Monthly Archives: January 2011

4 Jerks in a Black Dodge Ram.

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Imagine this…

… you’re driving home from a day at the mall. You’re with your brother and sister, just relaxing and enjoying one of the few days this winter that there was any sunshine. You’re signing loud and obnoxiously to 50 Cent’s “Down on Me” – just making your older sister and younger brother laugh. From the corner of your eye you notice a huge, black, Dodge Ram in the left-hand lane. You really only notice it because the front passenger is rolling down his window and within seconds he is leaning out of it. Everything from his torso to his head is outside of the window, he turns towards you and flips you off. Yes, this 16 year-old-kid that you have NEVER seen before in your life is flipping you off at 3pm on a bright, sunny, wonderful Sunday afternoon. After the demands of your sister and brother, you speed up so that you are parallel to the Dodge, and the three of you in perfect unison smile and flip the middle finger right back at them.

Just when you think it is over, the douche bag in the front passenger seat, pops his head out again. He begins to give the peace sign, then spreads his fingers wider, he places them so that one finger is on either side of his mouth, then he sticks out his tongue and moves it quickly up and down, side to side. Before you have time to react, your protective younger brother rolls down his window and screams, “YOU’RE A FUCKIN’ DISGUSTING PIG!” This is where it ends, you go your way, they go there’s. 

This actually happened to me yesterday afternoon, and I swear on my life I have NEVER seen anything like it before. I could understand if he flipped me off because I had cut them off or something, but I didn’t.  To be honest with you, I was fuming afterwards. I just don’t understand what would possess a group of 16 or 17-year-old kids to act like such assholes to people they don’t even know?! Is THIS what our generation of men has turned into?! Was that at ALL necessary? Even if I had cut him off or something, this kind of behaviour is absolutely disgusting. I understand the sentiment that ‘boys will be boys’ and all that crap but does that mean that just because they are young and male that they have the right to act like little pricks? To be so disrespectful to two young women? I mean I bet they probably didn’t even notice that my brother was in the back seat! Now I’m not saying that all young boys or like this, or that girls would not have done the same thing BUT I am honestly shocked that people today have the balls to be so disrespectful to complete strangers! 

I think I was born in the wrong era. I think I was suppose to be born in a time when respect was valued, when men were gentlemen, when women were classy, and in a time when young adults had respect for one another. Maybe I’m  being naive, maybe things never really were that way, maybe there will always be a group of people that get off on being rude and disrespectful, but really, it’s 2011 – haven’t we evolved beyond that?

Haven’t we?
–
Love Always
Vanessa Xo


P.s I guess I should apologise for the amount of cussing in this blog – not because they don’t deserve the choice phrases I used – but in order to restore a little bit of my class… ;)  
So, I apologise for the cussing – see you next blog Xo 

The Power of an Idea

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Within the last week I have watched both The Social Network and Inception. To be honest BOTH of these films blew my mind – I think I might even have to watch Inception again to fully understand it. Regardless, the concept that struck me most in both of these films was the power of an idea. The way that an idea can “infect” the minds of others, in the most amazing or awful ways possible.


It is but an idea that can create a world of good or a world of pain. Think about it, everything we have today was sprung from one idea. It was sprung from the thoughts of one individual, who told another individual, and after hours of dedication and hard work – something amazing was born. From movies, to characters, to novels, to Facebook, to electricity, to charitable organizations, to war, to toilets: anything and everything was created as a result of a single idea. An idea that a person was consumed by until they created exactly what their “idea” outlined.


But what about all of those ideas that people are afraid to discuss with anyone. Those ideas that could and would have been life changing, maybe for many people and maybe just for one single individual. What about those fantastic, amazing ideas that are stuck on notepads, diaries, and in the deepest lodgings of some one’s mind? What happens to them? Where do they go? How many phenomenal things has this world missed out on because of fear? And at the same time – how many ideas would have better been left unsaid, for the sake of millions of lives lost, due to war and hatred? 


No one really knows, but I think what we can agree on is the fact that an idea has the ability to change the world, in one way or another. We can agree that if we let that four-letter-word get in the way, NOTHING will ever improve or change, things will always stay the same.

I believe in the power of an idea.
I believe that without a single thought, you can’t create anything.
I believe that ideas (for better or worse) are contagious.
I believe that all good ideas – all ideas that will HELP other people SHOULD be shared.
I believe that most people KNOW when an idea will help or will hurt others.

I believe in the power of a thought.
I believe that overcoming fear is necessary if you want to see your idea fully blossom.

– 
Love Always
Vanessa Xo

New Projects

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Hi All!

