Elliott Smith

You drone on in such a way, that I wonder how exactly you got to this place that you are today. You are angry and in turn I have decided that you are not welcome. I don't want your negative energy around me any longer. You have droned on enough. I can feel the anger radiating from from every fiber of your being, slowly filling the room, I think I am waiting for your head to explode. It wouldn't surprise me if it did at this very moment.

It's moments like this that I realize, it is not about me. It's not. Not even a little bit. From the way you butter your bread, to chain you wear around your neck, I don't know you. I don't know who you are or where you came from, or why you do the things you do. But it's you, not me. It's like the clouds in the sky, or the birds on the post, you can't help them. They just are. Maybe you could have not built the post, but the birds would have still kept coming no matter what you change. 

So I sit here, wondering what will happen to you. All the while I send you the good energy I have, well the good energy I try to muster up. I try and try and sometimes I can't find such good energy, but in time, I will and you, in turn, will receive it all. So that room can breathe a little bit clearer. And maybe you can feel just a little lighter. I hope you fly, I do. Like those birds, through the uncontrollable happy clouds. Lifting up leaving the heaviness that you feel here down below. 

Just a girl, with lots of good energy to spare, when she can find it, tired of the drone and feeling the sadness that lingers as you leave the room.

Girls

This is where is all turns around. I step off the train, and onto the busy New York City street. Cars whizzing by, people everywhere, as though nothing and everything has changed. I walk and talk a little slower, but everything there, well it stays the same minus a new restaurant where my old favorite was, and a new rehab bound celebrity on the front of the NY Post.

I'm grown up now. More grown than when I said goodbye over two years ago. I even dress a little differently, of course it took Los Angeles to teach me how to dress better. New York, well, I wasn't really out to impress many there. I'm still not, but that is completely besides the point. I have learned, a good pair of boots make all the difference. 

My goodbye with New York was not an easy one. One that was filled with what ifs, and should I's, and how so's, and I am not readys...in many ways, it completely mirrored my goodbye with Los Angeles. I am a girl that can confidently say, many years from now when I am a stay at home mom, scrambled egg stains on my shirt, and cleaning up leggos from every room of the house: "i lived on both coasts. and have had experiences that most people only dream of." Let's be honest, with a statement like that alone, I will probably never be a stay at home mom, still on the go, experiences abound, kids in tow.

So I trudge through my days, not knowing how long the trudging will last. But feeling, finally after six months of being stagnant, the dog days are over. This is what I have been preparing for. This is it! I learned, I grew up and it is finally time to put all those lessons to the test to see if they and or I fail or succeed. We learn, in time, that it is not about failing or succeeding but rather what we take out of each experience. How we move on from it and use it to our advantage. Take all the good, learn from the bad, and the sum of the equation could be potent. It's how I got to this point, it's how I've always been beginning with being a child and doing just that with my sisters. This theory has stood the test of my 27 years.

So this is it folks. Be ready. Let the winds take you. Because it is January the 25th and it is all happening. All of it. Right now. You are on your way to things you only dreamed, I promise. I can feel it, can't you?

Just a girl, with a new perspective, putting learned lessons to the test, and feeling, finally like it's a new day. I think my new year just began.

Camera Obscura

It has most certainly been one of the more mysterious weeks I have ever spent living. I don't often write in real time. Or at least I try not to, because really how interested are you in the immediate inner-workings of a girl you don't know. You don't need to hear about her every detail of the past week like a full diary now lost.

The pain pills made it so fuzzy, and the pain, in my ears, just roaring. Many motions and steps of the last week have been quite the blur. The food has tasted like none other, I could tell you that sincerely but, speaking as someone who doesn't do the whole surgery thing that often, getting your wisdom teeth out is a bitch. And that is just the truth of it all.

And what do you need to do these days to make a clot stay around? I fed it, I rinsed it, I numbed it and still, I lost my clot. Lost it? Where could it have possibly gotten to? Did I just misplace it, like here today gone tomorrow, but he'll be back? Did that gauze seem way more exciting than hanging out in an empty hole where a tooth once was? Sigh. 

There was a lot of soup. And mashed potatoes. At the end of the day I was told that my sockets were just too dry. Too dry?? Great. As though the last six months of unemployment have given me nothing else to do, the powers that be might as well make me suffer for a bit longer because really, what else am I doing? So I trudge through. Feeling slightly more poetic than usual. Knowing that my dad just got a text and it said Alvin and the Chipmunks were casting. Funniest joke all week. 

Just a girl, making sense of the pain, with chattering teeth, and a serious hangover from the pain pills in question. We aim to entertain. That clot should have stuck around. 

