blog van winkle

i just happened to pull up blogspot while signed into my email today(yesterday by now) and found this little dust bunny faithfully waiting for me after i comPLETEly forgot it ever existed right where i purposefully left it. for safekeeping.

so its funny to read from a post 2 years ago precisely. funny to read from all of them. i deleted a few. much has happened since.

i moved to charleston last june. i've also relocated within the greater charleston area 3 times and will embark on a 4th and likely final move in a few days. (final with regard to my residence in charleston, i mean. more moves are certain to occur.)

i spent a year at a job i simultaneously loved and hated and couldn't care about any less. the best part about it was a free massage each month. the real best part was working with friends. it felt less like a job than any i've ever had because of a handful of lovely people.

i took another job in june of this year that has truly challenged me in ways i'd never have hoped for or guessed. i'm proud it was offered to me, i'm proud i said yes and have learned what i've learned and i have a great deal of respect for the people who are cut out for this industry because i am faking it on my best days. but i'm glad to be here because i believe my experiences will make me a better employee at all future jobs. i've also become a slightly more responsible adult, change thats been a long time comin.

my beautiful sister and her kind of not that bad i guess husband got pregnant, had a baby, and moved to arkansas. this is the thing in my life about which i am most constantly excited and ponderous and happy and sad. erin and baby wynne only moved this past weekend, while mike has been working and living in arkadelphia since august. a true test of love and strength for all parties involved. i am so proud of my sister and ceaselessly humbled by her kickass awesomeness at this mom thing. i didnt know what it would feel like to love a brother and a niece the way i love mike and wynne but it's pretty effing sick. spending time with M&E has made me both more responsible and more fun. and way more full of love every day. which is why i think they are the dopest family i know.

i've stopped writing pretty much anyplace the last couple years so this is just a half-assed effort to grease those wheels. i'm planning to start school again before this time next year and need to milk my creativity cow as often as possible. i hope very much that moving to my OWN apartment with my OWN kitchen and my OWN bathroom and NOBODY TOUCH THE REMOTE OR FUCKING ELSE will nurture better life habits as well. like happiness, craft time, cable and internet, real food with fresh ingredients, inviting people over and FIREPLACE OMG. you know. the 7 habits of significantly less ineffective people.
fireplace is a big one. don't underestimate.

march 2, 2009
jimmy fallon's first show!
started it with conan, very noble gesture on coneys part.
decent monologue, at least so far. some new york jokes, some economy jokes, joking with the audience between bits... well done.
its time to slow jam the news? with the roots? i dont know how i feel about this.

oh. okay.
pretty fuckin rad.

this blonde mothers joint is pretty well written. not loving the narration, a little light in his loafers for my taste. actual audience mothers fell shy of the target i think.

lick it for ten!! i feel a little bit like Ed has been briefly resurrected. remember that awesome show, when ed and mike played $10. only this isnt as exciting and they're doing it 3 times. but it does also ring of the price as right AND its a very thoughtful boost to our pitiful economy. so. snaps to jimmy. i'd lick it for ten wouldnt you guys?

robert de niro. solid first guest. funny interview. i think jimmo's asking things we want to know. but hey its early in the game. learned something new! tribeca=triangle below canal. edutainment, at its crispest and most refreshing. impression swaps! i like this idea.

quarter life

did you watch that very short lived webcast style NBC show? i never did. i wish now that i had because i feel i am in its throes, and i'd like to know how real people or even writers handle this sort of thing. i hate the meme, but if ever a person went through a partial-life crisis, i am doing that very thing. well. honestly,
i'm just fucking depressed as fuck. which i think is the underlying emotion to most period crises. i
have graduated college,
am not using my degree,
live near no good friends,
have no money,
owe everyone money,
am single,
live at home, which means i spend whatever time i dont spend alone with people whose day to day concerns and schedules for that matter have almost nothing in common with mine,
have no health insurance but work 12 hour days at least 3 times a week,
and have no great plan to escape any of this.
it sucks so much.

i talked to my favorite friend on the telephone awhile ago.
i loved it. but i hang up and then i'm sadder than ever because there's always more to say and now no one is there to say it to.

i watch movies online instead of reading like i wish i did and know i should because i'm tired of thinking my own thoughts all the time. you're less productive when you're alone this much because you just end up thinking about how much you wish you werent alone.
i hope someone knows what i'm talking about.

last year and this year. fast year and wish year. grassed year and don't-miss year?