I’ve been working on something a little more “artsy” lately, that I am hoping will be in the 4th issue of Burner Magazine. I urge you all to check Burner Magazine as well … http://www.burnermag.com. I’ll give you all a sneak peek at my submission as soon as it’s finished!

 Also, I heard from the design team about my book – within the next few weeks we’ll be in the proofing phase – which means we’re one step closer to the completion of the book!! I honestly can’t wait for you all to see it!  

I promise a new blog soon – I’m reading a book by Tim Burton – which I think will inspire a new blog shortly! Thank you all for keeping up with my blog! 

P.S Feel free to follow me on Twitter – I’ll follow back!  @MyPenMyVoice - I’d love to hear any comments or suggestions for upcoming blogs.



–
Love Always
Vanessa Xo

You Create your Own Situations

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Every morning when I get to work, it’s dark, dreary, and a little creepy, considering that there are only 2 other cars in the parking lot. On the first floor of the building, there is always only one office lit. Because it is dark outside and the blinds are open, it isn’t difficult to see inside. Inside, there is an older man; I’d say mid 50′s. He is always in running shoes and track pants. You can see dumb bells on the floor and sometimes you can even see him trying to do sit-ups. He’s a pudgy old man that kind of reminds me of what my father might look like in 10 years time. He’s worn out, tired, and looks like he hasn’t slept in years. Every morning as pass that office window to get to the front door of the building, I can’t help but wonder what time he got there. It looks as if he’s been in there for hours, which would mean that he’s been there since around 6 am.  And so I ask myself, why?

Why wouldn’t you want to sleep at home for an extra hour or so and enjoy the warm bed that you sleep in, cuddling with your wife? Why wouldn’t you want to have a cup of coffee at home, and maybe even some breakfast with your kids? Why wouldn’t you WANT to be at home as late as possible, it’s not like you’re doing work. I mean seriously – I don’t believe sit-ups and crunches are part of your job description.


And then this morning it hits me – at first I thought that this man was probably a hardworking asshole that put his work before his family. I mean, shouldn’t they at least be tied?  But then I realized that it could quite possibly be something more than that. Maybe he’s unhappy at home, maybe he and his wife fell out of love, and maybe he has more problems than I could ever dream of. Maybe he’s divorced; maybe he’s surrounded by people, but still has a feeling of utter emptiness in his soul. Maybe he ONLY feels fulfilled by going to work early and staying late – accomplishing something that he knows he can.

Needless to say, I took the elevator up to my office and couldn’t help but feel a little depressed for the man a few floors below. And I wondered what I would look like 30 years from now… will it be me in that window? Hours early for work on a daily basis because the thought of staying at home a few hours longer is unbearable?

To be honest, I think that everyone is responsible for the situations they find themselves in. You know what will make you happy; you know what will make your life a drag. Personally, I want to be with someone and I never want that love to fade. I want to wake up in the morning but not want to get out of bed.  I want to want to stay in bed a few minutes longer and just hold onto the person I love as long as I can. I want to be happy at home.  If you are happy at home, regardless of how hectic work is, you will ALWAYS make time for your family, your wife, your husband, your significant other, your friends, and your children. I repeat:  you CREATE your own situations. You have a choice and you have to learn how to manage your time to get the MOST out of your life.

So try to bring balance into your life and work hard to keep it there.
Fall in love and hold on tight.
Try to create something wonderful.
It’s YOUR life: the cards are in your hands.
–
Love Always
Vanessa Xo

Roll with the Punches

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“Once my father said, women think they can make sad things go away
by knowing the reason that they happened” – The Sentimentalists
How true this quote is! I can’t even recall the amount of times that something happened to me or a girlfriend of mine, and we sat around trying to figure out WHY it happened for hours on end. As if figuring out WHY this guy left her, or why this guy cheated on me, or why we lost a few friends, would somehow make us less upset about it. As if finding out that he left you for someone else, or that he cheated on you because he was unhappy, or that your friendship ended because they didn’t like the person you had become, made it somewhat easier to get over — to move on and leave it in the past.
Why do we try to do this, ladies? In my experience, it doesn’t help heal the pain, but it can open up more wounds then you ever knew you had. I guess that for some people it may be helpful, but why must we analyze every little detail? Why must we let everything get under our skin, to the point that the pain and suffering that we cause ourselves shows up as bags under our eyes, or blood shot eyes, or a breakout of pimples.

