Tag Archives: random

Season Two, Episode Five: Of Quarterlife Crises and New Starts

Posted in Random, Society, Uncategorized, Writing by

I turned 27 this past December.  At the end of the year, I will be 28.

And in 2015, I will be 30.

I know it sounds stupid, but the thought of turning 30 never really was one that I entertained myself with.  I was always busy with the hopes and dreams that I had in my teens and early twenties, always thinking of where I would be by 30.  It seemed like a magical age that I’d reach in what seemed like decades–at 17, 30 seemed like light years away.  I had so many things that I wanted to do and see “when I grew up”…I’ll share a few with you:

*Graduate from college

*Have a fabulous career where I make lots of money and am happy

*Become a singer on the side and become famous

*Fall in love with someone who loves me for me

*Get married and stay married

*Have kids

*Travel the world

*Move to NYC and live a wonderfully trendy and fabulous life that everyone back in Cleveland would be envious of

*Write a novel and get it published and have it sell very successfully…and hopefully write a few more that have the same success

*Buy a beautiful house to live in with my husband and kids

*Be happy and content

High school Me, the end of sophomore year, 2002.

High school Me, the end of sophomore year, 2002.

I guess I’ve attained a few of those things, but for the most part I have not.  I’m not married.  I don’t live in NYC.  I rent a house with my beautiful and funny son.  I’ve traveled to a few places, but certainly not the world–more or less the eastern half of the United States and a bit of Canada.  I have never finished a single story I have written, so I very well haven’t had a novel published.  I haven’t even finished my freshman year of college…or become a famous singer.  I suppose I have a lot of time to achieve these goals and dreams, but all this dreaming of the future all these years reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite novels, Looking for Alaska:

“Jesus, I’m not going to be one of those people who sits around talking about what they’re gonna do.  I’m just going to do it.  Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia…You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you’ll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it.  You just use the future to escape the present.”

Alaska was so right.  You spend all of your teenage years dreaming about what you’re going to do after high school, and then you spend your college years thinking about what you are going to do after college…and then when plans don’t go the way you wanted them to, you think up a new future to try to strive toward, but you actually never achieve all the things you’ve planned.  You spend so much time dreaming about what you are going to do/be when you grow up that when you actually grow up, all your expectations don’t get met the way you planned and your dream life is yanked out from under you.  I think that usually you start to realize that life isn’t going to be everything you hoped when you are in your mid-twenties.  You aren’t going to achieve all your dreams and holy shit, you’re an actual fucking adult.  It’s weird to think of myself as an adult.  I’ve never really thought about that until recently.  I mean…I know that I’m an adult.  I became a legal adult at 18.  But in the actual physical/mental sense…it’s weird.

I guess I was forced to become an adult when I had Nicky at 19, but even though I worked full time to support him as a single mom, I wasn’t an actual real adult, in the sense of the word.  I still lived at home, still relied on my parents for a ton of things.  But one could also argue that living on your own doesn’t make you an adult either.  I think it’s just the sum of the parts that you experience over time that become the whole…like the heartache and the growing pains and the separation anxiety and the ripping off of the metaphorical Band-Aid of Life and the new beginnings and the jobs you love and the jobs you hate and the friends you make and the ones you leave behind and falling in love and just every little thing that you go through that shapes you into who you are that makes you an adult.  You are constantly always growing up.  I think that becoming an adult is a life-long, ever-changing process–you are never fully “grown up”.  You never fully stop experiencing life until the day you die.

