowing. They just sucked. (Hi, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Yes, I know I watched a rough mid-production version, but still. You bored me to tears!) The Hangover was pretty fucking predictable and only made me actually laugh maybe three times.

BUT.

Taken, Watchmen, and Inglourious Basterds absolutely thrilled me. I sat in the theater, completely and totally emotionally tied to everything that happened in those movies. For the two or so hours they ran, I was a PART of those movies. If you don’t know the feeling I’m describing, I’m sad for you. It’s the feeling that says, “The cast and crew more than did their job right with this one and are completely sweeping me away!”

They were fucking EPIC in a way that Lord of the Rings can’t even begin to be. I would say that they are my absolute three favorite movies of this year, and that they all go under “Favorite Movies of All Time,” right under The Crow.

(I saw maybe ten movies this year, which qualifies me to judge.)

Up and the latest Harry Potter were also good. Disney/Pixar always makes a good team, and the HP movies just keep getting better and better. (Unlike some other teen oriented movies, TWILIGHT. Sorry, but you suck and I won’t ever see New Moon or the other two. My hatred for annoying Twilight fans and all of the horrible ways the cast and crew fucked up the first movie will forever scar my love of the books. And for all of you supposed fans who have only seen the movies, do yourself a favor and read the books. Please.)

Ahem. Um, where was I? Oh yes, shitting on Twilight and praising Pixar. Or was it Harry Potter?

Whatever.

Anyway, if I ever get a little more time besides the time it takes to pick my nose, I’d also like to see: The Taking of Pelham 123, Zombieland, The Princess and the Frog, and District 9.

So. Now I’m done babbling. What were YOUR favorite movies this year? Leave a comment and tell me! And if you’re a Twilight fan, let’s take it to the parking lot! (;

The name game

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What is a name?

A name is what you go by. It’s a way for people to identify you, and for you to identify yourself. Names can have positive and negative connotations. The name Liza Minnelli reminds me of my 5th grade teacher, Miss Crane. She called me Liza Minnelli and encouraged me to keep writing. Sometimes she drove me crazy with her red penned edits on the stories and essays that I handed in to her, but I will always love her.

The last name Liuzzo fills me with fear and dread, and the last name Purcell fills me with a weird mix of sadness and disgust.

Somewhere between 6th and 7th grade, I got sick of there being at least three other girls who called themselves Liz. I wanted to separate myself from those Lizs, somehow. I decided it would be cool of me to change the spelling of my nickname from L-I-Z to L-I-S.

I know. I know. L-I-S does not spell Liz. It pretty much spells Liss, as if I were named Alyssa. It also spells LAME.

But in my twelve-year-old mind, it was cool as the other side of my pillow. Forcing an S to sound like a Z was so cool, in fact, that I decided to make everyone I knew spell my name that way, or else they received a lot of whining. (What I should have been working on instead was weaning everyone in my family completely off of calling me Beth. FUCK that nickname is stupid. I’d then managed to get mostly everyone to stop with the Beth, but even today there is one person who still stubbornly slips now and then. And I’ll tell you, if you are ever feeling like dying in a painful, “Let me get my head chopped off” kind of way, just call me Beth.)

Unfortunately, just like any nickname, the stupid S stuck. Liz because Lis, and people started to actually go with it. (Looking back, I should have spent my energy on convincing people to do something more beneficial for me, like buy me my own condo on the beach or something. My power of persuasion is apparently good, though it takes a lot of time.) Even now, a lot of people still spell Liz with an S when giving me gifts or writing me notes.

And suddenly, it just looked really fucking stupid to me.

“That says Liss, not Liz,” I said to myself one day. “Oh man, that’s dumb.”

But how can you kill your own Frankenstein? Especially when the Beth Frankenstein lumbers right next to it?

“Oh man,” I said. “I have way fucked up.”

To make matters worse, my little cousin Katarina took it upon herself to make Elizabeth — or ‘Lizabeth, as she sometimes calls me — sound like the coolest name in the world. It took a long time for my full name to grow on me, but Kat made me LOVE it.

“I can’t make people call me Elizabeth now. It’ll confuse the hell out of them, and they might even question my sanity. Like, really, who changes their mind about their name every five years?” I mulled this over day after day, until seeing L-I-S literally made me want to scream. (Though not nearly as loud as B-E-T-H makes me want to scream. And puke. And kill people.)

So one day, I said casually to the people next to me, “Spelling my name with an S is dumb.” And I stopped doing it. And I told them to stop doing it.

