on heavy rotation: j cole

alterna hip hop is looking great these days with the likes of j cole/drake/the weeknd/tyga as it ushers in the latest crop of common/mos def/lupe fiasco/kid cudi inspired seedlings, and i'm enjoying. my favorite of late, mr j cole, brings a bit harder, slightly more poetic edge to the softer side of the likes of drake, who works frequently with the decidedly more atmospheric & sexual vibe of the weeknd. which then spotify-led me to tyga-- a more conscious version of lil wayne who likely shops at whole foods. look them up if you haven't yet.

there's certainly a lot of tasteless, uninspired & unintelligent sugary hip hop (ehhem, minaj) floating about, and in general, a lot of that in music, period. but maybe, just maybe, hip hop is on it's way back to returning to it's golden age of truth & poetry--the 90's. the list above certainly gives me hope that it might, anyway.

listen.

the power of negativity

let me just say, i hope you have two kinds of people in your life-- first and foremost the sad girl, the negative one. the one that you absolutely know you can go to just to vent and bitch and cry and bemoan your current state of whateverthefuck is going on. the one that knows instinctively not to even open her mouth if indeed she has disillusioned hopes to cheer you up. even if she has gin in her hand (ok maybe if she has gin). she will just let you sit there and cry in your towel because you just showered, and your hair is wet, and there is absolutely no possible way of getting dressed. you're lucky you even have that towel on, ok? she says things like, why is everyone so afraid of their sadness? and  you are allowed, nay, brave! to take the time you deem necessary to really grieve that loss.  you don't have to say much to each other as you sit in states of mutual despair and fuckwhyisthissohard. while mercy may indeed come in the morning, you are content and maybe well off to let your sorrow last for the night. you don't need to go to the gym that day or flat iron your hair or do that get up n' over dance you plow through day after day. right now you can just dwell in the honesty that is your situation. and, may God help you if someone gives you that one door closed, another window open bullshit. God help them, rather.

i say again, this is a great friend to have.

of course it is also necessary to have the friend that knows you're better than skipping the gym and allowing you to go about your daily life and errands without mascara and ratty cat lady hair. she rockets you forth by reminding you that your efforts, your hurts, are not in vain, and your gumption is nothing if not strengthened by life's momentary displeasures. you  have a job. you have the luxury to sit in your towel on a tuesday, you spoiled brat. like your negative friend, she also knows the value of quality gin. i mean really, it's great we can all agree on something here.

more than this though, i hope that both of these people dwell firmly within your soul. it's hard to be that bipolar, i know, but to truly know what you need in your moment of disconnected fuckitall i am going to watch this television marathon broken up by HSN sales, peanut butter eating, and kardashian "reality" escapery, is indeed valid. dare i say beneficial even. look into the life of a person who glosses over their bumpy journey with a slick brush, and i will show you a very ironically unhappy, fear driven person who perhaps also has chronically irregular bowel movements.

but,

i hope also that you eventually muster the winds of feminine fire that propel, anger you even, into action. no one has ever changed anyone's life by sitting pale faced with a nest lying atop their head. except maybe bon iver. but you're not him. you are not fucking bon iver. so that's my point i guess. know thyself. and know bon iver.

the year that was: part two

 part one

the silence lasted for a moment, and then all at once the world erupted. what do we do next? where are we going? where is jenna? who is ordering food? the phones were non-stop, the door bell never stopped ringing, jenna was now living at her mother's and no one could exist without each other for the next month. family flew in, friends from afar, when i wasn't at work, i was stopping by my apartment to feed my cats for a moment, and then i was at jenna's. sometimes talking, sometimes pretending her father hadn't just died. the weight upon her, the 10,000 different directions she was pulled, the heavy burden of her mother's inability to be alone for more than a couple hours, it was crushing. and


i
didn't
see
it.