I’ve also realized that I am growing older.  I’m aging.  I will one day die.  It’s a scary thing to think of…it’s scary to think that this body that has carried me through 27 years of bumps and scrapes and fabulous memories is slowly falling apart.  I looked in the mirror the other day and noticed that I am beginning to get fine lines under my eyes.  I have a sunspot from my many years of disregarding the use of sunscreen as a youth…I always read about sun damage as a teenager and wasn’t worried because that happened to “old people”.  Well, Stupid Teenage Lashawn, I am not old and I’ve had this stupid sunspot since I was 25.  I’ve been trying to lighten it with over the counter stuff, but I think I will eventually get Fraxel to remove it.  I’m starting to pay for the sins that I made out of ignorance as a teenager.  I’m getting a few gray hairs.  I get tired more easily than I did when I was 17.  I’m beginning to realize that I am not invincible, I am not immortal.  I don’t get a “do over”.  There is no reset button.  I can’t rewind back and try to change the things I did, the mistakes I made.  I’m realizing that my parents are getting older.  My dad will be 70 next year, my mom 50.  They won’t be around forever.  It’s terrifying to think of them growing old.  I can’t imagine them dying, and I know that it is a reality that I will face in the next quarter century, possibly sooner.  There’s nothing I can do to stop any of this from happening.  I can’t press pause and slow life down.  Time goes forward, constantly pressing onward, with or without me.

But even through all of the fears and where the hell am I going and what the hell am I doing, there is happiness.  My son is growing up.  We live on our own.  I’ve fallen on my face and gotten back up again.  I’ve had my heart broken by men who didn’t deserve it, and it made me stronger.  I’ve felt incredibly lonely.  I’ve been surrounded by my family.  I have loved with all my heart and made friends with people who I truly care about.  I have a job I enjoy.  I am happy with my small successes.  I am still hopeful that I will make some kind of positive impact on the world, even if it is just a small one.

But I still don’t know what I want or where exactly I’m going or what I intend to do with the rest of my life.  I don’t have any of the answers.  Ask me again when I’m 30.  Maybe I’ll have an idea then.

“I rent a room and I fill the spaces with / Wood in places to make it feel like home / But all I feel’s alone / It might be a quarter life crisis / Or just the stirring in my soul / Either way I wonder sometimes / About the outcome / Of a still verdictless life

Am I living it right? / Am I living it right? / Am I living it right? / Why, why, Georgia, why?”

                                                                                                          –“Why Georgia”, John Mayer

Season Two, Episode Four: Baby, It’s Cold Outside

Posted in Art, Random, Uncategorized by

“I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town–
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down…”
–excepted from “Snow flakes.” by Emily Dickenson

20130114-032730.jpg

(And yes, yes I took that! I used my phone 🙂 )

Season Two, Episode Three: More Than You Probably Ever Really Needed To Know

Posted in Random, Uncategorized, Writing by

It’s been a while.  Happy 2013!

I have this unrelenting habit of not posting for a very long time, even when I have every intent to do so.  Things that often seem relevant at the time lose their awesomeness by the time I sit down at my laptop to tell the blogging universe.  I come up with a lot of funny stuff when I’m at work, but I am a staunch believer in that you should never mix your personal life with your job life, especially on a company computer.  No sir.  So I often forget about whatever I planned on writing about or I’m just too tired to be witty and wordy by the time I get home at 4:40 am.

But here I am, for your reading pleasure.  What is today’s post about?  No idea.  I figured that maybe I could just do a little “About Me” post, especially since I’m not sure if I ever really did one before, and because it’s kind of fun to read about other people’s quirks.  Even more so when you are famous, which I am not, but I am still very awesome and intriguing.  Read away!

 

Lashawn, in a series of asterisked factoids:

 

*I am the shortest of my siblings, by at least a foot.  I am barely 5’1″.

*I am part Creole and a lot Cherokee, on my dad’s side.  My mom is German, Irish, and a little Italian.

*My dad named me Lashawn, my mom wanted to name me Elizabeth.

*I am scared of heights, deep water, big dogs, needles, and squirrels.

*I have been known to sit on the couch and watch TV while eating cheesecake right from the pan.

*My favorite book is Looking For Alaska by John Green.  John is a fantastic writer, and I recommend you read all his books, especially this one and The Fault in Our Stars.