2008 was a big, weird one. a lonely and lovely mess. so much happened. i think i made more friends, however fleetingly, than in any year prior. my family endured a great loss. i learned so much about them. i learned more about the world, broadly and about humans, intimately. i graduated. at least once every day i felt hopeful, driven, loved and at peace, and at least once every day i felt lost, insignificant and profoundly unhappy. i broke rules, laws, promises and maybe even one heart. i was hired three times. i was fired once. i wasted a lot of my time and a little of other peoples'.
i don't put much stock in resolutions made this time of year but i quite understand ruminating, regretting and repairing. i aspire to make healthier choices than many i've made in the last year. i can look at myself now and one year ago and say confidently that i have grown in good ways and that i could have done better. i could have made her prouder.

i will try to keep a list of the books i read and movies i watch this year.
i will make an effort to spend less time talking about people and more time learning from them.
i will set small goals and attempt to acknowledge my own successes and failures equally.
i hope to make great new friends, discover fantastic art, travel to new places, grow in goodness, save some money, figure out a way to live on my own, and learn everything there is to know about the world and how i'm supposed to make it better.

:yawn:
guess i'd better get busy

my friend asked me a very big, very important question. i think we all need to examine our answers to it, and compare them and reassess and restructure and actively work toward achieving them.
what do you want this country to be?

i'm one of the least politically savvy people i know. there's so much i just don't understand. that said, i recognize that our country could be more than what it is and i have hope that we can all realize its potential by getting off our asses and working with one another in a united spirit of hope, perseverence, understanding and pride.
to start from the bottom, in a sense.... i want for people to recognize how truly blessed they are to be a part of this country. on its worst days, it is a better place to call home than so many others. we are free to do what we choose, be whoever we take it upon ourselves to become. brave and righteous people we wont know in this life sacrificed everything so we could be handed all these opportunities the minute we became Americans. it is no small gift. that so many of us recognize this truth and deny or ignore any personal responsibility to preserve and prosper such a gift to the best of our abilities is disgusting. to whom much is given, much is expected, and our scale is far from balanced. too, in this vein, an awareness of how genuinely good it is to be where we are and to have all we have should culminate in a sense of pride. the pride you might take in having a cool dad or really wrinkly gorgeous baby or something that you had no active control over but appreciate and know how much it's the shit. (read: this does NOT mean someone else's dad is uncool or other babies suck for not being the one you worry about every time it coughs. pride is separate from, and more righteous than looking down on anyone else. peter said love is not proud but i think pride accompanies love and does not preclude gratitude and humility.)

i want ours to be a country that encourages and rewards education. GED-level instruction should be recognized as the right of all americans, and opportunities for higher education ought to be extended equally to every interested party regardless of race, creed, or socio-economic status because the higher the number of educated persons in a society, the greater its capacity for progress and positive evolution becomes.

how are you spending this day?
i will say this, i didn't realize how anxious i'd be about things. it's so exciting. i wish we were all together tonight. i want people to CELEBRATE with. ahhhhh!
the trees near my building are so great. oak trees, maybe? i dont know. its like they met and drew numbers across the spectrum of fall leaf colors. there's at least one in every shade from green to red. they KNOW. change is a'comin and they're dressed for the party.
i'll tell you how i'm spending my election day cause i'm always curious how everyone did.
i woke up at 8, drove to my polling place, saw the line, and went to breakfast. i met two friends and had sausage, eggs, and grits, and went back to the vfdub (i vote at a vfw post). i waited about an hour, met a new neighbor and saw a dozen or so people i know. i talked about the power of books with a man who has voted in 16 presidential elections and grew up in florence, sc. his class at school used to have to do book reports half the class at a time because there werent enough books for everyone at once. i talked to three people about scraping a popcorn ceiling, which is easier than you may know. i voted and got my sticker and came to work an hour late, and have done very little here. i will go to my second job around 4 and, i expect, continue to not do much. cnn will probably be on when i get there. i happen to know i'll be working with someone who voted differently than i, and i imagine he'll want to insult my candidate and/or me, or prefer to talk to anyone else who may have voted for his. he's a good guy though.
i don't know how my parents are voting. i suppose i'll have a better idea when i get home at 8.

i love voting. i almost wish we had to stand in line with our neighbors and make important decisions more frequently.
i really may cry if things go our way today. i believe so whole-heartedly in my candidate's vision and potential. we need this. we need every good thing he could possibly do. and if we get even half of it in 4 years i think the history books will immortalize him and us and all of this.
i HOPE i can celebrate tonight. and i hope i'll find someone to join me. we're crossing the finish line after a hard, quick sprint and this victory lap leads straight to the starting line for a long, uphill marathon. so have a drink! pull up your socks! its here.

we are the ones we've been waiting for

eating: carrots, french onion dip, snickers bar
drinking: apple juice
watching: sabrina
reading: how to be good
wearing: sweatpants, sports bra, socks
healing: a cracked ankle (hence the socks)
wishing: i were tanner, people were less uptight
killing: a small roach (a big ordeal. this corner of the room now reeks of OFF! outdoorsman brand bug spray and its disgusting carcass remains untouched under the bed)
feeling: single, nostalgic
needing: a haircut
missing: mutual attraction, my first roommate, my grandmama
awaiting: halloween, a second paycheck
loving: the acorn, a charlotte sky, telemegaphone
debating: attending church someplace, getting another pet for my mom
imagining: owning a home