The Avett Brothers

It was as though I had been touched by a celebrity. By someone I might find somewhere along Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills. I felt giddy, excited, my heart racing just slightly faster as I tried to retell the story. It wouldn't mean much to some, but to me, he was their "daddy" as he called himself. The one that was to introduce them to music and well...come on, he's their father.

Walking through the warm streets of Asheville, I figured it would be just a nice way to kill some time before the big show on New Year's Eve. Walking into a gallery of all concert posters, I was pulled into every direction to see everything on those walls. Picking up the poster for the show I was to see that night, I had no idea the conversation it would open up for me.

Waiting, poster in hand, my arm was touched softly and a man said, "thank you for buying that". "well of course, i'm a huge fan." "well, i'm their daddy, Jim Avett." As my face lit up, he put one finger over his lips and shushed me as to not make too much of a scene. 

For whatever reason this moment would stay with me throughout the weekend, at the show, as I just kept thinking, "how special. to meet the father of the boys that make such magical music. the music that speaks to me that speaks to so many that is so heartfelt." It's one of those things that while, it may not mean much to everybody, it stuck with me. The hometown, homegrown boys have stayed true to themselves, and to the family that they were brought up with. I would like to think every person in the spotlight could stay so true to themselves and their roots.


Being the type of person who is so very close to her family, I think this random moment meant so much to me because it's something I believe my father or mother would do given the opportunity. It's something they do do when people ask what their daughter does, they are proud and supportive, and sincere. Everything I saw and felt in a brief meeting with Jim Avett...


Just a girl, with a love of the Avett Brothers, and feeling special by meeting the one who raised them, even if only for a brief moment, 800 miles from home.

The Killers

They terrify me. Absolutely terrify me. When I was a child, I would scream so loud that the doctor yelled that I was going to wake up the babies in the waiting room. Fine! Let them wake up! It still doesn't make this situation any better! 

As they move towards your arm, their little point so sharp, coming closer, almost mocking you as they plunge into your extremity. (Wow, I don't think I've ever made myself cringe before). For the 30 second they are in there it is as though you have been violated. Well really, you have been. As the blood gets sucked out of your arm on for greater purpose, but you sit there with the small ache still there. I'm not sure whether it was the needle, or the blood, but the whole thing as a child was a very large fear of mine.

Growing up Catholic, each Sunday we would go to church. As the priest would say, "the body and blood of Christ" rumor has it that I covered my ears and closed my eyes on the word "blood". What was it about this sticky substance that scared me (and scarred) so much? Was it relating the blood to it's other half the needle? Was it the fact that blood was red and my mother raised us hating the color red? It just made no sense. 

As I grew older, my irrational fear of needles turned quite rational. No longer would I scream, or cry when it was about to happen, but rather just look away, with sweaty palms, slowly breathing in and out as to not focus on what was happening. But then one day, I had my first IV in my arm. This changed everything.

No longer was that little bugger just moving in and out of my arm after only seconds, but rather sitting in my arm until, well until the doctor said it was time to come out. The whole thing, even thinking about it at this very moment safe in my bedroom, makes my arm feel weak.

Why do we have these little fears? Why is it so hard for us to just get over them? It's not going to stop me from having my blood taken or any minor procedure to make my health perfect, but still, I sit here, 27 years old, wondering what was the first incident that incited so much pain when it comes to needles and blood.

Just a girl, about to get her wisdom teeth out, with the daunting term "IV Sedation" lying on her mind, thinking of where it all traces back to.

The Monkees

A lot of people in my life have come and gone. No, not in a dying type of way. More in a we don't keep in contact anymore, or we no longer really have a reason to be in each other's lives. Or we have just grown apart. Things such as these. We all know this feeling, but, I feel as though I may think of it just slightly differently.

You see. Many times I think about these people, these fleeting moments of time that I spent with them, and I think not about what they are up to in the grand scheme of things. Or where their life has gone, have they married, do they have kids, do they go home often, have they come out of the closet yet...but rather I think of the details. I wonder what they are doing in this very moment. Are they at the grocery store? Or having a fight with a lover? Or what they eat for dinner.

This more often than not lately seems to present a problem. These people have been popping up constantly in my incredibly vivid dreams. And when I say vivid, I mean like I wake up and say "hey didn't i tell you about that thing about the thing last week," "uh, no joss, what are you talking about?"..."oh,  never mind". I feel as though I have unfinished business with these people. Or furthermore, maybe I just keep them in my dreams, because I know I can. 

With many of them, the conversations always seem the same. We are usually talking about/acting out those little details that were on my mind earlier. Be it them at the grocery store, or what have you. But I wonder, do many people act out there unfinished business in such ways? And, furthermore, do I even pass through half of these peoples thoughts? Why is it that they weigh so heavily on my mind? Is it that I have saved so many of these people that have come and gone in my character bank for future use for acting purposes?

