the lipstick and cigarettes have to go

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 08:10:15 GMT

first journal entry post-south africa. i don't have enough poetry in the entirety of my body or lifetime to describe the perfection that was my life for the past 6 months. exaggerated much? not at all. and this is how it ended (because it's easier to paint sadness, it's easier to say my boyfriend is a 28 hour flight away rather than to say a 10 minute phone call every morning gives me strength to face the days): me standing in the middle of an empty airport with a bouquet of dead roses, last call announcements blaring over the speakers, trying to fight back the tears and toss three suitcases over my shoulder at the same time, finally giving up the fight, involuntarily dropping the bags and using my hand to muffle the loudest sobs a small girl can muster, with only the cleaning lady standing five feet away from me to witness the metaphoric death of the happiest girl in the world.

i can even pinpoint my happiest day. the day i rode horses with him through the mountains, past the waterfalls, and into the most beautiful sunset i've ever seen. exaggerated much? not a chance.

pretty words and pictures fail to describe the change, so i'll put it plainly: i'm new. a happier new.

Mon, 22 May 2006 11:21:13 GMT

i'm taking a break from investigating the world wide web of organ trafficking to tell you all how alive i am. i'm alive enough to be turning papers in a week late and that's surprisingly invigorating.

since i last talked to you i've been traversing the world of southern africa. i cried at the apartheid museum in johannesburg and then played a game of tag in the botanical gardens. i slept in fear of being eaten by the leopards that stalked our campsite in kruger park. i went drinking in the only club in a small town in Botswana with a beautiful Tswana bartender named Lebo, whose friends laughed, pointed and challenged me to dance offs the second i started to move to the music: "white girl can dance." i'm armenian, i explain, but that never works. i saw victoria falls in zambia, got drenched in its waters and took a cruise down the zambezi river at sunset. i danced with a beautiful zambian boy all night and told him i'd meet him for lunch the next day. instead, i took a walk in the bush with elephants and fed them food from my hand.

( ^ all in one week )

and yet the best part of spring break was drinking and smoking with my mom til all hours of the night.

it's winter here now and the rain falls down horizontally. in a month all my best friends will be leaving. in a month i'm renting a car and going to lesotho. i'll meet his family and friends, explore his country and leave with a broken heart. it's been a trip.

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 11:58:26 GMT

we call ourselves team great.

this is day three of being in cape town and team great hasn't yet grown to its full size. this is also the only picture of us i own. so until i get my act together, it'll have to do.

[p.s. when i said i was falling in ____, what i really meant to say was that i'm actually really happy. when i said i'd be okay with never going back home, what i really meant to say was that it was 2 in the afternoon and i had just gotten back from a quick visit to the pub. what i really mean to say is that i miss my kids from home and i'd never want you to think otherwise.]

Sat, 11 Feb 2006 14:27:17 GMT

They say that Cape Town is Africa's version of Los Angeles. I'm not sure who "they" are but I'm pretty sure they know what they're talking about. It's an interesting existence. We visit Nelson Mandela's jail cell and play with refugee children by day and are out shooting shooters on Long street by night. The disparity between the rich and poor is the biggest complaint people have about L.A. Cape Town has us beat. The white South Africans call townships "informal settlements." Everywhere anyone hears your accent, they expect you to be a millionaire. I've been pretty good with not dishing out money like I actually have it except when little boys hold out their empty hands on Long St. (read: club street, read: drunkety drunk Anna).

I've been on a strict no meat diet since I got off that plane. I walk at least 3 miles a day. All the African boys I dance with tell me I shake like a black girl which, here, is the best compliment I'd hope to get. I'm going by the Armenian pronunciation of my name and you'd be surprised how many people just can't get it right. And all of these things combined make me a generally happier person.

I miss my boys, but I'm enjoying the fact that my friend base here is made up of darling girls. Andrea lived on my same floor freshman year and knows my roommate, but we never met. We've been dubbed the drinkers of the group and I think we decided over cigarettes that we're okay with that. If you're going to get wet, she says...

There are certain rules here that I just can't get used to. Don't walk anywhere alone, don't smile at strangers, don't hook up with your gorgeous flatmate from Lesotho no matter how soft his skin. I swoon over some boy or another at least twice a day because, generally, everyone here is gorgeous. This might be the part of culture shock where we were told everything in your host country just feels like it's better than anything at home. It's supposed to be a phase, but I think I'm fine with holding onto this feeling for a long time.

Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:03:00 GMT

i'm alive. i'm in south africa. i have tonsillitis. it hurts to drink water. i haven't eaten or slept in 3 days. and, basically, i want to kill myself.

but, you know, on the upside, capetown is beautiful. south african boys are pretty much all winners in my book. i'm being diligently taken care of by girls i've only known for a day. and once this difficulty breathing thing ends, things can only get better.

it's not that i like making fun of him...

Tue, 24 Jan 2006 06:29:32 GMT

tomorrow my brother and i officially become citizens. (huh? i thought i already was one? isn't that why i got to vote...?) the true test for whether or not we're ready for that kind of commitment is basically trivia about the history and government of the country. to refresh mr. high school drop out of some of these fundamentals, i got these priceless answers from him based on an example test:

how many supreme court justices are there?
- 500
who did the US fight in the revolutionary war?
- the french
what does the first amendment say?
- thou shalt not steal
why did the pilgrims come to America?
- for thanksgiving

i blame the school systems. and heroin.

(7 days til i fly...)

name dropping never felt so good

Sat, 21 Jan 2006 12:29:10 GMT

cape town, zanzibar, morocco, victoria falls, nairobi, namibia, mozambique, botswana. these are only a few of the places i'll be as soon as next monday rolls around. i'm doing them all solo-style, too, cause, you know, that's how i roll. if the pictures look that good, imagine the real-lifed-ness of it. you can only drive so many people to airports without getting antsy about your own departure. i'm looking forward to the send off. one wave is all i'm giving. after that, i'm not looking back for at least 6 months. (i like acting like a tough guy, but the truth is i'll be thinking of you all daily. at least.) things are getting awfully messy around here and i couldn't have picked a better time to pack up and go. it's this kind of new start in a new place with a once in a lifetime opportunity thing that really gets a girl's heart rate up. i'm smoking more cigarettes than ever to compensate. i'm cooking for the first time in my life, which gives my parents the strange feeling of having a real armenian daughter around the house. my feet ache from 8 on-your-feet-all-day hour workdays. i'm running "lost" marathons that make me wonder if a 22 hour flight for a girl terrified of flying is worse than choosing to live in the center of naturey goodness for a girl terrified of death inducing things hiding behind shrubbery. but, you know, south african accents are said to be romantic and who couldn't use a little bit of that in their ~~beds~~ lives?

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 19:09:33 GMT

all i really want is to sit for days and have intellectual conversations with noam chomsky, edward said and sally slocum while i drink my tea and ponder imperialism, colonialism, and feminist perspectives in anthropology. i think this is what school is supposed to do to you? why did that take so long?

i saw exactly who i'm going to be in five years, and my god, i'm excited.

new york pictures coming soon, i swear it.

reckless!

Mon, 21 Nov 2005 07:27:21 GMT

the story, in short.

10:45 p.m. - a phone call goes like this:
"anna, meet me in t.j. (mexico!)"
"that's absurd, i'm hanging up on you now."
fin.

10:47 p.m. - call back
"so. how do we get to mexico?"

other important numbers of this night/weekend, because numbers make the greatness, and believe me, there was greatness.
2: the number of dogs bigger than a whole anna who chased her around a mansion because she does what we all would do when seeing 2 anna sized dogs - run screaming.
90: the speed i was driving when i got my two hundred (200) dollar speeding ticket.
3: the number of cops (internationally!) that pulled me over.
45: the number of minutes it took to navigate out of mexico when we unintentionally crossed the border.
1: the number of driver's licenses (mine) stolen by the mexican police.
25: the number of cigarettes smoked in two countries.
7: the number of times we listened to my arabic cd on repeat.
5: the number of hours needed (and spent!) in a spa to recuperate.
0: the number of weekends that have outdone this one in my young adult life.

