NadineBells.com

From now on, I'll be blogging at NadineBells.com. I'm not coordinated enough to maintain two personal blogs. It's not good for the narcissism either.

A boy once ended a quasi-date (one of those weird evenings that starts off as a nondate and ends up as a definite date) with, "Are you going to blog about this?" I responded, "Only if I can fit this into my 'Elegant Hairstyles for Every Bride' article."

I never saw him again. For non-writing-related reasons. And until this moment, over a year later, I did not blog about that night. Or about him. At all.

I scribbled in my journal. I spent midnights at the piano. And you had no idea. Because I was busy posting YouTube videos here.

It's a shame, really, that I'm at the mercy of such self-censorship. There are a lot of fun and crazy and frustrating moments that would make great online stories. But I want to be trustworthy. I want to maintain healthy relationships. As a general rule, I don't want to scare you away by making you paranoid that you're my next blog post. Unless you want to be. In which case, let me know. And I'll tell cyberspace exactly what I think of you.

I'll continue to tell stories. Maybe I'll tell even more than usual. A fractured memoir, if you will. You can blame Donald Miller for the life-chronicling. But I won't give all my secrets away. I'll leave that to OneRepublic.

I missed YouTube Tuesday yesterday. Appropriately enough, I can't embed this video from YouTube. I kind of love the first verse.

I need another story
Something to get off my chest
My life gets kinda boring
Need something that I can confess
'Til all my sleeves are stained red
From all the truth that I've said
Come by it honestly, I swear
Thought you saw me wink, no
I've been on the brink, so

Tell me what you want to hear
Something that were like those years
Sick of all the insincere
So I'm gonna give all my secrets away
This time, don't need another perfect line
Don't care if critics never jump in line
I'm gonna give all my secrets away

My Story

I'm starting a new journal. Not because I feel the need to start over fresh, escaping themes and preoccupations plaguing the present one, but because said present one is full. Cover to cover. It's a remarkable tome of two very eventful years. And not just hormone-induced "oh, she's a girl" eventful. There's some heavy stuff in there. Fear, death, heartache, anxiety. With joy, risk-taking, fearlessness, infatuation and optimism rounding it out. Some of it almost reads as fiction. I am not the Nadine of 2007. For this, I am thankful. I am moving forward.

Maybe I'll quote from it one day. In short cryptic doses.

I'm hesitant to write the first entry in the new one. I don't know what to say. I feel as though there should be something significant going on in my life or my head before I start to scribble. I don't want the first page to be boring.

I don't want my life to be boring.

I recently discovered Donald Miller. I know, I'm a little slow. And I think I love him. I want to hike up a mountain with him and tell him all my secrets. And then we can sip wine and talk about story and why I desire an epic tale of my own. I crave memorable scenes. Strong characters. I want to be able to define what I want and then pursue it passionately. I want to sacrifice. I want my story to make me a stronger woman in the end. I want my life to read as a redemptive and meaningful narrative.

And as Don and I walk down the mountain, he'll tell me how to get a book deal.

[Dis]belief

Sometimes I have a hard time believing the things people say. I feel like a disillusioned cynic. And I don't like it. But I'm now sure how to remedy this either.

There are some individuals on this planet who could tell me they're related to Kermit the Frog and I would believe them with every fiber of my being. I'd be excited for them. And maybe even brag about their awesome puppet ancestry on their behalf. There are others who could tell me that they had Cheerios for breakfast and I'd walk away mumbling something like, "I bet she doesn't even eat breakfast."

Maybe some people cry wolf too many times. Maybe I've grown weary of the runaround and the partial truth. Or maybe I just have a BS radar.

(BS = bogus stuff. Obviously. Because children might be reading this.)

When I was little (6 or so), I didn't like my best friend's dad. There was no reason for this outside of a child's intuition. BOY and I would be playing in the living room when MAN would walk through the door. In that very instant, I'd become uncomfortable. And I didn't know why.

And then one morning, MAN woke up and told his wife that he no longer loved her. That he wanted to live with her as a roommate, but see other women.

Somehow I knew all along. He creeped me out because he had creep in him. I sniffed out his inner bad guy.

Some time later, my mother told me that BOY frequently cried himself to sleep. That was so foreign to me. I'd never been devastated to the point of being inconsolable.

Tonight, I heard some devastating news. And I didn't believe a word of it. I don't know if I'm honing in on my inner-child radar of innocence, or if I'm channeling my inner bitter old lady who doesn't trust anyone anymore.

Sigh.


FYI: MAN was kicked out. Because his wife didn't want him dating other women. Understandably. Last I heard, he's still with wife #3. But that was years ago.

I have no idea what happened to BOY either. I hope he recovered from his cooties.

"What the world needs now...

...is blog, sweet blog."

Okay, so my blogging has been a little sporadic and random as of late. But I'm not sure how to catch up (or if I should even try). Life is busy and good and sometimes a little overwhelming. The end. Actually, no. Not the end. That would be sad.