*My favorite runners-up would be The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I haven’t read any of the Little House books in years, but I adored them growing up.  I even read the other series about her mother and her grandmother and her great-grandmother.  I used to imagine what it must have been like to live on the frontier back then.

*When I laugh really hard, no sound tends to come out.

*I am ridiculously clumsy.

*I am a huge worrier.  When I am stressed out or frustrated, I chew my lower lip.  If you see me biting my upper lip, that means I am overwhelmed or upset.  My lower lip tends to be slightly chapped at all times, even though I am an ardent user of lip balm.

*I am extremely nearsighted and am pretty blind when I don’t have my glasses or contacts.

*I love Double Stuf Oreos.  Preferably with a huge glass of milk.

*I think I have some hoarding tendencies.  And I am kind of a messy person.  Life is too short to be perfectly neat.

*I am particularly fond of sweatpants and hoodies.

*I mispronounce “belligerent” all the time.

*My favorite movie is Anchorman.

*I would love to go to Venice some day.

*I have an unhealthy love of pasta.  And cheese.

Season One, Episode Thirty-One: Heartsick Wanderlust

Posted in Art, Random, Travel, Writing by

I miss Chicago…and everything that comes along with it :\

Siiiiiigh.

 

I hate that it’s going to be almost October before I get to go out there again.

Season One, Episode Thirty: Mid-Season Recap

Posted in Parenting, Random, Relationships, Travel, Uncategorized, Writing by

Time flies when you’re living life.

In Niagara Falls, Canada back in May.

I hadn’t realized that April was the last time I blogged!  I suppose that in the rush of everything positive that has gone on over the past three months, I just didn’t have time to write.  The casino opened May 14, and the shift I had been on up until last night made it damn near impossible to do anything but work and sleep–I worked what we call “sunrise” (a more pleasant-sounding spin on the more depressing-sounding graveyard shift), and when you work from 1 am to 9 am, you find that blogging ranks pretty low on your list of priorities 😛  But anyway, life at the casino is great.  I love being a dealer, it’s pretty fun to just essentially play games and interact with people for eight hours and get paid.  I’m surprised at how comfortable I have gotten dealing roulette;  if you had thrown me on a roulette table back in April I probably would have burst into tears (as a matter of fact, back in April I did burst into tears on the table in class) and froze up.  Now I can easily tell you how much five straight-ups (175) and 7 splits (119) are (294), all in my head.  I actually enjoy dealing roulette more than blackjack, and the people that I’ve known since the original Table Games Service Academy (Dec. 2011 to Feb. 2012) can tell you how much of a 180 that is!  It’s great to work with people I enjoy and actually feel appreciated, something that I never once felt at the dealership.  I have no stress and I’m relaxed…I love it.

Other that, one would say that my life is wonderfully mundane.  Nicky is getting so big!  He’ll be in second grade in three weeks, and he’s only 11 inches shorter than me–that doesn’t say a lot for me, but 50 inches is a pretty huge achievement for him 🙂 He’s had a summer filled with climbing the tree in our front yard, swimming in his friend’s pool, playing baseball, and just being a little boy with his entire summer vacation ahead of him.

Nicky during Marine Week back in June. He has had an awesome summer so far!

My boyfriend and I are still together and are pretty happy.  He went home in the middle of June, and I went out to Chicago for a few days this past month to see him, which was great because I love the city (and him, but that’s beside the point :P).  We’re pretty confident that we can make this long distance thing work.

I also lost nearly 20 pounds since February, I’ve gone from 160 to roughly 145-147 pounds.  I’ve joined a gym and am trying to be a lot healthier in my eating and lifestyle habits.  I feel great, and I love how I feel.  I was thinking about losing 20 more, but I don’t want to lose my curves, so I might drop about 10 to 15 more and build muscle.

I actually didn’t notice how much weight I’d lost until I took the picture on the right at my boyfriend’s house in Indiana.

I have every intent of being more consistent with this blog now that I am on swing shift and have more time during the day to get things done.  I’m actually going to sign off now to go eat dinner and get ready to go to work…Til next time, XO!

