IaMuNoRdInArY: Let your honesty shine, shine, shine, like it shin...

IaMuNoRdInArY: Let your honesty shine, shine, shine, like it shin...: the only living girl in New York. This past week I had a breakthrough.   I had a breakthrough that will make the rest of my life insan...

Let your honesty shine, shine, shine, like it shines on me...

the only living girl in New York.


This past week I had a breakthrough.  


I had a breakthrough that will make the rest of my life insanely amazing.  


Never mind what my breakthrough actually was, let's review what it did for me this week...


I spoke to my kid brother whom I love very much and haven't said a word to (besides the conversation I was forced into on Christmas Day), in 15 months.  I told him what I thought, how he'd hurt me, and why I need him in my life.  He was calm and nonchalant about how he loved me too and how he wanted me to be a part of his.  We've connected in some way, be it text, voicemail, or in conversation every day since.


I overslept and missed a client Monday morning, I showed up and immediately said, "I overslept, I'm going to give this job the attention it needs and not do this again".  
I meant it.  
That was that, all cleared up.


I brought genuine happiness and just let what I could have taken as negative energy, into account and just opened up the more positive end of things, pointing out improvements and encouraging a relationship in a group effort I'm involved in, rather than sitting and dwelling and whining and complaining about how horrible a lot we drew.  


I counseled someone into a powerful place, where change is inevitable...where she will thrive and improve and make less excuses and make the things she wants to improve on possible.  
I don't even need to wait to see her results, I KNOW she will be successful.


I let go of the sadness in a close friend's terminal illness and really talked to her and made her laugh and feel invigorated.  I also let the fact sink in that she sought ME out to spend time with today, because I make her feel better.  
She didn't have to tell me.  I knew.


I had my first real hug.  
The first hug I can remember that didn't come with a reason, or any feeling of trepidation, or any noise in my head that might ruin how good a hug, as I've recently discovered, feels.


I felt a friend telling me how important I am. 


I HEARD my father telling me how proud he is of me.  


I noticed things.  


There were 23 people on my train car this morning between Clark st and Wall st.  I made sure I got a look at each of their faces.  
There's a set of white french doors next to the coffee shop i go to every morning and have for the past 5 years.  I finally saw it.  I wonder what's behind it.  


There's an inkling of hope in every moment and in every encounter.  


It's all possible.


I have laughed harder and more genuinely about so many things.  


I sleep better too. 


I feel like i made 150 close friends last weekend.  Really, 150 people who know ME, not my act, not my super-ego...ME.  


Shitty parts, awesome parts, scared parts, tough parts, angry parts, silly parts.


My work is better, my experience of each day is better and I am genuinely happy and excited about life.


It's because I'm communicating.  


I'm approaching every moment with a presence.  


I'm relating from a positive, loving place with everyone I encounter.  


I am living my life.  


I am not going to go back to letting my drama and my mishaps ruin experiencing the life I really want to live anymore.  


It's crazy that I started writing again just in time to figure it out.  


I'll be sharing those epiphanies and the sweet moments of my days from now on.  I hope to inspire your happiness too, through my words, and share my new light.  


I went to sleep a long time ago.  I just woke up.


It feels amazing.

IaMuNoRdInArY: I think you're schizophrenic.

IaMuNoRdInArY: I think you're schizophrenic.: I have an online dating profile. Yep. I do, well, did, actually. I'd had it, on and off, for 4 years. When I first signed up and filled ...

I think you're schizophrenic.

I have an online dating profile. Yep. I do, well, did, actually. I'd had it, on and off, for 4 years.


When I first signed up and filled it out I was a totally broken, yet hopeful 26 year old, fresh out of the worst (there isn't even words) relationship I've ever stuck to. That also lasted 4 years. Why?


Because I'm weak.


No I'm not...but I was.