Why can’t we be a little bit more like men? Let me clarify, I DO NOT endorse holding in your emotions, or not talking about things that are bothering you – but maybe they have it right by not analyzing every little detail about everything. As a woman, how many times have you re-read an email or a text message from a guy and thought about all of the possible meanings of the smiley face he sent? Is he flirting? Does he like me? Maybe he’s interested? Maybe he’s being sarcastic? Maybe, maybe, maybe… and we can keep going with these ‘maybes’, even after the next few messages he sends. Things stay stuck in our heads for an unnecessary amount of time.
I think that we can take a lesson from the guys out there and just roll with the punches. Not sit around and deliberate, not analyze every possible meaning of EVERYTHING. There is no need to figure out WHY something happened. It happened and that is all that matters, accept it, grieve if you have to, and move on. No amount of thoughts will change what happened.
As far as having to deduce a man’s feelings: more often than not, if a man is pissed – he acts like it, if he loves you – he shows you that he does, if you’re annoying him – he’ll tell you, if he wants to see you or kiss you or touch you – he will. Men don’t play these guessing games that we think they do. They do what they feel and they don’t have patience for guessing games – women TURN things into guessing games. Admit it, we love a challenge, we love working under pressure, and we love TRYING to find the different motives behind the actions of men, when in fact the answer is right in front of us. I think that for our own sanity, we need to analyze things less.We need to calm down, relax, and not let our minds run a marathon around the same event.

It’s tiring. It’s exhausting. And it’s pointless.
Instead, just roll with the punches, and stop over thinking.
If you don’t, you’ll burn yourself out time and time again.
–
Love Always
Vanessa Xo

Where is My Life?!

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Do you ever sit up late at night and think to yourself “where is my life?”  As in, where is it going? Why am I stuck here instead of moving forward, instead of doing all those things I know I should be doing?

We all have this picture in our head of the things we want to accomplish. The second that our life takes a detour or pauses for longer than we like, we get moody, antsy, and sometimes even depressed. The fact of the matter is we want to accomplish things while we’re young, so we try as hard as we can to reach our goals as fast as possible.
The problem there is that everything takes time. You can’t just become something nor do something without the time, patience, hard work, and dedication that comes along with it. This is a concept that I’m trying to get used to.
Right now, I too, feel like I’m stuck – like my life is at a stand-still and I just want to go. I just want to be in that place that I know I should be in. Sometimes I wish I could look into the future and just see if I made it – if I got there. At least I would know that all this patience is worth something, but I can’t do that, can I? I’m responsible for my own actions – my own future – and if I give up now, nothing will ever happen.
Everyone feels like they’re stuck sometimes, like their life is just standing still, but maybe it’s for a reason. Maybe you can’t move forward until you accomplish something else. Maybe you feel like you’re ready, but the universe is trying to tell you that you really aren’t. Maybe you should enjoy being stuck in this moment because at some time or another, you might wish to be back here. Maybe we all need to learn to be a little patient. Great things will come when they’re supposed to. But you can’t lose hope – the second you do, you’ll prove just how much you’re NOT ready for the next step.

So just stand still… Enjoy it…
Learn as much as you can from it and keep trying.
Good things will come.

–
Love Always
Vanessa Xo

Living In the Moment

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I truly believe that you must live in the moment in order to FULLY enjoy every day, every hour, and every second of your life but isn’t it possible that sometimes you have your head lodged so far up your own butt that you don’t even realise what is going on around you? I mean, think about it, you are so into the moment, so focused on the person that you’re with, and so focused on making this great feeling last as long as possible, that you don’t comprehend the stupid choices you’ve made until years later.


It’s like when you’re a teenager and you bring home a guy for the first time. Your parents tell you that they don’t have a good feeling about this guy or girl – immediately your defences go up. You then put all of your energy into seeing all of the “good” in this person so that you cannot see the bad things about them. Like the fact that they don’t like your parents and that they try to do things to get under your parents skin. Or how they disrespect your parents or your siblings RIGHT in front of you and expect you to take their side. When you’re young and naive, you trick yourself into thinking that he or she is only joking, that they really do love your parents, and that they’re just nervous. Seriously? Seriously? THAT is the best you can come up with? Instead of listening to your parents, you endure sleepless nights, arguments, and complete and utter tension under your own roof for months – or until your relationship ends up fizzling out on its own. After enough time passes, you look back and feel like an idiot for EVER taking that moron’s side instead of your own family’s.


Or how about when you get really worked up about something. You hear that a friend has talked shit about you or you heard something bad about someone else. All you REALLY want to do is send that ONE text message. You know, that one tiny text message that will start an uncontrollable avalanche of drama? Of course, you are so in the moment at times like this that you don’t realise what the possible consequences could be. So you type out that text message and after a good five minutes of staring at the send button – not really evaluating what you’re doing, but trying to muster up that last bit of courage… you do it. You send the text message. You immediately regret it. You face at LEAST a few weeks of drama and bullshit, and then wonder what ever possessed you to send it in the first place.