i didn't see what was going on with my best friend. i didn't understand it, and it made me feel awkward. i am so embarrassed to write that.  i tried to relate to what i might feel if one of my parents died. that didn't work, for obvious reasons. and under the skin of all this, after some time had passed and life had begun to calm, my resentment bricks from before started showing through the plaster i haphazardly covered them with. i felt it at weird, inappropriate times-- the funeral being one of them. this was an intense time of ambivalence for me, as i felt overly protective of her and angry and bitter at the same time. i felt selfish, yet justified in my hurt, although paling in comparison to hers, and bit my tongue every night so that i could get through the day with my mouth shut until much, much later when it was appropriate to discuss.

much, much later was not a luxury that was afforded to us, and we were shoved very much into the present-- all of us with our triggers painfully raw, and death, pain and unbearable sorrow still lying at our doorsteps.

a situation arose, and i found out about some things happening behind my back which stunned me. and just like that, all the plaster came crumbling down in a giant heap.  i had reached my limit, could no longer hold my tongue, and i released it. the wind had come. i  felt betrayal by people i loved more than my own family, and it crushed every single part of me. when i wasn't crying, i was screaming. everything had exploded, and one by one, people were forced to pick a side. intentionally, i barely spoke with hannah, thinking that maybe, maybe i could keep her out of this. so, i kept my venting to others, which came back to ruin me.

during this time, the only thing that got me through was that golden nugget. that piece of advice extended down from God himself it seemed, into my therapist, and out of her mouth. it came on a normal wednesday evening. i was railing on about something, complaining, whining about how i am just different. no one really understands me. I AM TOO MUCH. AND I WILL ALWAYS BE TOO MUCH FOR EVERYONE IN MY LIFE. now, until this point, my soft southern belle had never broken her therapist-y composure. not aloof coldness, but by this i mean, every question is infuriatingly pointed back to you in the form of another question that explodes your brain, turns it into mush, makes you cry for days, and takes you months to analyze. at the end of which, you feel proudly, oddly, mentally accomplished that you have tackled the depths of this one particular battle, and thus counteracts the hundreds of dollars you have spent for it. ANYWAY. she set her papers in her lap, folded her hands, leaned into me, and in a frank like-we're-havin-drinks-and-nachos sorta way says, "honey, wouldn't you rather be too much than (pauses, winces) too little?? come on. you have an incredible light in you. USE IT." i sat with my mouth agape and suddenly realized my therapist was a real person. a real person who had just shut down my greatest insecurity in two sentences. this may not be earth shattering for you, but it was for me. freedom. incredible freedom.


and then one night in may, i, a single woman who lives alone, who in good fortune adopted a boxer-pit mix from a local dog rescue group just a week prior, had an incredibly frightening disturbance at my apartment in the middle of the night. in a sleep haze, i watched my 6 month old puppy, sweet as can be, morph into the protector of the house, and praise the Lord for that dog, i was grateful. but i was scared, the police were no help, my emotions were a wreck from the drama going on in my personal life, i wasn't thinking clearly, and decided to leave town for a week. it took months to feel completely safe in my home again, but i got there.

and then, because the timing couldn't be more perfect, i felt i had nothing and no one, and now i felt unsafe where i lived, hannah, whom i attempted to keep away from everything, had become convinced that the reason i was speaking to the only person close to both parties i felt i could trust, was out of a sick manipulation due to a shared history of abuse. that i was literally manipulating this person because her abuse, which was extreme, made her an easy target for me. it is still hard to think of those words, but to write them, is excruciating. words, which you wouldn't say to your worst enemy, were said by a trusted friend. who knows me. who knows my life. one of the few people who knows intimate details of my childhood abuse. and she used it. the other girl, my confidant, in torn shame, cut ties with me immediately.