So I am 26, broken, but unreasonably hopeful that my love life is going to pan out like some cheesy 1960s flick: 
en genou turns leading lady. 
 Probably
set in Paris or Barcelona or Buenos Aires. 
or maybe right here, in an unlikely New York story.
I'd be adored by men. 
Adored.
And I'd be beating off suitors left and right when suddenly, 
one would catch my eye, 
sweep me off my feet, 
and we would just be frigging amazing.


Except those are movies.


And I do live in New York City. Otherwise known as the cesspool for overworked, angry, narcissistic men who hate their mothers.


No, no, no. those are just the ones i met. The ones I was absolutely drawn to.


You think I kid. I don't kid.


If we were in a room full of remarkable, attractive, kind-hearted, affectionate, and self-confident men, I would have found the one He-man Woman Hating Bastard in the bunch and beeline it straight for him.
It's like i could smell them.
Like I mistook the shrieks of Satan's lost souls for the song of Angels beckoning me to my love-filled blissful fate---where there would be wailing and grinding of teeth.


You think I kid. I don't kid.


We'll save that for a later discussion. This story is about the illustrious online dating life of Audrey.


Before I go further I do need to profile myself a little more appropriately:
I am a guarded, scared woman. I do have good reason, as I've never actually been with someone who was even kind to me, much less loving.


~No, I'm not asking for tears and some grandiose violin solo to augment my sad tale. I've come to the point of admittance so I can (hopefully) move away from my track record~


Because I'm so guarded and scared and only have had negative experiences I have this problem: 


I go after men that are emotionally unavailable. 


I go after them because I know what to expect. 
I know that they will treat me terribly and then dump me by the side of the road with little feeling or care for how I feel or how I've been treated. 
I know that I'll keep coming back for more.
I know that I will claim that this is because I see good in him.
I know that I will claim that this is because I want to save him.
I know that this is because I refuse to admit that he is, in fact, tragically flawed.


So in the end, well, I go through the same old/same old, furthering my jaded theories and...


nobody's saving me.


So, with that explained and understood, I feel like my experiment was quite appropriate for where I was.


The experiment, finally, is the point of this story.


After 5 or 6 sadistic lovers I decided that, in general, men are feral beings, sent to torment women.  Especially good-natured, loving and maternal types like myself.  
There just aren't good men in the world. 
So, maybe I can figure out how they tick and, in doing so, save myself from more of the same old/same old.


So I hopped online to edit.


My initial profile reflected a fun-loving, low-maintenance Audrey. The kind of girl that's appealing to the average man. The one that's just a pretty face with no baggage and just in it to "see what happens". No expectations, no imagination, just a chick on the web.


And I met my typical adversary. 
Because that's what I was asking for.


So I tried a new approach.


I edited to talk about me, my passions, my quirks, showed my serious side and quite a few vulnerabilities.
I answered questions honestly and diligently.
I said that I was hopeful and looking.


I didn't change a photograph, just a biography.


I wasn't looking, really (honestly, I think I've finally JUST gotten to the point that I feel like I can handle that) but, my heart did sort of sink because the shitty type of guy that had been emailing my "simple"self DID stop emailing me, 


but so did everyone else.


"ME" wasn't likable.


I was pissed.


I was a weird and uninviting girl.


I felt like I deserved the men that I was trying to avoid.


So, I made another edit, adding the following to the beginning of my wordy raw, and open bio:


'I'm not very good at dating.
I also really like being alone.
I'd like to meet someone who's OK with that.
And me.'


And, much to my disbelief, the contacts started flooding in.


Here I was thinking I would include some horribly smite-filled thought in there so I had an excuse to be ignored and picked over. All of a sudden I'm getting questions, and applause and compliments about the latter parts. 


About the honesty in what I was calling "ME".


Of course I was overwhelmed and still so utterly off my rocks that, after a month of 10 emails a day (none of which I ever responded to) I decided that it was brashness and rudeness and that people were reaching out just because I was coming off like a total bitch.
I was tapping into the masochistic males of this city...
(revenge was mine!!!!! <--- that's a joke).