And people still do it anyway. I think they’re all so confused, they don’t know what the hell to call me anymore or how to spell it. I have, indeed, created a monster. The Lizlisbethenstein is coming to eat us all. Hopefully it eats Bethenstein first.

A look back to see forward

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This time last year, I was stressed out. I thought I wasn’t graduating because of my advisor’s bad advising. Just when I thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, they did a 360 and got better.

When Michael came over for dinner on Christmas Eve and gave me my promise ring, they got even better. I closed the year with a great dinner at Outback and with a positive note.

This year, I don’t know what’s coming or how the story is going to end. Much like last year, I’m scared. But last year’s worries pale in comparison. I’d go back and not graduate, if that meant making this year better.

I’d like to hope that things will turn out okay, just like they did last year. But this year it isn’t as simple as meeting with a Dean of Academic Affairs and reviewing paperwork. This year, a better car won’t make my problems go away. A promise ring won’t fill my heart with warmth. Instead, my heart is heavy and full of dread.

I know I should be more positive, because — as last year proves — things can work out. They can turn around and be BETTER again, in the blink of an eye.

I guess I’ll have to wait and see what Santa brings me.

Way beyond my reach

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I wish the holidays were over already. Aside from being super stressed out about projects for clients, and worrying like crazy about Popi, I’m now barely going to see Mike on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

In years past, Toys R Us closed at like 6 on Christmas Eve and wasn’t open at all on Christmas Day. This year, they’re still closed on Christmas Day, but they’re open until 8 on Christmas Eve. Scratch that, as of today; Corporate sent an email at the last possible fucking minute and told everyone that they’d be open until 9.

What. The. Fuck.

Why does this matter?

Let me back up. Initially, Mike was scheduled until 8. He was trying to find someone to switch with so he could come over my house and have dinner with Noni, Popi, Biz Noni, Mom, Dad, Lauren, Aunt Wendy, Uncle Lonny, and I, but couldn’t, so he was going to see if he could just leave early because they will probably be dead. Now that they’re going to be open until 9, his boss asked him to stay until they close.

And he agreed.

Trust me when I say he already knows how pissed I am about this.

I understand why he’s doing it. Right now, he’s on great terms with his boss and the district manager, and he really wants to keep those relationships positive in case any higher positions open up. I get that. But still, I had a perfect picture of how Christmas would go, and now it’s just not going to be like that. I can’t help but be selfish and want to have things go my way. So much has not gone my way these last couple of years: my own health, my grandfather’s health, my living situation… I know I should just shut the fuck up and be grateful for what I’ve got. I know that. So many other people have it worse. It just feels like I’ve had a shitty line of luck lately and I guess I was depending on the holidays to be perfect so it could all be better.

To make things worse, I have a huge project deadline for the end of the month that can bleed into the first week of January because of some crazy server issues, but the deadline is making me nauseous because with all of the holiday shit going on, I have barely had time to work on it. Add a whole lot of lack of motivation, and I’m pretty fucked. Fuck you, depression. You’re such a greedy asshole.

So it’s no wonder that I’ve (sort of) picked up smoking again. I made sure not to buy myself a lighter tonight when I picked up a pack of Marlboro Lights. I’ve only had one so far. I don’t feel like I need one now, which is good, I guess. Right now, it’s either smoke or kill someone. Or run away to Florida.

It’s hard to get in the holiday spirit when so much shit is all fucked up. I miss being a little kid, and having only one worry this time of year: Santa not knowing that I really want a Gigapet, or whatever toy. (One year, I asked him every night before bed during this season to bring me a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup. No lie. My love of Reeses started early.)

This year, Santa, all I want is to feel better. Actually, scratch that. I just want everything to go back to the way it was in mid November, when everything was better. When Daddy didn’t lash out every five seconds because he is hurting so badly inside. When I would go to the Barnes and Noble Cafe every afternoon to write with a Pumpkin Spice Latte at my side. When we looked forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas, not a care in the world. When I thought Popi might just have arthritis or a sciatic nerve problem, or something FIXABLE, dammit.

Right now, it feels like nothing in my life is fixable. I feel like I have no friends. I feel like I can’t rant too much to Mike because he is already stressed out enough and I know that by whining that he has to work late tomorrow night, I’m only making it worse. I feel like I have to walk on eggshells around my whole family, because I don’t want to say out loud that shit, I don’t believe in god so I have no fucking clue where my grandfather is going to go when he dies.

Fuck.

There it is, guys. There it fucking is.