Season One, Episode Twenty-Nine: Chasing Charming

I loved Disney movies as a child.

I loved to sing along with the songs, and I adored the princesses, especially Jasmine and Belle. As a gap-toothed, messy haired eight year old, I loved that Jasmine decided she’d run away before marrying someone she didn’t want to (I just found the idea of marriage ridiculous since you know, all boys were gross and had cooties) and I loved that Belle would rather help her kooky dad with his inventions and read books all day instead of being interested in that jerk Gaston (because, yet again, all boys were gross and had cooties). I will admit, that even at eight, I was fascinated with the idea of a happily ever after, where all your dreams came true and all the wrongs were made right by true love’s first kiss. I had no idea how unrealistic that was.

Belle is my all-time favorite Disney princess. She was the only one who didn't care that girls who could read weren't considered cool. And she was the only girl in her town who didn't fawn over that bastard Gaston.

I had a fairly good idea that life didn’t actually work out like it did in The Little Mermaid or Aladdin. There was no magical Genie, full of jokes and goodhearted cheer, who would make all my wildest fantasies come true. I wasn’t going to rub a lamp and become a princess or marry Jonathan Taylor Thomas. It didn’t work like that. I also wasn’t going to be attacked by a crazy lady who was half octopus. I was pretty grateful for that 😛 But still, I loved the idea of finding my own Prince Charming, this amazing and beautiful and perfect guy who was going to sweep me off my feet and we’d get married and have a happily ever after of our own. I figured that I’d find him eventually, and when I did, it was going to be the greatest thing ever. I’d have the big stupid house with the white picket fence and the two kids (one girl, one boy) and the dream car and the obligatory golden retriever and life would just be friggin’ grand.

...Because in 1996, JTT was part of every girl's happy ending.

Yeah…life doesn’t work like that. And if it does, Lord have I kissed enough frogs to warrant me my freaking happy ending. My son’s father was a class act who was separated from his wife and swore he was going to get divorced, and I was stupid enough at 18 to believe him. He wound up leaving me to go back to her twice, the final time being after she had a kid exactly ten months after my son was born. There have been guys who turned out to be crazy morons who may or may not have beat their past girlfriends. There have been guys who couldn’t kiss their way out of a well-lit paper bag with the exit clearly marked. There were guys who were even worse in bed. There were guys who strung me along, guys who just wanted to be friends with benefits, and guys who turned out to be racially confused drug dealers. I’m only 26, and I have to admit that I’m tired. I feel like I deserve a happily ever after.

Frogs may be cute, but they are NOT good kissers.

And I kind of wish that Disney had put more effort into the realism of the “happily ever after”. Why not show what happened to Belle and the Prince after they got married? All we saw was them dancing at the end of the film. Why not show what would happen once they got comfortable and Belle realized that the Prince wasn’t going to be all sweet and romantic like he was when they first fell in love? Why not show Jasmine getting frustrated because Aladdin wouldn’t take that damn monkey outside to poop? Why not show Ariel laying in bed, wishing that Eric would get the hint that she wanted to have sex instead of him watching Pawn Stars again and falling asleep before midnight? I wish they had showed us girls that it’s not easy, that the idea of a happy ending takes work and patience and a healthy dose of rationality. Maybe then people wouldn’t give up on a relationship the first time you have a huge fight. Maybe then we wouldn’t rush into marriage and rush into divorce even more quickly than we rushed into the wedding. Maybe we wouldn’t be so preoccupied with the end game of our relationship…maybe then we’d focus on the now. I’m learning that the now is the best part of being in love with someone. When you focus on the end game all it does is stress you out and cause you to feel like crap.

