It’s Holly

bitch, fail.

PITTSBURGH — A 20-year-old volunteer for John McCain’s campaign has admitted that she lied when she said she was attacked by a robber who carved a “B” into her cheek when he saw a McCain bumper sticker on her car, Pittsburgh police said Friday.

Keep reading…

Music is a super important part of my life. If you know me at all, you know that’s nothin but the truth. It’s entertainment, it’s art. I often associate certain songs with important events in my life…we all do that. We do it in the office all the time.

For example::

:: fade in Pretty Brown Eyes by Mint Condition::

Mikee: OMG, I love this song.

Holly: I know, right?

Mikee: How long ago was this?

Holly: 6th grade, cause I had a crush on Joseph and we danced to this after school at one of those super lame cafeteria middle school dances.

:: fade out Pretty Brown Eyes ::

I couldn’t tell you what year that was off the top of my head, but I remember what was happening in my life when that song first came out.

And I love that…

Except when songs you really really love, you know… the songs you crave so much that you can’t sleep until you hear them, or you at least have to sing the whole song through in your head… except when those songs that you cherish most remind you of bad things, sad things, bad people. It ruins a perfectly good song… For a little while at least. No matter how much you love the song, you know it’s hard to hear it.

Sigh…

so many songs I want to listen to right now.

I went to starbucks this morning, got my Iced Soy Honey Latte and turned around to a lady that said “Ohmigawd, your hair is gorgeous!”

What a way to start your morning – with a compliment. So, in an effort to pay it forward, I’m going to try to give a genuine compliment to someone every day, ’cause it sure did make my morning nice and my latte a little more tasty :]

Thanks for the birthday wishes so far this morning! I love you guys, like, love love.

i made my weekly trip to the grocery store yesterday to stock up ‘ish. got the usual – frozen dinners, veggies, vitamin water, enviga, some fruit, water, more frozen dinners, tuna fish, bread, more frozen dinners.

it’s probably enough food to last me for the next two weeks, thank goodness, ’cause sista’s lookin’ broke-ish. so i check out, head out of the store, and of course the parking lot vultures are in full effect, since it’s 6PM the after-work crowd is antsy and no one wants to park underground (i hate parking underground). so i’m trying to load all of my groceries in the without pissing off the people waiting for me to back out and i realize…

“oh shit, i never paid for the water”.

there was a 12-pack of water in the bottom area of the cart that i totally forgot to pay for. do i go back in and fake out the dude in the 5 series who won’t get my spot after all? do i take the water home and charge it to the game, and promise to pay it forward later?

i took it home. is this bad karma? water stealing? i mean, shouldn’t water be free anyway? would you have gone back and paid for it?

I like to buy things, for me, for other people, but mostly for me. Some things I skimp on, some things I’ll pay top dollar for.

1) What non-essential item are you not willing to compromise on?
2) What takes up more of your time than it should?
3) Coupons? (that’s for you, Tina)
4) Karma’s got a pretty good price, too. How’s she treating you?

Happy Friday. Happy End of November. Happy almost Chistmahanukwanzaka.

Answer in the comments.

One week ago today, I walked into my (now ex-) boyfriend’s house and found two used condoms in the toilet and the scent of another woman on his pillow, which was technically my pillow when I spent the night. He said he meant to tell me that day, that he wanted to tell me when the time was right – which apparently wasn’t that night, because he was perfectly content with letting me sleep in the same bed he fucked another woman in the night before, letting me smell her on the pillow, like everything was fine.

I would have never, ever considered him a bastard until this moment.

It all started off promising enough 5 months ago. We went out of our way to see each other everyday – sometimes twice a day if we could. I fell in love, hard. For the first time, really. Before him I had never trusted anyone enough to fall in love, but he assured me it was safe. I had been burned so many times, he knew that.

Speaking of burning, everyone tells me to burn everything he ever gave me. But he never gave me anything material to burn. He, on the other hand, has lots of things to burn. If the tables were turned, he’d have one hell of a bonfire. Sometimes I wonder if every time he buttons up a shirt I bought him, or any time he steps out of the shower on to the rug and dries off with a towel I paid for, or whenever he listens to a song on the iPod I gave him for his birthday, if he thinks of how much he disrespected me and the love I had for him. Most of me doesn’t care anymore, what’s done is done, and I’m making peace with it. But there’s still a small patch of my soul that wishes he would reach out to let me know he’s remorseful… that I wasn’t a complete fool, that there was some truth to it all, and that it wasn’t all in vain.

I knew it wasn’t working. Deep down, I knew. But it was so nice to have someone there, even though he really wasn’t. The thought of it was comforting. The idea of it was what I’d wanted for so long, it’s what kept my heart in it. I kept convincing myself it was just a rough patch, this ridiculous state of relationship ambiguity was temporary. But I knew.