So I made my final edit and deleted everything after my new, angry addition. 


 The emails...
              Stopped. for weeks.


And then there was one.  The one that ended it all.



An average looking 5'10" 29 year old blond boy from Brooklyn used these words in his greeting:
"I've been watching you make these changes to your profile and..."


I decide to check him out before I read the body of that email.
This could be something good!
He's not tall, dark, and annoyingly handsome.
He's not arrogant or cold in his personal blurb.
He's seemingly raw and real and kind of awkward.


He's kind of like me.


I never go for this kind of guy. 


He's been watching me and now...


I open the email and this is how it read:


"I think you're schizophrenic".


Whammy. Major.


Busted.
And really, busted, because I was acting like a crazy fool.


So I deleted my account. I sat and judged myself and really took a second to take the blame. I was on my case and in my mind for a couple of weeks and then it hit me.


I did all of this.


I asked for all of it.


Because I didn't want real love.
I was like a starved baby, violently spitting out the little food that was finally offered to me.


I've been so hurt that I was in a place where I needed love. 


The biggest problem was that I didn't want what I needed.


The original, superficial and bubbly character I created was the character I was projecting to fit in...because stupid girls always get the boys...I forgot that they are also the starter wives to immature men who rush and don't know what a relationship really is, or what they really need.
The first edit was my existential, artistic, and inner girl. The one who's scarred and scared and thoughtful and brooding and quite sad.
The second edit, where I added the sarcasm and the jaded bit to the burned girl...that's "ME".


The flood of responses were to "ME".


and I freaked myself out and hid under my sarcasm. 


I spit out the food.


That's what it took to get my mind here. 
To realize that I'm alright being an array of feelings and overly intense at times and a little shallow at others.  And, I am scared shitless about getting hurt.


That's "ME".


And you know what?


if that's not OK, then he's not the right guy because the right guy WILL be OK with that. 


And me.


XX, Aud

IaMuNoRdInArY: There's an App for that

IaMuNoRdInArY: There's an App for that: Want to hear about something that baffles and amazes me? Too bad...I'm talking.   Social Media. More for the rationale I've persona...

There's an App for that

Want to hear about something that baffles and amazes me?


Too bad...I'm talking.  


Social Media.


More for the rationale I've personally given, 1st hand heard others give, or, not so appropriately, decided for others; than for the actual genius behind it all.
It's a perfect platform to throw stuff onto a "wall" and see what sticks. I like to use it to share my inspiration.  I have decided that the wacky stuff that enters my brain and my field of vision should brighten others' days while they succumb to their boredom and sign onto the interwebs to improve their attention deficit.
I suppose it inadvertently shows bits and pieces of my self but nothing that can be misconstrued as me, defined, by any stretch.


The ticker tape that is life.


Constant news, updates, to-do lists, where to go, what's hot, what's not? where can you save on more stimulus? What is everybody everywhere doing right now, at this very moment?


I applaud myself often that I only turn on my television to watch DVDs or MadMen. I prefer the pages of a book and the background music collection that I've spent a greater portion of my 20s compiling over sitcoms, reality shows, and commercials.


BUT...
I need to stop pretending I'm some woman of the world who's only stimulus can come from great literature and exceptional musical talent and art.


Why?


1. because I can not remember my life before GPS and well, Google. Frankly, I do not know what I used to do or how anybody really got anything done.


2. because blogs are like a drug for my insatiable brain.


3. because I can't choose where to eat or what to listen to next without Yelp or Pandora.


4. because It's 7:48 am. I've already written four emails, bid on this amazing vintage DVF dress on EBay, read the better part of the NYTimes and my daily ThisRecording.com, checked LinkedIn, Etsy, chosen three or four things I'm "Pinterested" in, and edited my calendar based on a list of events brought to me by the 37 new messages in my inbox...since 12am when I went to bed, as I definitely checked before I shut my eyes.  37 emails.  in 7 hours.  


oh and of course, I'll admit the following...


