Pick Your Artist: Britney Spears

Tonight I am finally going to the Britney Spears concert at the fabulous Staples Center. When I say finally, I mean that I have been wanting to get tickets to her Circus tour for the past year and see her in concert for forever. However, tonight will be far more than just an outer-body experience of pop-music wonderment. Let me explain:

So, when I broke up with My Ex, his final stand to keep me in a relationship with him (or maybe it was just a really awesome last thing to say to me) was, "Well, I was going to get you tickets to Britney Spears." Oh, in that case, let's date a couple more weeks so you can buy those. Right.

Months later on the actual night of that concert I was with Transitional Guy (and we all know he was terrific) somewhere in Echo Park (I know, I know, I'm a Westsider...what was I thinking?). When I mentioned that the Britney show was that night, his response was that I should have gotten us tickets. Um, no. First of all, if I was going to get tickets, I would not have taken him anyway because he sucked. Second of all, if one of us was going to get tickets for the two of us, that person would have been him. Because sometimes when you are dating someone, you do nice things for that person, like go all the way to some random bakery in Glendale, in lunch-hour traffic, to get that person's favorite dessert from when he was a kid for his birthday. Right? Right???? (If I could go back five months and slap myself, I would, believe me.)

Anyway. When I heard Britney was doing another show in L.A., I called my best friend and bought us two tickets in the nosebleed section and have been waiting anticipatorily every since. (Nope, that's not a real word.)

I saw this "Pick Your Artist" thing on someone's Facebook and always wanted to do it. Basically, there is a series of questions and you have to answer them using song titles from one musical artist. So, in honor of The Ex and Transitional Guy (who are thankfully out of my life), the incomparable Ms. Britney Spears, my BFF J. Jacobson, and of course, me, the coolest chick ever...here are my responses:

Are you a male or female? Brave New Girl

Describe yourself: Lucky

How do you feel? Stronger

Describe where you currently live: Circus

If you could go anywhere, where would you go? Freakshow

Your favorite form of transportation: Boys

Your best friend is: The Girl in the Mirror

You and your best friend are: Lace and Leather

What's the weather like? Hot as Ice

Favorite time of day: Early Mornin'

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called? Gimme More

What is life to you? Heaven on Earth

Your fear: Womanizer

What is the best advice you have to give? What U See (is What U Get)

How you would like to die? My Prerogative

Your soul's present condition: Anticipating

Your motto: Hit Me Baby One More Time

Your favorite color is: Autumn Goodbye

You know that: (I Got That) Boom Boom -and- I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman

If you could change your name, what would it be? If You Seek Amy

Something you are looking forward to: One Kiss From You

Love Stinks. Yeahhh...Yeahhh

I got an email from one of my friends yesterday beginning with: You know all those love songs about how horrible it is to be heartbroken? They're TRUE. Naturally, I had the immediate urge to squeeze this person to death, as to hopefully alleviate the pain of love lost, or at least replace it with the crushing force of my roided-out biceps.

Breaking up suuuuucks....

After blasting "I Will Survive" (and pretending to be sooooo over it), there is perhaps nothing more depressingly awesome than being super sad and then finding (and downloading) the saddest possible songs I can think of, making a sad-song-mix CD and then driving around aimlessly, feeling terrifically sorry for myself and crying. I suggest this tactic to anyone wanting to get over (wallow in) heartbreak. (This and shopping.) In case you're not sure what songs should be on this sad-song mix, let me, good-music-aficionado-extraordinaire, assist you:


Step One: Imminent Torture, various artists
First things first. If the person you were with ever made you a mix CD, which you listened to on repeat for a good couple of months and therefore, because of this devoted listening, contains at least 15 songs which remind you exclusively of this person and the best part of your relationship together (the beginning--before the guy made you believe you will never (never!) love anyone else again your whole entire miserable life), you will probably want to pop that into your car's stereo. And, while you're at it, gather any of "your songs," as well as any song you might associate with the dude: the song playing over the credits of that movie you saw, the one playing in the background of the bar the night you were sure he was in love with you, his cell phone ring tone. And alarm jingle. Then, when you think you can't possibly sob anymore, continue to step two!