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 05:58:24 GMT

that damn cigarette holder and those damn fancy shoes really make a girl feel at home in her flapper dress and pale pasty skin. and you know, i think good times were had, and you know, i think i bought enough fancy cheese to go with your champagne and jelly beans to guarantee that they did. and i know this livejournal of mine has really come to be a photojournal of my debauchery, but i'm thinking that's what twenty years old calls for.

rocio and anna's social event of the fall 2005 season:

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 07:17:19 GMT

us this saturday night at higgins building: 108 w. 2nd st. #913 in LA

you this saturday night if you're NOT at higgins building: 108 w. 2nd st. #913 in LA

if the expensive drinks, skin bearing beauties and downtown view don't charm the pants right off of you, your two hostesses will.

when we're gone, i feel i'll never miss anyone

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 05:03:35 GMT

last weekend:

this november:

next february-july:

and

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 07:15:39 GMT

when i was still in the single digit age range, school taught me that repeating something thirteen times in your head was the surefire way to enshrine things in your permanent memory. i repeated the thirteen times rule in my head thirteen times to test it out. i think it's scientifically sound enough now to say that it worked. i was a smart kid back then, so i'm taking a cue from myself. i repeated the hurtful things i like to let myself forget thirteen times in my head tonight and then did it again, just to be safe. i'm not as smart as i used to be though, and i think this might be cause for concern.

i remembered someone telling me a couple years ago that once film school got through with me i'd be a smoker. really, what did they know? i told them i had a little more will power than they gave me credit for. but my hands reek of cigarettes and i'm thinking i've been giving myself too much credit lately.

i need south africa. i gave myself too much credit and didn't even consider the very real possibility of south africa not wanting me. there's no want about it anymore, i need need need it. 6 months away from here and this and them and that. i need to stop falling asleep in my clothes every night. i need to stop rejecting the nicest boys because they're too nice. i need to start writing a good movie, or making the bad one better. i bet single digit anna would have no problem with any of it. she was a far better person. but i mostly trust science, so if i repeat it all thirteen times, maybe i can be like her again.

the only thing that's been happening so far is mike's movie.

and i'm kind of proud of it.

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 06:15:19 GMT

you've probably never seen so many pictures. i've probably never had so much fun. you'll probably think i'm bragging, but i'm probably a pretty ok cinematographer. and maybe i got a deliciously wonderful manual digital camera for my birthday, but really, all i think i want to say is that i've lived up to my promises of a great year so far. if south africa doesn't happen...well i haven't thought that far ahead. i'm not ready for this semester to stop being wonderful yet.

[being 20 feels like 19, but far less charming.]

^ what? she's confused. where did the last decade go? whatever. we don't miss it. yet?

Thu, 25 Aug 2005 05:26:04 GMT

notice! to the 2, 3 and, on a good day, 4 of you who have my number and call it occasionally: my phone is now permanently disconnected. i'm not ignoring you unless i am. i'm really enjoying being virtually unreachable. and i'm completely disregarding the lameness of the fact that my only means of communication with you 2, 3 or 4 people is through livejournal.

in other news, i've been so deliciously happy these past few days that i actually like hanging out with myself. you should try it. it's a blast.

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 02:25:48 GMT

hey, i just wanted to let you all know how excited i am about this year. it's going to be a good one, i promise.

the mask i polish in the evening by the morning looks like shit (a.k.a. the unmasking)

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 05:55:40 GMT

whatever. just, seriously, whatever. people handle things differently and i'm beginning to think i've been doing it all wrong for so long. i'm even beginning to think i've known this for even longer than i'll admit. but whatever. some people would be frightened or maybe motivated, but no. tell my brother he goes to jail unless he wears the orange jumpsuit for the commuters on the 110 to gawk at and he'll give you an illusion of a kid who grew a brain. the alarm clock will go off at 6 am, he'll get in his car, and he'll put on this millennium's version of the scarlet letter reinvented in bright orange. but then his brain will shrivel away as he throws that ugly thing in the guard's face, tells him to go fuck himself, and announces he's not picking up any rakes on this side of the coast. three weeks ago he saw me in the shortest short skirt i've owned since middle school and called me a whore using a word i had never even heard before. i came back strong and threefold. i called him a low-life, a dumbfuck, and a general waste of space. he's heard them all before.

my mom's illusions are far worse. she envisions normalcy and sees me as the bearer of this gift. but mary was a virgin and my ability to bear my mother a gift like that got lost somewhere in a dorm room last february. too much of my mother has shattered, so i'm not taking this illusion away just yet. or just ever. so when she asks me everyday if i have a white boyfriend i shake my head. and when she reminds me that yes, maybe armenian guys can be chauvinistic, but beirut-armenians keep good wives, i nod. disliking myself never comes easier than when she cries on my bed while i writhe in anger. killing my brother would be too easy. hating my mother for her lack of strength would be too hard. so this was high school: taking it all on myself with shut lips, strong shoulders, quivering knees, and nervous breakdowns only every two months or so. i create scenes like a good filmmaker would but the one about needing to move out because of a need for independence was partly a lie, and mostly because i wanted to be rid of your dependence.