5. because sometimes you just want to stalk somebody.


I know you're all guilty so, let's face it, It's okay. It's Facebook Stalking. No one thinks its real stalking. I mean, everyone displays that stuff because they WANT you to see it. They want you to see what they are doing and being and experiencing. It's important that we all share in eachothers' lives.






Bullshit.


I will now pose a question i often wonder about when I hear the gossip and witness the inward personalities this internet world creates.


When was the last time you actually talked to some of your stalking victims? If you saw them on the street, would you feel awkward discussing what you know about them?


NO  I'm sure you wouldn't.  


Especially not if you could text them about it instead of actually interacting face-to-face.


I think ADD and the constant need for more is symptomatic of our loneliness. People don't know each other. We take what snippets we see of a persons life, be it a celebrity, a powerful figurehead, or John, that guy you crushed on in junior high who, turns out, never got anywhere


(glad you dodged that bullet)...


So, why not connect?  Why not get in there and be human?


I am direct and blunt all of the time.  I just prefer to be this way over that. Granted, I'm incredibly awkward and don't really understand when people don't receive my often imposing questions as I expect them to, but I really do WANT to know about other people. 


I WANT to hear about accomplishments, places they've been, their funny stories and their hurt.  Yes, even the ugly, terrible, embarrassing shit that happens to everyone.  


It's upsetting to think that there's so much hiding from our feelings.  


There are so many conflicts, rough times, and tough decisions that go on in people's minds without even a signal of unrest visible to the eyes of others.


Like it's better to grin and bear it.


keep calm and carry on.




This makes me realize and feel my own loneliness all the more intently.


I shouldn't.


Because people shouldn't be so thrown off by a person who really WANTS to connect.  Who just is and realizes everybody else just is too, so quit the act.  


It's a blessing and a sign of strength to admit we are vulnerable and screwed up and jaded and angry and unhappy and just plain lonely. 


We don't have to be any of those things. 


We also shouldn't have to drop a fund at a psychologist to find someone who will actually listen.


Reminder: NO ONE* is completely OK. 


* If you know someone who is completely OK, kindly, look for their off switch...or their battery pack.  
Because they're a goddamn robot.


A sad side effect of being like me, of WANTING to know is this: 


We try.  
Then we feel rejected.  
We crawl back into our minds.  
We read or write or watch films about a world where people are present and responsive and loving.


I shouldn't have to beat myself up for being real.


I shouldn't have to feel the way I do when I share and someone runs away or I ask and someone avoids me so as not to engage in what I call 
    a conversation.


My sensitivity to this is a product of my family. 
Everyone is fine.  
No one shares...anything. 
No one responds or cries or knows how to comfort. 
I don't know how many times I heard things like: 
"I'll pray for you" or "fight nicely children"


It still stings.  


The prayers are great, no doubt, but i think I'd probably have done better with a hug.  It's rough being a kid who constantly wonders who's backing anybody up.  


Because then she decides that the only one who's got her back is herself. 


And I assume as I've moved along through my twenties, that when I come across this lack of connectedness when I meet new people, it means that people just don't care about each other.


Hopefully I'll get to that place where I will realize that others are closed and feel sorry for them, then move along.


It's not me that's making them run. 


It's them that's avoiding the difficult course that is being.  That is living a messy, flawed, and violently unpredictable life.


So you want to talk? 


 Send it my way. I'll listen. 


And you can practice doing the same in return. 
It's called relating. 
We will be what can be defined as friends.
It'll feel pretty real.


or at least it will feel like something we can't get by "experiencing" each other via screen time.  

- Audrey

My place.