Step Two: I Don't Want to Live Without Your Love, Nothing Compares to You, I Was Born to Make You Happy, I'm Missing You, I'll Never Get Over You Getting Over Me, etc, etc
After repeated play of the mix CD, which likely spiraled you into a fury where you snapped said CD in half and almost shot a piece of plastic into your own eye (let this be a warning--CDs don't actually break neatly in half, especially when you're mad), gather some much-needed easy-listening, ultra-cheesy stuff. Because when you're depressed, you don't think about how lame these songs seem--in fact, they accurately depict exactly how you feel and you can't believe you ever thought they were lame in the first place. Yes, Sinead O'Connor. Yes.

Step Three: Lady in Red, The Way You Look Tonight, You're the Inspiration, When You Really Love a Woman, I'll Never Break Your Heart, The Power of Love
Next, shift gears and go to songs that have nothing to do with heartbreak, but revolve around true love. True love you are certainly never going to find, so might as well feel even more sorry for yourself. This is typically the deluded stage where you re-imagine the now-disillusioned relationship, as if yours was a love as great as these songs depict. And then you cry sweet tears of remorse, trying to figure out what it was you did to prevent this great love from materializing. Maybe you should have been better about shaving your legs? Or let him pick the restaurant that one time? Damn you, stuffed animal collection. And nail-biting habit. If only, if only, if only...

Step Four: Man in the Mirror, One Moment in Time, The Greatest Love
The final step of this sad-song process requires you to shift gears a little. Instead of love songs about another person, choose love songs...about yourself. I mean, how did you get down this path of pain and destruction in the first place? Why didn't he love you the way you deserved? Because you didn't love...yourself.

I never claimed to be cool. Just F-Y-I.

Being the completely not-self-absorbed person I am, when I hear about someone breaking up, I think about myself. Being the pessimist I am, I think about how shitty it would be to break up anyway, even when I'm super-happy. Because someday, I probably won't be. (Great attitude, huh?) I mean, sure, I have a pretty tried-and-true game plan, but wouldn't it be nice to never have that gaping-hole-in-your-chest-that's-never-going-to-end feeling again?

Problem.

I've long teetered a fine line between bitter and idiotic, and so this blog was created so I might describe, delineate, explore, analyze, dissect, ponder, and otherwise publicly freak-out about my love/hate relationship with relationships. (Why I have no filter or shame or qualms about doing so is another issue entirely.) However, I no longer have a love/hate relationships with relationships. I'm deliciously, deliriously, disgustingly happy. Which means I'm having a hard time coming up with material. Which is really quite frustrating. Oh, wait. No it's not.

Sure, I could think of stuff to write about. How happy I am, for example. But who wants to hear about that? I certainly don't. I mean, it's a pretty terrible problem to have. Not being about to write about how confused, lost, wrong (or wronged) I am. Really sucks. Who wants to be happy anyway? (Have I mentioned how happy I am, yet? Oh, I did? Sorry.)

Oddly, when I'm happy, I tend to worry: When's this happiness stuff going to end? Can I anticipate every possible outcome so I don't get hurt? (I can. But for some reason I still end up getting hurt. Weird.)

But! I'm not worried. I'm just happy. And that's incredibly boring. Fabulously boring. Terrifically boring a.k.a. not boring at all because I'm so freakin' happy. (Please feel free to hate me. I almost do.)

You Know You're a Writer When...

...(or I should say, I Know I'm a Writer When...")

1. My student came in to talk about his paper and we ended up spending the majority of the time on his cover letter for getting into a fraternity. Or, I should say, I spent the majority of the time scribbling and crossing out words, explaining each mark with unrestrained enthusiasm. It was the best part of my day.

2. Hearing my boyfriend tell me he thinks I'm a good writer makes me inner-swoon as well as love him more and find him more attractive.

3. A perfect day consists of the following: me, a pot of coffee, my manuscript, and a pen.

4. When bad things happen in my life, I tend to shoo away the negativity and focus solely on whether or not I can use these events as material. And how! (Ugh.)

5. My students' disdain for writing kinda makes me wanna cry sometimes. Especially as I explain how fun it is to go over an essay draft ten times and they look at me like they a) think I'm crazy or b) want to kill me.

6. Reading a poorly-written book is personally offensive. It's like thanks dude for getting published while I sit here toiling away, and being way better at this than you are, while you get to snuggle with your pretty little hardcover and be awesome.

7. It takes me a good hour to think of a Facebook status update. I keep a mental bank of go-to's.

8. I'm pissed that my cousin took my grandfather's father's typewriter from my grandparents' house--so her four-year-old son could use it (hopefully later in life and not now). I am willing to make a child cry to get that sweet, sweet instrument into my clutches.