i ran away from my family because i didn't know how to cry and couldn't stand to see them do it. there's no reason to fret about it now. the villain of this story (me) gets her due because in college she not only learned the ability to cry, she practiced it, perfected it, exercised it at every reasonable and even unreasonable opportunity until she drowned in her tears. hating myself for my newfound (or always there?)lack of strength would be too easy. disguising the ability to not care as strength is even easier. neither will do. but this is the most honest i've been with livejournal or myself. and it's a start.

omg i need a tan! how bout u?

Mon, 11 Jul 2005 08:31:31 GMT

what all this really means is that i'll steal your hat, throw peace signs in your face, and get kissy faced with you in the backseat any day of the week. but only in the summer. come august, all bets are off.

Wed, 29 Jun 2005 17:58:48 GMT

i may have inadvertently been the cause of the four inch sideway step the fridge in the garage took when the car danced with it, but all three of us, the dancer, the dancee and me, are going to make it. which is a super good thing because it means the internship is still a go. but all that really means is i get to play darts with the boss, watch movies in the basement, and exchange hello's and how do you do's with that guy from that show who was/is kind of famous. dr. no is playing here in the background and the prettiest women i've never seen are dancing in flowy dresses and far too much eyeliner. but these are things that have always been my specialties.

my newest specialties include taking tequila shots with my dad, sleeping on roofs, missing girls and boys from wisconsin/riverside/phoenix/albuquerque/new york, and spending half my days on travel websites where i carefully plan all the trips i'll never take to wisconsin/riverside/phoenix/albuquerque/new york. but for right now i'll watch the prettiest girls dance in glittery dresses in movies where their eyeliners don't smudge the morning after.

Mon, 06 Jun 2005 10:01:08 GMT

newsflash: done with boys. down with boys. thank you.

tomorrow i start an internship, write a script, learn how to keep secrets and ponder the benefits of the word "no." these are breakthroughs on all fronts that will lead me to something i might come to enjoy later in life: a future. success.

Tue, 31 May 2005 00:23:26 GMT

i made friends with the bathroom lady whose name i can't remember. but i can tell you she has 4 kids and dances to fifty cent with the best of them. 5 years of spanish classes paid off in the bathroom of club tequila in rosarito. maybe i just speak it better after drink five of open bar, ladies free club night. i told her i couldn't enjoy myself completely after seeing what i just saw outside those walls. she told me i had a beautiful heart and i cried on her shoulder before giving her a twenty.

life has a way of timing things perfectly. just when i felt that i'd lost every ounce of social consciousness within me, i end up sitting on the steps of club animale, crying about the children trying to sell me shell necklaces on the dirty flashy strip streets. maybe i'm just a sadpathetic drunk. maybe i know i'm a sadpathetic drunk. but am i amused that people are getting arrested on the opposite street corner as we laugh in our drunken stupor? not really.

being in a foreign country reminded me of armenia, although the streets in armenia aren't paved and there's a serious lack of neon flashing lights in capital city yerevan. i'm going back there, i decided on the bus ride back over the border. i'm working at dreamworks animation this summer and splitting the earnings evenly: rent money, armenia money. somebody come with me. i made a lot of decisions on that bus ride. i'm going to go to south africa, even if it means graduating late. there's more change, but it's mostly secret.

this all sounds too somber for what it really is. it's all looking up, kids! changes long overdue are coming to head and it's only going up from there. summer's beautiful. my apartment + every visitor who steps inside of it are finally feeling like home to me. my netflix list took a major shake up to make room for alias dates with my mom. my bffl has reemerged and reminded me what it's like to feel completely at ease with someone. my script is now in stage 1. my dvd collection is now +2. my heartbeat is now x3.

Sat, 21 May 2005 10:16:37 GMT

Cotton candy used to be magical. The way it dissolved on your tongue with that tingly bubbling feeling. I used to think it was the most brilliant invention of all. But soon enough you discover that its only sugar.