My boyfriend is here on business; that’s how we met. I knew from the beginning that he was going home after he was all done here in Cleveland–home being roughly five and a half hours away. It’s not crazy far, but I’ve never been in a long-distance relationship before, and honestly, the Internet really hasn’t been much of a help in telling me all the fabulous ways for us to stay together (But really, is the Internet ever really helpful? Really.). I’ve had people tell me it’s not going to work, while others have said that it most certainly will, if you are willing to put the time and effort into it–I’m more than willing to try, but Jesus Christ, I wish that there was something that I could have referenced as a child that I could draw upon now to make me feel better once he leaves in June. Seriously, Disney, you need to come up with a modern princess who I can relate to. Right now, the only princess I’ve got is Emma from Once Upon A Time, and she doesn’t even know she’s a princess, damn it!

Pfft. Try telling her that there's such a thing as a happily ever after. Emma'd believe that as much as she'd believe she's really a fairy tale princess. And then she'd probably kick your ass.

All I know is that I can’t be the only one who is tired of chasing after a guy who doesn’t really exist. Perhaps I’ll stumble upon Charming when the time is right. Maybe I already have 🙂

Season One, Episode Twenty-Eight: Of Hangovers and Poetry

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Blehhh.

Nothing ruins a perfectly sunny day off like a friggin’ hangover.  I slept it off til almost 12:30 this afternoon, and while the headache has finally left my cranial premises, I still am dealing with this annoying twinge of nausea.  And I have wasted said day off in the confines of a itty bitty hotel room.  Yesterday I went on quite the jaunt around Downtown Cleveland, walking around in the chilly April sunshine and taking pictures and composing random poetry on my iPhone.  I don’t have too much to talk about today, so I’ll share my impromptu poem I came up with yesterday.

 

This hotel room

Makes me feel claustrophobic

–it’s far too narrow–

Cramped and brown

It makes me vaguely apprehensive

The angle of the windows chokes out the sunlight

But if you crane your head

–just so–

You can catch a glimpse of the lake,

A tiny sliver of sparkling gray-blue beauty.

I’d rather be outside

In the windy chill

At least the sunshine is warm

When it shines down on you.

 

This park bench is prime real estate

The wood feels cold under my jeans

And the far too big windshirt that I surreptitiously stole from my boyfriend

The wind blows in off the lake

–and honestly, anyone who thinks that Chicago is the windiest city has never been to Cleveland in the spring–

Which shimmers like a murky blue jewel

In the late April sun

I sit on this bench, under the pretense of reading

–I’ve got a Salinger novel in my lap–

But really, I just couldn’t take the claustrophobic brown crampedness

Of that goddamn hotel room.

 

So I sit here, fingers chilled

The wind ruffling the loose hairs that lay against my neck

The air a vague combination of exhaust and manure and springtime

And I think

Because that’s what you do when you’re alone on a bench in a park

You sit and you think

And I watch the people and the cars

Hurrying past, off to live another day in their mediocre adventures

The wind comes up again and I think I’ve decided

That perhaps I should move my contemplation to a less windy location.

–“April 24, 2012 5:33 pm”

Season One, Episode Twenty-Seven: Naughty Bloggers and Quite Possibly the Shortest and Most Random Post to Date

Posted in Comedy, Humor, Random by

I have been a naughty blogger.

It’s been what, like almost a month and a half since I last posted?  For shame!

In my defense, however, things in the life of Lashawn have been pretty hectic, and in a good way 🙂  I’ve been training for the casino opening, and I have to say that although my roulette skills need some serious tweaking, I could probably deal a successful hand of blackjack in my sleep.  We open in like 26 days or some shit…super excited, but hella nervous.  It kind of feels like how I used to feel before going on stage and singing–butterflies in my stomach, heart pounding, a general feeling of excitement…all under the nagging urge to vomit.  Fantastic.  I’m sure I’ll do fine once I get my girlish nerves out of the way, which should hopefully be the first few hands at the blackjack table, or the first few hours I’ve dealt roulette…because god forbid I have another tear-filled breakdown at the wheel again like I did during training on Sunday.  We will just be optimistic and hope for the best.