I constantly say that my brain rambles, and this is one of those many things that it happens to ramble with.

So if you, whoever you are, are out there and thinking the same about me, I hope I show up in your dreams tonight and proceed to tell you what I ate for breakfast and somehow give you the sense that even though we no longer talk alls well here.

Just a girl, wondering what you are up to, and if not to actually find out, making it all up through this imagination of hers.

Mumford & Sons

And just like that, the book is closed. Or the chapter, you still aren't really sure at this point. You sit there wondering, "how was it that i was erased? just like that." You roll it over and over in your brain trying to make sense of it all. One day there are all these pictures of you for the world to see and the next, just gone. You get into your pajamas after a long day, jump into bed and think...

"he erased me."

The pain which ensues numbs you by the morning time. You need an escape. A cupcake just doesn't seem powerful enough. Maybe fast food? Or a long drive? Definitely calling out of work for fear someone will recognize you as "the ex-girlfriend who has been wiped away on a social networking site," as though you are the first and only one for this to ever happen to. No, no, none of these things will do. What can I do? What can I do to show him how hurt I am? Before I move one step further it is night time once again...and the damage is already done. I have opened my big mouth and...emailed. God, isn't this just the type of thing thing the crazies do? Oh no, I'm that girl. Great. Even better. Smooth move. I have gone...crazy.

From there, small chaos ensues. But nothing that will only put a bandaid on something everyone goes through at some point after a break-up, the little things that hurt where one person is always in the right and the other always in the wrong no matter what way you try to slice it. Although the roles constantly change, you know what you've done, and all you can do is clean out your wound daily until it finally heals.

Given time and space, the clarity begins to shine through, and the anxiety over it all starts to subside. You realize he's moving on, and that is okay, because soon you will be too. Well of course you didn't expect him to do it first,  I mean, for serious, how could you possibly let that happen? But "it's okay", you quietly repeat to yourself. You will indeed, and surprisingly so, live to see another day.

Months later, you will realize how silly you reacted. But it will take that long, months, if not longer. Because that's the way these things go, until finally, your wound becomes a scar. It's healed, but it will forever remind you of the heartbreak you had to go through to make you tougher, to help you find your place. YOUR place. Not his. Not ours. YOURS. Or mine as it were. 

Sometimes, less and less frequently, I go into the folder where the old, long since deleted and forgotten, pictures are saved and remember the smiles. And the lessons learned. And know it is something we all must survive to get to the other side. To grow and learn and hear people tell us all that crap that we can't believe in that very moment, but eventually, well eventually we find our way.

Just a girl, now knowing that it hurts, and that's okay, because Neil Sedaka was right, and it doesn't mean you will die alone, it just means it wasn't right...and wanting other girls to know just that. Lick your wounds...a scar doesn't hurt nearly as much.

TV on the Radio

And so, I think this is slowly becoming something for me. Something just for me. I started this whole thing to get my creative juices flowing and flowing they are indeed like the Nile or the Mississip or....well you get the point. Or maybe you don't. Because who are you that I am even referring to? Momma? Bern? AB/AM? While yes, they (you) are all my faithful readers, I am not even sure if there is any one else out there. And that's okay. Because at the end of the day, this amuses me.

Amusement. Funny. Fun. Haha. Enlighten.

I am however many posts in, and each time I sit to write, I rack my brains with what's next. Or what was. Or what is coming. In short, this is indeed the way my brain works, it is a riddle of sorts. If I was to go on and on at great lengths about was is happening in my head, I doubt you would understand. But again, who are you? Are you even anyone besides the aforementioned persons? So alas, I shall continue amusing myself. Or them. Or you?

I do believe I went in to this hoping something would change, like suddenly I would start writing and become something I didn't know I could be. And I think that may be happening, of sorts. Because this is my voice. Me. Josslyn Victoria. And it is a voice I am happy to hear still stands a chance from under the snow.

Riddles.

Just a girl, wondering "is there anyone out there", while perhaps confusing the few readers I have with a little bit of this and a little bit of that only to resume the more normal postings next time...perhaps.

Bon Iver

As I searched the bin for a perfect pair of shoes, I stumbled upon my Dexter Dotties. Ah bowling, it's been such a long time. I slowly picked up the shoe and inspected it closer. There seemed to be something inside. Running to the bathroom, shoe in hand, I emptied out its content: seeds. Bird seeds. How could this...{lightbulb goes off}...sigh...I know exactly how this happened!

Some months back, upon the prodigal daughter's arrival, while looking out the large glass window in the kitchen, I commented on the birds at the feeders in the backyard. "what beautiful birds you guys get here!" i exclaimed. my father was quick to respond, "good until the chipmunks get into the feeders." "aw, but the chipmunks are so cute, who would ever mind?"