You can get yourself into a lot of trouble by living too much in the moment. I’m all for making mistakes and learning from them but I also think it is much wiser to become the omniscient narrator of your life sometimes. Look at your life from the outside-in and try to see the consequences of what you are about to do, and how it will effect your life and your happiness. I do believe in standing up for yourself but I also believe that there is a time, place, and proper way to do so. When you jump right into any situation without thinking, you might not see what is happening around you and THAT is when you can get yourself into the MOST trouble.

So next time you get that uncontrollable urge to do something or next time you disagree with your parents or boyfriend or best friend – step back from the situation and try to evaluate it accordingly. 

Live in the moment but try to keep one hand in the future and one hand in the past. 



–
Love Always 
Vanessa Xo

Blueprints

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My newest reading venture is The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrud – she is the youngest person to win the Scotiabank Giller Prize. I needed to see what all the hoopla surrounding this novel was about. I knew this was going to be a novel worth reading when I found something that I wanted to write about, on the very first page…

“As if all objects existed in blueprint; in different stages of design or repair.” 
 - The Sentimentalists
Just before this excerpt, the narrator is describing her father and the way that he looks at the world. As a house carpenter, he sees the world and everything in it, the way that he sees a house – as a blueprint. This got me wondering, are we all just blueprints in different stages of design or repair? Are we only in one stage or another? How many times can we go from design to repair, and back to design? Are we part of this “blueprint cycle?”
Especially when you are a young adult you go through the ongoing process of design. You  try to plan out your future, design your life, and you try to take the necessary steps to become the person you have always wanted to be. Even when that blueprint is fully into fruition, you seem to be designing the next stage of your life – of your future. Thinking about a wedding and children perhaps, or about taking some time to travel, or planning your next steps to ensure that you get promoted at work – whatever the case may be, we are always designing the blueprint for the next stage of our lives. We are always creating the house the represents us.
When you experience a setback – that is when you are forced to go into repair mode. It could be a minor set back, like a door that won’t shut properly, or it could be a major setback – like your roof caving in on a stormy night. Whatever the case may be, you are stuck in this mode of repair, editing the blueprints, fixing what went astray, working on yourself, as well as taking into account how you affect the “houses” around you. The repair mode or the editing of blueprints, is a very difficult process for some people. Not all people do well with pain, or failure, or even rejection. Some people spend a lot of time repairing themselves before they can move onto designing the next step of their lives.

The thing to remember is that EVERYONE goes through both stages: design and repair. Within those stages are even smaller stages, baby steps if you will, in achieving your goals.The key is to take each stage in stride and fully embrace it.Take your time with each stage – there is no deadline to meet in building this house, except for the one that you set for yourself.


Life isn’t perfect – sometimes things need to be repaired.
You must remember that more often than not, 
 the structure of the house will end up stronger than it ever was.
The repairs will become less frequent & your house will stand tall and strong.
 It will be ready for whatever weather comes its way. 

–
Love Always 
Vanessa Xo

Short, Sweet, and To the Point

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“You must never be deflected by unpleasantness… Although it may not be apparent to others, your duty will become as clear to you as if it were a white line painted down the middle of the road. You must follow it…”  (The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag)

It is very easy to get distracted by negativity, jealousy, “Debbie-downers,” and people that don’t believe you can achieve your dreams. It’s hard to go after your dreams when outside sources encourage you to take the safer, easier, or “normal” route.

How do you combat this? How do you stand tall through all of the pressure and all of the fears? As this quote implies, you KNOW what road you are meant to travel down, you know what you can achieve, and you know what will be worth your hard work and dedication. People will judge you, people will disagree with your choices, people will be intimidated by your passion, and if you let them – these same people will crush your every goal, dream, and aspiration.  

I hope that you read this quote and felt something.
I hope you were reminded of the path that you know you should be on.
I hope you remembered what your goals and dreams are.
It’s easy to want to do something, but it takes courage to follow the path less travelled…
Maybe if we all chose this path – it wouldn’t be so tough…
Maybe we could help each other accomplish great things…
Maybe… just maybe… it’s time to give it a shot
–
Love Always
Vanessa Xo

Hi All!

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Sorry I’ve been M.I.A since SUNDAY! I just recently finished editing my manuscript and after submitting it I am happy to announce that the design process has begun! It is still going to be at least 3 more months until you can purchase my book online or in stores but I will keep you all as up to date as possible!

I also promise you all a blog tomorrow! I’ve been reading The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley and something really caught my attention today!

Thanks again for continuing to check out my blog!

–
Love Always
Vanessa Xo