i'm not ashamed to tell you that with all of these things compounded, i completely lost my shit. there's no other way to put it. even by my standards, i went off the deep end into a complete meltdown. my poor aunt, who may be the only person on earth who has seen me through worse, literally had a crazy person living in her house for a week while i talked and cried and screamed my way through it until i literally had no tears or voice left. i wish i could have just soaked in those early days of january in a little more. i was so blissfully, ignorantly happy. i haven't truly been quite that way since. in the last real conversation i had with jenna, she said something i will never forget. i sat on my couch on the other end of the line with my eyes closed, and she said to me in a quick blow, exasperated, "too much. this is just too much. you are too much". it was a blow i couldn't have handled weeks before. i sat there, smiling in God's providence, for what seemed like hours after we hung up repeating repeating repeating the mantra. wouldn't you rather...? there is a light in you... use it. i remember feeling broken, but safe.


and then, the ex came.

the year that was: part one

so finally, here it is. my twenty eleven. this is long, maybe the longest thing i've ever written. thus, i'm separating it into 3 parts. this was a tearful, freeing journey writing this for you.. for me. i hope this gives you a glimpse into my heart, and can only hope my words help someone find community. i like to be funny and i like to post recipes,  i like to show you what pretty pictures inspire me and what great music influences me. but this-- this is my heart. i wrote it for you.

* * *

for my jenna. i will love you always. love, renee.

it was the afternoon of december 26th, 2010-- my mother and i agreed to meet for lunch the day after Christmas, both of us having made other plans for the big day. we decided that we would meet at a mexican restaurant half way between our two locations and near the interstate. i was nervous, as it was not a great year for us, nor for our already rocky relationship. in my nervousness and dire need to cling to making the holidays perfect on the outside as they were far from perfect on the inside, i spent an insane amount of money on gifts. for everyone really, but especially for her. something told me that if i tried hard enough, if i wrapped them beautifully enough, if i bought the most premium gift wrap, and the highest quality silk scarf, and the perfect Chanel perfume, and best crystal wine glasses, that everything-- everything would eventually work itself out. i walked in to the restaurant hopeful, i'm sure she did too. 

she left me, and the gifts on the table. this was the distinct moment in time that i gave up. i gave up on us ever having a hope of healing our relationship. done spending, done trying, done attempting to wrap everything in to a perfect package to disguise the ugliness that waits at the bottom of the box. my searing contempt for her blindly handing over her only daughter to an abusive father was reaching it's highest peak. and it showed. i refused to let her off the hook, and she had grown tired of the guilt that perhaps internally consumed her, but outwardly lives in denial from.

we argued enough to make everyone around us at the restaurant uncomfortable, and she walked out. my gift wrap i'd spent an hour meticulously presenting lined the terra cotta floors, everything i'd selected carefully for her a week before sat in front of me. this was over. in a wave of calm, i gathered everything of mine, leaving hers, and started towards my car. but we, we are an argumentative pair. i couldn't tell you where it comes from, i'm not sure-- something wild exists in our blood. she flew at me to continue the melodrama in the parking lot, but i had already had my moment-- my moment of giving up. sitting tearfully at a shitty restaurant alone and embarrassed. i slammed the car door, and my eyes glazed over. hers still raging. as i drove away, she went back in to the restaurant and collected her gifts.

before ever meeting her for lunch that day, i already had my backup in place. my go to. my best girlfriends of many years, jenna* and hannah*,  and it was to their house i drove, for venting and decompression, and later that evening we had plans to have dinner with jenna's family, my second christmas with them. we left, and jenna's family included me in their family dinner, yet again, for an evening full of our usual laughter and banter. and food. oh, the food. the fight with my mother it seemed, at least momentarily, never happened. this, this is where i belong, i remember thinking during a quiet chewing moment looking around the room and across the table at each and every person. i can't put in to words what this evening or these people meant to me, but this is the moment i go back to when i think about us. i close my eyes and transport myself back to that chair next to her in her mother's dining room-- all of us together-- when we were happy, jenna's father was alive, and before everything fell so drastically apart after 6 years of the closest friendship i've ever had.