9. Days after I've written a blog-post, I go back and edit it. I change words around. I take stuff out. I add stuff. I find typos (humiliating.) I do this even though I am 99.9% sure no one is going to re-read it. Because I find it fun. Yes, fun.

I Refuse to See this Movie

Driving down Bundy to get on the 10 this afternoon, I saw a billboard for the film Couple's Retreat and contemplated risking my life taking a picture of it with my shitty Blackberry camera phone. The premise of the movie, from what I gathered by half-paying-attention to the preview and from said billboard, is four couples go to an island to rekindle their relationships. Vince Vaughn is in it--playing himself as usual I presume--as well as some other fairly big names (Kristen Bell, Jason Bateman).

I wanted to snap a picture because, well, look at the actors' faces, pained with crinkled foreheads and misery. Take note of the forced hand-holding, the despondently slouched stances. It's like someone in the movie-marketing meeting was like, "Okay I got it--we'll have the actors stand knee-deep in water and look like they want to kill themselves." Or maybe the execs know the movie is terrible, and the posters are supposed to discourage people from going to see it. While they were at it, though, they should have given the film a better title, like Marriage Sucks.

Billboard aside, who wants to watch married people fights for two hours, anyway? Sounds like a blast to re-live similar scenarios we've had with our significant others, only these people are better looking and on a beach. And I really don't need to watch them go to therapy and "work" on their "issues." Whoever came up with this idea should be fired. And then forced to watch the movie on repeat forever.

All I know is, I will not be partaking.

The Case for Waiting

My college friends are pretty much divided into two camps: Those who stayed with the guys they dated in undergrad, and those who didn't. Everyone's relationship is different and I'm certainly not going to make some sweeping generalization about either group. But as someone who won't be ending up with her college boyfriend, as well as someone who used to be so sure she would, I feel like I'm in a somewhat interesting position. And now I shall comment upon it.

For a long time marriage itself was the endpoint for me, when I would know that my life was settled, and marriage was where my ex and I were headed. When we broke up, my biggest fear was never finding someone, which is probably why I clung to a new guy soon after our relationship ended, even when this guy became pretty much indifferent toward me, worried I would end up alone.

A college friend of mine, who is in the same camp as I am, in that we're no longer dating our college boyfriends, has this theory: I think that the biggest problem afflicting women is not a nonexistence of good men, but a nonexistence of patience and/or confidence that they can--and should--hold out for what they deserve.

In a 2008 Atlantic Monthly entitled "The Case for Settling" writer Lori Gottlieb advocates staying with and marrying Mr. Right-Now instead of hoping for a Mr. Right. The whole concept that there is a Mr. Right promotes fervent searching and panic, and the word right in itself is problematic. But the idea that someone is better than no one, that anybody is better than nobody, is exactly the kind of thinking that made me stay with my ex--someone who did not meet the criteria of what I deserve. Settling, because you think you should be with a certain person, isn't fair to either person in the relationship. In my case, my ex and I were too young to know what we wanted (or needed) in a partner and I truly believe we both would have ended up regretful and unhappy had we stayed together.

On Death Cab's most recent album there's a song called "Cath" which I think describes a case against settling. There's a line that goes: As the flashbulbs burst she holds a smile, like someone would hold a crying child. Not only is the metaphor freakin' amazing, but I've been that girl. Settling, to me, means forced laughter, suppressed discomfort, and, above all, a subscription to the idea that once you've spent a number of years with another person, you should simply continue doing so.

But it's the second verse of the song that kills me: It seems that you live in someone else's dream. In a hand-me-down wedding dress, the things that could have been are repressed. You said your vows and you closed the door on so many men who would have loved you more. I just can't help but think how that could have been me.

It wasn't until I actually broke up with my boyfriend, and dated that next dude (who swiftly went from pretty-much-indifferent to I-think-we-shouldn't-talk-ever-again) that I realized I would be just fine on my own. Oddly, once I became perfectly happy alone and had stopped caring whether or not I had boyfriend, I found someone who met the criteria I established post-pretty-much-indifferent dude. (One of these criteria being that the next guy I dated couldn't be indifferent about me. Seems obvious to most I'm sure, but apparently I'm capable of being a complete idiot.)

So, I guess the moral of the story is that is doesn't matter what camp you belong to--the gals still with their college sweethearts or the ones who aren't. For me it was just a matter of being honest with myself. And having hope. And, perhaps most of all, as my college friend noted, having patience.