About a month or so back I thought it may be time to move my stuff from my apartment, AKA, the garage, down into the basement. It was getting rather chilly out there, and I just didn't think it was the type of environment for microwaves, and such to be sitting with the prospect of a cold winter luming. It never really crossed my mind that the only possessions I had left to my name, may not be in the exact shape that I once left them in.

My favorite garbage pail, the one that I've had since high school that has stickers from over the past 13 years on it, currently stores many different pairs of shoes. From heels, to clogs, to sandals, to strappy sandal heels, they are all within the confines of this perfectly papered blue trash can. 

Upon the removal of these shoes I found that chipmunks were using said shoes as their own personal pantry/kitchen. Many seeds were eaten, even more were just waiting for that winter chill to set in so they could snuggle up inside my Dexter Dotties and be fat as Theodore by the time the leaves were back on the trees. How could they? After I defended them? And with all those times I saw them scurrying in and out of the garage never once to stop and think that they were the old chipmunks who lived in the shoes! AND they shed! And what else were they possibly doing...making chipbabies?! IN MY SHOES?? What ever would David Seville say about this?

Just a girl, and animal lover, fearful for what may be in her favorite pair of heels as she slowly slips them on for her next dressy event, to suddenly realize that she may be taking more than one date.

The Duke & The King

It is just a date on a calendar and yet, I feel so much pressure from it. As though it's zoning in and watching me, expecting that just because it's changed, I will too. Well, dear little January 1st, it just does not work that way. And you know, I think that's okay. 

We put so much into the idea of "new year, new me". As though the changing of numbers will redefine our lives and re-clarify everything. For actors we hope that in our next year we will join SAG, book more commercials; make some movies; do something, anything. As people in general we hope to get down to an ideal weight. Or to kick that smoking habit (side note...seriously do people still actually smoke?). Or better yet, eat healthier. Then, around the same time next year we hear who's gorging on holiday food and making the same resolutions all over again thus making me wonder, what's the point of our end of the year evaluations?

Why is a date so important? Don't you think we all might be a little more successful in this whole resolution, new year thing if maybe we didn't put a date to it...as in when it should start or end. Instead we just say to ourselves: these are my goals, and I hope to see results in this much time. Maybe a year is too long for some people, which completely screws the system when you think of it. Maybe for some to say, I'm going to lose this much weight this year, 2011, it's just setting them up for failure. Perhaps if on some random day in February that same person said, by June I'd like to lose 17lbs, maybe then this would all go a little smoother.

I personally had a small breakdown on the Eve of the New Year, because in my heart I knew that just because the date was rolling over, it did not mean that suddenly a new job would come my way, and an apartment, and everything I've been hoping for just because this new year is thought of as the thing to change everything else. To wipe the slate clean. A start new. It doesn't really work that way. You can just go erasing everything...

Just a girl, trying to abolish the idea of a "new year", and instead urges you, as well as herself, to set your own personal date for a new year, new goals, and new success!

Gioachino Rossini

In general I would consider myself a warm and fuzzy person. I love puppies, and rainbows, and kittens. True love and elderly couples holding hands. Sitting by the fire, reading a book, and daydreaming. But, over the past few years I have been heavily questioning a process which I don't feel necessary in all situations. Hugging.

Hugging. For serious.

When did hugging become so acceptable. Wait. Maybe I'm not being clear. Yes, I love hugging my mom, boyfriend, dad, aunts, family, super close friends...but that's about it. I went out the other night and ran into a bunch of people I hadn't seen in a while, and I questioned when did hugging become the common form of "hey, how are you? how's life? ". Maybe I belong in India where hugging isn't acceptable in public places. Or in a place that a simple warm smile will do the trick just right.

I can tell you I definitely do not belong in Sweden where there are more than 6 categories that hugs can fall under. Why is this necessary? Many times I just find a greeting hug as quite awkward. Did I put my arms in the right places? I'm on my tippy toes and your hurting my back! It was so quick did they not think I was genuine? Or the, I've hardly really met you and yet I've heard so much about you, so, sure, let's hug. 

The goodbye hug I do find slightly more acceptable, but only if you really aren't going to see that person for a long time. If it's, let's hug I'll see you this weekend, well, honestly, I'll just see you this weekend and you can tell by the warm look on my face that I'm genuine and I truly can't wait...even though I'm not uncomfortably embracing you. Instead, on my ride home I shall think about how much I can't wait for our next hanging out session to arrive and not, "wow, that was uncomfortable."

Hugging. It's kind of silly.

Just a girl, looking to find out when hugging is necessary, and believing that some times it is just not, and why we, as a culture love the hug, yet, of course, loving to hug the ones she loves.