So I'll just continue with the randomness. But a little more personal and less Paul Newman-y. Not that there's anything wrong with that.


Debate

I watched tonight's debate while doing Pilates on my living-room floor. I figured that this would guarantee that the time invested would be worthwhile. Even if the platforms aren't solid, my abs will be. Ha.

And no, I didn't flip to Palin. I figure the highlights will be all over YouTube in the morning. By "highlights," I mean "hilarity."

Sleep

Apparently, despite 25 years of sleeping experience, I still don't know how to successfully get some comfortable shuteye. I woke up with an almost crippling neck pain today. I think I pulled a muscle in my sleep. Is this possible?

I need a roommate. One who happens to be a masseuse.


Journals

I have a stack of old journals sitting on my must-be-in-love-to-squeeze-onto-it couch (it's super-tiny). I often quote them here. Because my younger self fascinates me.

There are a few things quite hilarious/tragic/telling in them:

• Certain events inspire journaling. So all entries are tied thematically. In fact, if you didn't notice that entries are often months apart, you'd think that I spend all day, every day, feeling the same thing, obsessing about the same situation. Or one of three recurring situations.
  
• I am loyal. Ridiculously so. It appears that one crush lasted three years. Probably not healthy. But I was young. And it kept me out of trouble.
• I apologize in them. As if my entries are actually being written to someone. There are disclaimers, justifications, excuses and such.
  
• Melodrama, folks. I could adapt them into a teen series for the WB network.
• I had opinions about sex when I was 11. Yes, 11.
  
• Eventually, journal entries turned into prayers. Or at least conversation with God. But it would take six pages of babbling before I let myself recognize that He's reading.
• I wish I could talk to my 16-year-old self. I would tell her she's beautiful. I don't know if she'd listen.
• Some childhood dreams were not left behind with childhood.
• I didn't always tell the whole truth. Some things I just couldn't let myself put on paper. Because then they'd be true. Or I'd be held accountable to my words.

My Apologies

On Tuesday night, I apologized for not being a smoker and for not being a lesbian. Which is perhaps better than the time I walked by the homeless man and said, "Thank you."


Lucky

I've never had lucky socks. Or lucky underwear. Or a rabbit's foot hanging off my backpack. But I think I have a lucky shirt. Actually, it may be a little early to dub it as such, as I've only worn it three times. But those three times resulted in three fabulous evenings. Two involving music. All involving fantastic people (of varying degrees of fantasticness). Maybe it's not the shirt that's wonderful, but the fact that I wasn't spending my evening in front of a computer screen. Hmm. Tough call. But I'm not sure if I want to risk ruining my little happy streak by doing a grocery run on a rainy Saturday morning in it, you know? Unless that grocery store is a really sensational one. And grapes are on sale.

(As an awkward aside, I kind of love "Lucy Got Lucky." Guilty pleasure. Maybe because I went school with the girl who plays Lucy in the video. Or maybe because "So another Molly Ringwald, well, she finds her Judd" makes me smile.)

Alma: Jumbo the Elephant

I wanted to tell you a story this evening. But one wouldn't come. And then I remembered that there's a brilliant one you should all read. Will Gibson, a coworker of mine/subtitler extraordinaire/writer/creative guy (that's a technical term), is the creator of a comic that needs your love.

So read it. Become a fan. (Yes, there's a "Become a Fan" button.)

Summary:
Canada, 1885. On assignment from the Society for Psychical Research, Edmund Mallory finds himself stranded in St. Thomas, Ontario, due to the arrival of the Greatest Show on Earth, P.T. Barnum's circus. With time on his hands, he sets out to gather local tales of the strange and unusual, only to find himself quickly embroiled in a web of mystery and deception. As Jumbo, the world's largest pachyderm, lays dead, it is up to Mallory to uncover the truth amidst the eldrich blasphemies, mysterious women, and ethereal ghosts that haunt the hallowed halls of Alma College, a proper school for girls.

Yes, St. Thomas is scary. Enjoy.

P.S. Will once shot a commercial in which I consumed an entire box of President's Choice Decadent Chocolate Chip Cookies while made up to look harrowingly ill. (Class project. Don't get too excited.) I was a computer virus. Eating cookies.

Day Camp Flashback

I was sitting at a table outside the gymnasium, waiting for parents to come and claim their children.

A little boy, probably 7 or 8 years old, came running out of the gym, a broken hockey helmet in his hand.

"Do you have any tape?"

"Sorry, I don't think I have anything strong enough to fix that."

He looked past me and scanned the surface of my makeshift workspace.

"What about that?" He pointed at the Scotch tape.

I looked at the helmet and frowned. "I don't think that will hold."

He walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder. He looked me in the eye.

"Have I ever let you down before?"

I gave him the tape. It held.