AdSense Knows Me Too Well...

So I noticed that since this blog passed the 10,000 hits mark (baller!) my ads have gotten way better. Instead of weird legal services and music downloading companies I've never heard of, I finally have legit brands on here. Please feel free to click away so I can make some money. (So far I've gotten $4, which is not so baller.)

Today, I realized that AdSense, the program that puts the ads on here, must somehow be spying on me (or, more plausibly, reading this blog) because I have a Jose Cuervo tequila ad on here now. Which either means I have become a total lush or I write often about being one. Awesome.

Eternal Analysis of My Striving-to-be-Deep Mind

Here’s how it begins: His text messages give you butterflies. (Or are they chills? It doesn’t matter, does it? Because, whatever they are, you love not just the texts but the rush you get seeing them.) You’re still a bit nervous (excited) while you wait downstairs for him to come out of his building’s elevator. You shave your legs every day—even on days you don’t see him because maybe you might (you hope). Yet, you know he doesn’t care if your legs are stubbly because he tells you there is nothing he doesn’t like about you. You feel so yourself you could go so far to say you've perhaps evolved into the best version of yourself—and don’t forget, you're insanely happy at that—but somehow you can’t imagine being any other way. It's twofold: You can't imagine the relationship being any other way either. You can’t imagine you being another way.

If only there was a way to sustain that beginning-of-a-relationship feeling, the pessimist in me says. You hear of those couples who stay in love seemingly forever, who make-out in front of their kids while washing dishes, slow-dance on their 50th wedding anniversaries. Are we supposed to believe this ideal is possible and risk potential disappointment of its discontinuance, or just blindly enjoy right now?

Okay, confession-time: when I see a deep, artsy movie I think way too hard about it. Especially when it's about people falling in or out of love. Tonight I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the first time, (yes, I’m a little late on this one), and it sparked my curiosity about the stages of a relationship.

What hit me most about the movie, and I’m assuming many people who’ve seen it might agree, was the part at the end where Clementine and Joel, who think they’ve just met, listen to tapes of each other listing all the things they can’t stand about the other person. The tapes were made as part of the process to have each other erased from their memories when they broke up and each person hears the most horrible opinions the other has about him or her very early, while they're still in that glowy-first-part-of-a-relationship phase. This shakes up what many of us experience as the typical progression of love, presumably for Clem and Joel's benefit. In acknowledging their capacity to hurt and disappoint each other, they can hopefully avoid doing so.

For me, the end of a relationship is often punctuated with a feeling of being trapped, of not knowing who I’d become or who the person I thought I was with had become. Certainly, I didn’t start those relationships annoyed by everything the guy said to me, or wishing I could just be single again. I wasn't a nagger or too tired to have sex, or not even wanting to have sex, or argumentative, or mean. I couldn’t even imagine being those things.

While watching Eternal Sunshine I thought, on the one hand, knowing what will annoy you or piss you off about the person you’re dating could be helpful—get it out of the way, you know? But, on the other, perhaps in not knowing there is still that hope to be that perpetually-happy couple. Of course, there are more than just these two roads (misery or true love) because relationships aren’t so simple. (No matter how happy people are, there are certainly gripes, misunderstandings, and fights eventually right?)

I used to be the type of person who wanted to be prepared for anything. I would explore all the potential outcomes of a relationship just in case it didn’t work out, better to be safe than sorry, might as well protect myself and not get blindsided or hurt or disappointed and all that self-conscious crap. However, I think I rather like the idea of simply imagining--hoping for--happiness. Especially because, right now, I can’t think of a time when I’ve been happier.

A Real-life Writer, eek

So...I've changed my NatashaBurton.com domain into a real website for my real writerly life. Hopefully you loyal readers have figured that out by now, as this blog will forever be found at cheerfulpessimisting.blogspot.com. (That is until the person who has cheerfulpessimist deletes their account. If you haven't updated in over a year I think blogger should do that for you...just sayin'.)

Anyway! I made my super-important-and-very-serious Writer site in iWeb and there are some weird kinks I am attempting to work out (random text boxes, you know, fun stuff like that) but I would love any and all brands of feedback from fellow writers, blog-readers, and of course my adoring fans.

So, please check out the new site if you have a sec. I promise my eternal love. Or at least a piece of non-poisoned candy.