Birthday Apologies

Today is my 25th birthday...

I know that my absence might make you believe otherwise, but this blog is important to me. I'll tell you all about the last few months in the next few weeks, but I thought that first I'd give you a quick recap and tell you about my goals for my 25th year of life.

A quick recap:
1. I changed my career path from journalism to political philosophy. I'm planning on going to law school after I'm done and I'm very excited.
2. I have absolutely no love life and I am, actually, perfectly content with that for the time being. (Though I do wish I was having more sex!)
3. I have a new kick-ass apartment blocks from Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Did I mention that it's kick-ass?
4. These last few months have provided me with the opportunity to believe in myself in ways I never have before. I'm stoked to tell you all about it.

My goals:
1. Be fearless. I'm no chicken, but sometimes I allow my fearful nature to be my catalyst. I don't want to make choices only because its the safer choice any longer.
2. BLOG! This place is important to me and my decision to take a break from it was authentic; however, I want to start making it a priority again.
3. Increase my global awareness. I never realized how self-centered my life was until I moved to New York City. Not that I'm selfish, just that I've never really looked beyond what I see with my own two eyes.
4. Be happy. I've never been this happy my whole life and that is something I'd like to hold onto.

I do apologize for my absence and I'm excited to get back to blogging again! Thanks for sticking with me.

Peace and Love,
Steph

Music Meme

Alphafemme posted this meme. It was fun!

Figure it out:

Pick Your Favorite Artist: The Police

Are you male or female: Demolition Man
Describe yourself: Bombs Away
How do you feel about yourself: Does Everyone Stare
Describe where you currently live: One World
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Walking on the Moon
Your favorite form of transportation: Behind My Camel
Your best friend is: Roxanne
What’s the weather like: Shadows in the Rain
Favorite time of day: Darkness
If your life was a tv show, what would it be called: Secret Journey
What is life to you: a Message In A Bottle
What is the best advice you have to give: When the World is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around OR Rehumanize Yourself (I couldn't decide)
If you could change your name, what would it be: Sally
Your favorite food is: Peanuts
Thought for the Day: Don't Stand So Close To Me
How I would like to die: Wrapped Around Your Finger
My soul’s present condition: The Bed's Too Big Without You
My motto: Be My Girl

Now YOU take YOUR favorite musician … GO!

Back In Business

It is well known that many of the great writers of our past (and present) were also great drinkers. Ernest Hemingway had the mojito, John Mortimer had champagne, and F. Scott Fitzgerald had gin (and lots of it). Mark Twain once said, "sometimes too much to drink is barely enough" and Tennessee Williams hardly ever sat down to write without first consuming a martini and a bottle of red wine. Kingsley Amis notoriously claimed that a glass of scotch was the perfect artistic icebreaker and A.J. Liebling, an American journalist from the New Yorker, once fled a burning restaurant but not without snagging a bottle of brandy first. Suffice it to say that most writers can hold down a glass or two...

And I think that the motive is quite simple...it is the job, or the responsibility, of a writer to make the mere arrangement of words mean something that can exist beyond the two dimensional boundaries of a binding. Thus, writers live in their pain. Writers savor the sorrow. Writers reside and settle and exist in a space that feeds off of the severe, and often times diligent, emotions that contribute to great writing. And sometimes all of that emotion can get to be too much. Sometimes you can delve too deep and feel like survival is forever beyond the bounds of possibility...

But what if you, as a writer, also want to be happy? What if you also want to be productive beyond the margin of words?...

I had an incredibly shitty holiday and the writer in me dwelt in those emotions in the hopes that they would manifest themselves into some kind of creative genius. And the writer in me used an excellent bottle of bourbon to alleviate the anxiety around those emotions. And perhaps I created genius, who knows, but what I do know is that I wasn't particularly proud of the kind of person I was during that time. Maybe great writers don't make that distinction. Maybe great writers are great because they don't separate themselves from their work and if their work is something to be proud of, then it doesn't matter that they aren't something to be proud of...

Well, I am proud of the person that I have become; I am proud of the things that I strive for everyday and the things that I stand up for everyday and if that means that I am not the next Ernest Hemingway or Tennessee Williams, I think that I am finally okay with that...