new year's eve came and went and i met someone that would be the catalyst to change the rest of my year, and my friendship with jenna and her entire family, that for years i'd always felt securely a part of.  jenna's brother in law, whom in retrospect i must admit, my feelings for were sensationalized due to my own issues of family, my feelings of the loss of mine, and all that a potential union in that arena could represent for me down the road. (ultimately, those feelings and union were short lived, although no less intense at the time. i felt them genuinely, yes, but now recognize their skewed source.) somewhere in between new years eve and flouncing around on new-potential-relationship-cloud-9, it became clear that jenna was none too pleased with this budding relationship. cruel words were said in very typical blunt jenna fashion. what was not typical, what bottomed me out, what left me clawing to pull myself up from under, was the intent-- the meanspiritedness-- of the words. it probably doesn't surprise you that words mean something to me, perhaps more than what they mean to an average person. and it threw me. threw me right in to reaction mode-- a wonderfully insane intemperate trait i get from my mother. i had reverted, and i was lashing out right back. her eyes glazed over, mine still raging.

if you've spent any amount of time with a hispanic family, you know that they stick together, and the moment one family member knows something, the rest do as well in about 0.5 seconds. i don't actually mind this all that much, except of course when it has to do with me and when "knowing something" turns in to gossip, which turns into a snowball of onesidedness, which turns into something akin to jen is a crazy bitch, keep her away from my brother. that warm fuzzy moment of togetherness i felt was less than a month before the bad blood started. irony.

more things were said, more friends by default were dragged in, more reactionary defensive behavior from me, and the budding relationship that had created such a stink for so many, had to the surprise of no one, burned out in record time. in very typical jen fashion, i was over this in about 5 seconds, and expected everyone else to be as well. i held no ill will or bad feelings towards  him, but mostly, i just wanted to erase and sweep under the rug. however, i shared those feelings with no one, as it was later relayed to me that my presence was no longer requested at any family gatherings for a time frame yet to be determined... but it would be a while. wouldn't want to cause any awkward disruptions for anyone with the sight of my face. this of course was devastating, and left me feeling out of control and alone.

it was around this time that i started seeing a therapist, unrelated to this & albeit briefly, she did me a world of good. an older, soft-spoken southern belle type of christian counselor. kitten heels and blazers. peachy georgia drawl. blonde, soft bangs. i thought with all my fuck-shit-goddamn, litany of sordid tales, and anger at God, Jesus, i am going to break this woman. send her running for the hills when i let out the real, ugly, brutal me. but i didn't, and ultimately, she surprised me. and after every session, she prayed with me. every person who has been to a therapist (this was not my first, nor will by my last go 'round) knows of those little golden nuggets, those pieces of wisdom that you hold on to and repeat to yourself in times of trouble months, years, decades later. they become no less than the mantras of your life, repeated and whispered softly like prayers. she helped me zero in on my issue, my forever struggle: you are too much. you are too much for anyone to handle. while up until this point no one had ever actually verbalized this to me, it is a force that blusters strongly inside of me. maybe it always will. and it turned out that i would need her mantra soon, although i didn't know it yet. the day it came, in a freed, preachin' the gospel of the therapist's good news & shiny new penny sort of way, the first person i told, was jenna. she nodded, but this was gold to me.

sweep i did, and needing her friendship and place in my life, jenna and i attempted to go on as normally as possible for the next couple of months. but nothing was the same, nor ever would be. i prayed for the tension to cease, and selfishly for them to see the err of their ways and apologize for how i was treated. surely they would eventually see it. surely they remembered last december around the table. surely they remembered the goodness of past 6 years. surely she remembered everything we had been through- men, heartbreak, church separation, betrayal. the apology never came, and the resentment built up like bricks, one more, it felt like, added each day.

and then i got a call around midnight in the middle of the week. it was odd that i was even awake, and i was... blogging.