How do you make yourself ignore the brilliance of it! Let’s collaborate with power plants to shut off electricity to drive up the cost of energy so we can rob an entire state of a million dollars a day after we’ve forced the deregulation of state energy affairs which prevents federal intervention to aid a governor who will inevitably come to be recalled for his apparent inaptitude in dealing with an energy crisis and will then famously be remembered for being beaten by a certain body building Hollywood star. Did someone forget to report that the energy crisis of California was coordinated by Enron? Did I just miss that somehow? But how do you not see the brilliance of it? Let’s establish a mark to market policy where we’ll report profits that don’t exist to drive up the stock price and make billions in the process.

When you’ve just freaked yourself out cause you drove into Bel-Air looking for a gas station and laughed at the guy who used paper towels to cover the handle on the pump and taken pride in flipping off a jerk in a Bentley, hearing of Kenneth Lay’s humble, poverty stricken childhood only as a precursor to his future screwing over of thousands of working people of their hard earned savings isn’t going to make you think more highly of the man. What happened to the girl who knew this stuff, who sought it out, who wanted to make it her own personal mission to save the world. Fuck naivete. I liked my cotton candy ball of illusions if it meant I thought we could do something about it. You’ll see it on your tv and go on eating your dinner, right Hotel Rwanda? But I’ve lost my appetite. I’ve been weighed down, blows to the ego shredding away at my outer walls, trying to mold pure sugar into something impregnable. Cotton candy dissolves before you’ve had time to swallow and before you know it there’s nothing left. Disillusionment doesn't taste so sweet. I want to believe in good, but does that mean I have to accept the inviolable existence of evil?

Milgram's experiment in 1963 tried to see if regular people could hurt innocent strangers by administering shock treatments to dangerous and even lethal levels if commanded to do so and told they were absolved of any responsibility of it. Two thirds of the study subjects administered the lethal shocks. How do people lose their sense of responsibility in the happenings of the world? How does Lay lose his sense of former self when he drives thousands of workers into poverty? How do I lose this bitter taste in my mouth when sugar dissolves into apathy?

Mon, 09 May 2005 07:04:09 GMT

me: you don't need to hang out with people like that...i can't even stand them
brother: y cus there stuck up
me: yeah
brother: well so am i
me: you're stuck up for different reasons
brother: ya, cus im fine

that's right, he went there.

Thu, 05 May 2005 07:50:31 GMT

i'm too enamored with this song to even begin thinking of responsibilities, finals or other such nonsensical nonsenseries! that isn't a word, but it only goes to prove my point. maybe my little grossly inarticulate self could get her meaning across better if i could make up new words for when i can't find them in english, and not only cause it's language two. like so!
ahhhheartpainbeauty! = wonderwall by ryan adams (omg tri-ni, ditto)
pshhhsuckitwhatever = sound final
ummnopleasesodonewithit = new-boy soon to be non-boy
does it bother you that my new words aren't so much new as a whole bunch of oldness thrown together?

one more listen and i'll start studying. i swear.

(roughly!)
"do you like william faulkner?"
"why? did you sleep with him?"
"no."
"then why should i care about him?"
- a bout de souffles

once i'm done being clara bow for a lifetime, i'd like to be jean seberg in breathless. i'd like to be everything i'm not. and i surprise myself at how good i am at getting what i want. i'm on my gravel-ridden path wearing the pointy heels i can't walk in and sinking every step or so. my mother interprets my fashion sense to be on par of a "gyukhatzee," or an old villager, for the 99.9% of you who don't speak motherland. even worse, she's right. but my color scheme is down pat so i've got the advantage in a deuce of this 40-40 game. worse yet, i'll give away the ending: i never made the tennis team.

Tue, 03 May 2005 06:23:26 GMT

paper dolls cure all your maladies of discontent. and there's so much of it! and yet none of it at the same time. i use these things to distract myself from reality. let's all get up and dance to a song that was a hit before your mother was born. the beatles knew what i'm talking about. i listen to music of different decades and paste my face on clara bow's body and call people by the names of authors long since dead. f. scott. edgar allen. henry david. not possessing a middle name of my own is bound to be my downfall.

kids! on this night, the night of may 2nd/morning of may 3rd, i will be at the denny's on hoover and jefferson, enjoying a bottomless cup of 59 cent coffee and studying for a final for which i have done absolutely nothing. join me! bring your work and we'll make a party out of it. come in and i'll be there. so do it.

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