I’ve also been spending time with my gentleman lover (hahaha that sounds so awkward and horrible, yet awesome at the same time–makes me think of Anchorman).  We have done pretty much a whole bunch of nothing, which sounds boring but is actually pretty splendid.  We did go on some fancy schmancy art walk through Tremont the other night, but neither of us was really impressed with it, which leads me to believe that 1.) we are neither cool nor hip, 2.) we don’t know crap about art (although it really seemed like the theme of the evening revolved around taking random photos and either framing them or screenprinting them onto a large canvas, and then selling them for like $250 a pop), and 3.) it must be an acquired skill that neither one of us possess.  We ate dinner at a restaurant that was virtually non-Lashawn friendly (meaning it was super trendy and had super gross food on the menu), but the appetizer and the bread was yum, so it wasn’t entirely a crap dinner for me.  I also got chocolates from my favorite little chocolate shop (Lilly Tremont) and cupcakes (A Cookie and a Cupcake), so the night wasn’t exactly a culinary bust.

I shall post more frequently, I feel kind of like a deadbeat parent…which shall never happen again.  I am going to post a delightful picture for you from our hipster date.  I think I could frame it and sell it for like $50, hahaha.

Season One, Episode Twenty-Three: Breaking It Down Semi-Glee Style

Posted in Music, Random by

So if you’ve been reading my blog lately, you will have seen the love/hate relationship I have with a certain Lana Del Rey.  I can’t stand her voice and I think she’s a particularly shitty singer (Google her SNL performance and you’ll get what I mean), and yet I can’t stop listening to her stuff.  She’s definitely a guilty pleasure that I really would feel uncomfortable sharing in the presence of other people. Which brings me to my delightful Chasing Lala Facebook page question of the day:

I got twelve songs from my fabulous followers to create an awkward guilty pleasure playlist, and with the aid of Playlist.com, I created a fully listenable mix for you to crank up in solitary pleasure.  I’ll list the songs below 🙂

Awkward Guilty Pleasure Playlist:

1.  “Video Games”, Lana Del Rey

The song that started it all.

2.  “Control”, Missy Elliot featuring Ciara

DeLaina says:  Haha uh probably Missy Elliot’s Control. (You know the one ft Ciara)  I haven’t heard it in a while but if I did, I would blast it.  As long as I was alone.  Lmao.

3.  “Pumped Up Kicks”, Foster The People

Christina says:  Pumped Up Kicks by Foster The People.  That song is awful and yet I love it.

4.  “Candy”, Mandy Moore

I said:  Mine is “Candy” by Mandy Moore.  I love that song, but I will never openly admit it.

5.  “MMMBop”, Hanson

LeAnn says:  Mmm bop by Hanson.  It takes me back to my childhood, but I would be embarrassed to rock out to it with people around, lol.

6.  “Control”, Janet Jackson

Cressie says:  Control…Janet Jackson…93.1 Michael Baisdens like obsessed with her lol.

7.  “Toxic”, Britney Spears

Jennifer says:  Uhmmm ok I will admit it I have one guilty pleasure song and I can’t figure out why because I don’t like her music–Britney Spears’ “Toxic”.

8.  “Hips Don’t Lie”, Shakira

Jessica says:  Hips Don’t Lie by Shakira.  Hahaha!  That’s my workout song that I only listen to alone.

9.  “Sexy And I Know It”, LMFAO

Allison chose this song.

10.  “Safety Dance”, Men Without Hats

Brad chose this song.

11.  “I’m the Only One”, Melissa Etheridge

and

12.  “Let Her Cry”, Hootie and the Blowfish

Hannah says:  Without a shadow of a doubt…”I’m the Only One” by Melissa Etheridge, and “Let Her Cry” by Hootie.  Two nights ago, I actually sat in the Staples parking lot for 3 minutes while listening to the latter, there was no way I was getting out of my car with that gem on the radio!

Enjoy 🙂

(If for some reason the player doesn’t load, just click “pop-out player” and the player will load in another tab.)