jenna's father had suffered a massive stroke, the severity unknown to us at the time, and was rushed to the emergency room. it was hannah who made the call, and per her usual calm during a storm manner, explained the situation and that they were on their way. and i needed to get dressed. per my usual, i panicked, and drove as such. when i got to the hospital, i saw her mother and brother upset, but in that quiet, eerie wait and see calm that only exists those few moments before the truth is delivered to you. we all sat in a circle on the cold hospital floor and took turns praying. in this circle, there was lots of praying for "God's will". when people of much stronger faith than i pray for this, i get nervous. i stuttered and stumbled around a few words, and although i hated saying it-- all i could come up with was a regurgitation of what everyone else was already saying-- "God's will".  jenna, a nurse in this hospital, was in with  the doctors diligently working to save her father's life. i remember hannah and i saying to each other, he has to be ok, im worried about jenna if he is not ok. this cannot happen now, not with everything else. then a doctor came out, jenna following behind her, to all of us eagerly waiting to hear that this man who had run marathons, who had battled multiple sclerosis for years with an indominable spirit, who had come from nothing yet flourished and helped so many in the community as a clinical psychologist, who had raised a beautiful family, who was irreverently and infectiously hilarious, who loved his only daughter and two sons so sweetly, would be ok.

this was not the news we heard.

the next 5 minutes i froze and all the chaos around me went quiet. i stood still, not knowing what to do or say, or what really was even happening. i called another dear friend at 3am screaming crying into the phone. next we were ushered into his hospital room where it was decided that he be taken off life support, and this was the last time. these were the last moments. it was there in that room that i saw unrelenting grief to a level i had yet seen, and i had no idea what to do with it. i felt scared and embarrassed at myself for my fear and unknowing of how to properly deal with what was going on, or how to help.  i tried to focus on my breathing and to somehow stay out of the way, yet comfort jenna, her mother, and brother at the same time. i will never forget her mother's eyes looking deeply and mournfully at her sweetheart of 40 years with a love many will never know, as he lay lifeless on a table hooked up to monitors and breathing machines. his CAT scan hanging opposite, the hemorrhage so hugely visible. nurse after nurse came by, all friends of jenna's, offering their condolences and support. the look in their eyes was the same as mine-- fuck. why?

jerry died the next day.

he was surrounded by the intense love of his family and his wife and caretaker of so many years. there was barely enough space to stand in the room. everything was quiet for a moment.

and then the flood came.

dead man.. err.. single girl walking

last night:

i drank wine.
and then i ran out of wine.
then i found some vodka in my freezer and mixed it with lemonade.
which was delicious but...
then i was kinda drunk.
then i decided i needed to eat a TON of guacamole for dinner. with a spoon. fine fine after the vodka, with my fingers.
then i decided that i needed to listen to music very loudly and bake brown sugar-caramel-coconut-almond cookies. they are the ugliest, drunkest cookies ever, but are pretty delicious. i will attempt to recreate them sober for y'all, and perhaps try to remember to add baking powder. whoops.
if there's anything i've learned from my mother, it's that drunk baking is the best baking. ok, i learned other things.. like fried chicken.
i wanted to update my fb status with my creation, but remembered that for the time being, i am boycotting facebook for some reasons. i give it a week, RELAX.
but then i realized, i have a TWITTER MACHINE.
then i realized that i am now addicted to twitter.
im sorry for this rant. this is the real me. and i have no facebook to take it out on.

i blame sara bareilles and her live version of sittin on the dock of the bay for last night's antics. it's fucking inspiring.

today

I heard his voice today
I didn’t know a single word he said
Not one resemblance to the man I met
Just a vacant broken boy instead.

• royal albert hall on repeat
• bacon & eggs  (check!)
• run.
• attempt research on blogger to wordpress migration without head explosion. God, someone please help.
• wine.
• my avocados are finally ripe, so i'll be making the guac salad i promised you.
• take down christmas tree. (what? i love it. and it sucks dragging it down three flights of stairs and out to the woods behind your apartment in the dead of night so no one sees you)
• tanqueray.

           y tu?