I have a tendency. Well, I have many. But today it's about the mean girls. I assume every woman I meet is a royal bitch. Or judging me incessantly. I have a good reason, really.
There are all different kinds of artists in this world. The best are usually the most messed up.
She started dancing when she was three. She was a tomboy. She had only brothers and boys to play with in her neighborhood and her aunt thought something feminine might suit her. So auntie bought her first month of ballet classes.
Her faux mother just said ok and thought it was a silly idea. She didn't even understand her then.
We call her the faux mother because our heroine has a fantasy.
There's this other woman out there galavanting in the world, all light and bright and beautiful. This other woman was born at Allentown Hospital on June 18, 1982.
Our heroine's vrai famile, the fabulously artistic and eccentric French couple who were madly in love, were driving to New York City while they toured the east coast on a fabulous adventure away from their houseboat on the Seine.
Suddenly, her mother's water broke a whole month early and they had to hurry to the nearest hospital off the highway...in godforsaken Allentown.
Wouldn't you know it? Our poor heroine's luck was already struck down, day one.
All was surely mistaken because she was a sick baby. How could this couple, so perfectly in love, amidst the time of their life have a sick baby?
So the beautiful Frenchies waltzed out of the hospital, took the wrong baby to see central park and then boarded a plane back to Paris.

Her parents got the wrong baby and she was destined to become an average girl from Pennsylvania.
Now, now, the faux famile she was given was quite alright. They were just regular and American and terribly suburban.
(Of course that's not true, but it still sounds good...let me just keep it, alright?)...
From the start, her faux mother knew something was amiss...so she kept her distance. She didn't coo and caw over her little girl and she, frankly, had no idea what to do with her.
So she drove her to ballet class, thinking it would last just that first hour. And this misplaced little girl was smitten, day 1.
She announced her future profession when she hopped into the station wagon after her first day and the rest was history.
It's only hard now that she's learned to understand that she could only be herself at ballet. She could work diligently to perfect something, daily, to the lovely accompaniment of a piano and all of this classical music that she surely never heard at home.
She could make progress and really think, even if just for a moment each day, that she was special...and good at something...and maybe even a pretty, soft, and lovable little girl.

She never felt that way at home.

It wasn't because they didn't want to, they just didn't know how and they were too caught up to realize they were closing a little girl into her own little world.
She trusted herself and she knew that no matter how hard it would be, she would push and push to become a dancer and get to stay in that world forever.
There were defenses and she was quiet introverted. There, she did not have to minimize herself so as not to be accused of bragging and showing off and behaving as if she deserved something better. She never thought she deserved more than they could give

but she did deserve more.

She didn't have to be simple in her world, her place.

She grew to distrust anyone who tried to pry into her world where only she existed. This was why she made it all the places she wanted to go.
The other dancers became friend-enemies in her mind. They were nice, or were they? This was all a competition and any one of them could get dropped at any moment.

She was in it for herself.

She made it. She got the tutus and the rhinestone earrings and the applause and the pit orchestra playing Bach, Stravinsky, tchiachovsky, ravel, beethoven, and mozart. She got the perfect shoes, the perfect hair, and the quiet in her own head.
Her artistry was built on her need to survive and her love for that place she felt so safe. That world where she had love, no matter how hard that love was on her body and her mind.

Then she met a boy...And she trusted that boy...And she trusted that she could be taken away from her place and that she would be alright.

That boy never became a man.

He left her outside of her place and she could not get back in. Her chance was lost and she'd ruined her dream. No one ever knew how important that world was to her. And they certainly would not understand now.

So, she closed it her heart.

Now she is in the world. She cannot express her heart without awkwardness and distrustful thoughts. She bars the world from her place. All the while, desperately trying to find that girl she has lost inside.
She feels she has reason to distrust and mistrust and hold at arms length. She plays the role she is asked to play and can always be whomever she is asked to be, but no one ever wants her to be herself.
Today she shares herself and she hopes somewhere someone will see her for her and open up that place in her heart.


It is not at all about how a person comes across. It's learning why they come across the way they do.

We are a myriad of lovely things, and not so lovely things, of experience and expertise, of failure and regret. We are all people and deserve to tell our stories.
This is hard in a world that tries to judge and delegate each person to a category, to simplify and superficialize.

I'm using IaMuNoRdInArY to speak from that place.

I really like that Audrey. She's a special, bright, and extraordinary woman and sees a possibility that she can be herself all the time and be loved just as easily.

IaMuNoRdInArY: Let's not be so plastic. Let's be content with wh...

IaMuNoRdInArY: Let's not be so plastic. Let's be content with wh...: That sums it up.  When I people watch, I think this constantly.  This city is a plastic island, and the world at large, just as plasticized....

Let's not be so plastic. Let's be content with who we are and call it a life

That sums it up.  When I people watch, I think this constantly.  This city is a plastic island, and the world at large, just as plasticized.   Recently, I've found myself molding to fit the needed persona that seamlessly fits this plastic lego castle.  The one with the pirates.  or maybe the spaceship one.  

*~Choking Hazard~* Not appropriate for children under 6 years.  

WHAT?  Sccccccccratch. And the Record skips, skips, skips.

That's not me.  That's not my MO.  In fact, that's so unbelievably opposed to my MO that I'm concerned.  I'm truly, and deeply concerned.  

I'm concerned that I am falling for the "same shit, different day" mentality of most of the people out there, instead of being me.  

I'm weird.  Totally.

I'm flighty and picky and introverted and the center of attention and happy and manically depressed and really more complex than most people can handle.

But I'm also amazingly good at everything I set my heart on.  I excel.  I can and I do.  

It's the Catholic upbringing and the backwards world of the 'gifted child' that stifle those things in me.

It's having to move with the herd at times and to pretend that I understand what it's like to be simple.

I don't.

It makes me uncomfortable trying.  

I am a ridiculous mess of a woman.  There is little I will not say and there is little I will not do.  I have my beliefs and my morals, but I judge nothing...seriously, I don't give a flying whatever...about anything anybody does.  Just letting it wash over tai chi style*.  

*Ok, well no, I WILL point out how much of a wanker someone is, without the slightest regard, but I really do not care---that's your thing, that's your issue, that's your baggage.

I have my hands, my toes, and my heart in all sorts of places.  Some are more important than others now and some will be more important than others later, because I'm a transient sort of artform. 

I want to learn and do and be constantly.  

I know a great deal.

I can dance, sing, write, talk, counsel, bitch, rationalize, accept, flow, stop, go, live, sleep, run, rest, retain ungodly amounts of scientific data in my brain, preach a perfect diet and then eat oreos, and so on and so on et nauseum.

But I'm approaching 30 and I see a lot of my fellow decade changers getting all content with themselves, like they are finished, done growing, just going to be.  So i start to feel like I should be content, finished, and just be.

Forget it.

I'm working hard on being content with myself. 

 I have repeated the mantra 

"It's probably something wrong in their lives, I am ok being me.  I didn't do anything wrong" 

about 4000x each day for about 27 years.  

It'll work sooner or later.

I am not finished.

I could explain why right here and make this blog into my autobiography of all the shit Audrey is going to do and see and experience and be amazing at, but then IaMuNoRdInArY would be a single work...and I don't do single, finished projects.  

I, my friends, am a beautiful work in progress.

So, I'm going to write as often as possible and I'd like feedback: your own stories, things that you think I'm wrong about and things that you think I'm right about, and maybe things you just don't understand.

That ought to get me to where I want to be...so this blog is a cathartic journey to me learning to "be"

"be" being defined as: be content with my differences.

I'd like to encourage readers to "be" the same.

That and my stream of thought is brimming and a friend recently mentioned how much he'd like me to write again.

Here I am.  I promise to be uncomfortably exposing of myself.

So read it.

Oh, and if anyone wants to make it all pretty and design for me, that'd be rad.

- Aud*

*for those who never read before, Audrey's my pen.  as in my former: "Audrey's Thinking"...as in I look like Audrey Hepburn and i think a lot and I don't necessarily need people to read this with me in mind.  just audrey.  thinking