This isn’t meant to put him on blast (although it is a nice plus), but as a reminder to myself of the lessons I’ve learned. I’ve gotten to know a lot about myself in the time we were with each other, as well as the true character of other people. I’m honestly not angry anymore – that’s just wasted energy. Once in a while I catch myself thinking “How could someone do this? How could someone treat another human being this way?”, then I have to snap out of it. It was never anything I did. All I did was love the best I could and give everything I had, what else can you do?

If he was smart, he would have stuck it out until after the holidays and at least got a decent Christmas present out of it. It was gonna be good, too.

Am I glad it happened the way it did? Hell no. But it happened and I’m learning from it every day. The power went out on Tuesday night, so I couldn’t do anything but listen to my iPod, sit in the dark and think. I think it was God’s little way of making me sort it out before the emotion of it all got the best of me. Someone once told me that we have to bear the burden of situations we sometimes don’t understand, because we’re strong enough to do so, while others aren’t. Some people just aren’t built for that kind of loss and heartache, but apparently I am. On the bright side (of this dark, niggerish cloud), I get to fall in love again eventually, and that’s always fun.

I’m gonna go get my chakra’s cleansed.

Footnotes to Myself – Lessons Learned:
Trust your intuition.
Don’t hold on and be afraid to lose something that’s already lost.
You’ll be able to trust someone again, you’ll just never trust *him again.
Don’t give so much so fast. Don’t fall so fast so hard, if you can help it.

After recent events, I figured it was time to re-visit one of my favorite books of all time – The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.

It’s pretty deep – just a warning. This is one of my favorite excerpts:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

I mean, it just makes so much sense. How can you experience any joy without having been through the sorrow? Your pain comes from reminiscing when times were better, your happiness stems from having dealt with sorrow and being thankful for what you have. It makes me feel better when I think about it. All this pain I feel is just a means of giving me more joy to experience in the future.

so fuck him.

In light of this week’s recent events, today’s Friday Four is going to require some soul searching on your part. So here we go…

1. What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to give up (habit, possession, person, etc…)?
2. How did you cope with it?
3. Everyone likes to live the cliché of “I live life with no regrets”, but everyone knows that’s bullshit. What’s the one thing you regret the most?
4. Karma’s a funny thing. What’s the worst way, or the best way, that Karma has come back to you?

I’ll answer in the comments with y’all. And plus, I hate having zero comments. This guarantees that won’t happen. Happy Friday Fouring!

Ever since my sister, aka Krissi aka Tina, turned me on to www.pandora.com, I can’t get enough of it. The Jill Scott station and the Maxwell station haven’t let me down once. If you don’t know what it is, I highly suggest that you ask somebody. Or just go to the website and check it out.

Pandora gives you 10 hours of free listening as an introduction to their product, then you have the option to buy 3 months of listening for $12, or one year of listening for $36. Either way, it’s still a bargain. It’s definitely worth it. Last week sometime, I finally used up my 10 hours of free listening. And the first thing I think of is “…how can I release and renew my IP address so I can get another 10 hours?” So yesterday, finally, I broke down and spent my $12 for 3 months. It’s only $12, right? Right! Then I get this happy little email in my box this morning from the nice folks over at Pandora.com:

I hope this email finds you well, and enjoying some great music discovery.

We’re writing to you now, at the stroke of midnight, so that you would be the first to know about an important development in our service. The sheer volume of new listeners has led us to accelerate our timetable for offering expanded functionality. We have been scrambling to complete a bunch of work originally slated for next year and are now ready to bring it online.

As you read this, we are releasing Pandora Version 2. In addition to many new features including bookmarking, station editing, playlist improvements and much fine-tuning, the new service will now include a free, ad-supported version. Listeners have the choice to subscribe and stay clear of ads, or use the free service which will gradually incorporate advertising.

As one of our most treasured early listeners, we want to make sure this transition works for you-recognizing that you subscribed at a time when subscription was the only option. To that end, we’ve automatically given you a complimentary upgrade of your current quarterly subscription to an annual subscription- 9 additional months at no cost to you. If you would prefer a full refund, please just reply to this email with your request and we’ll process it with no questions asked. No matter what, all of your stations will remain intact.

Thank you for being part of a magical two months for Pandora. The enthusiasm and support from our early listeners such as you, has been nothing short of overwhelming. In just 8 weeks you have collectively created over 1 million stations from over 70,000 different artists and songs… Amazing! In the process you have showered us with countless new feature ideas, and thousands of great new suggestions for the Music Genome Project. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Son of a bitch, it’s workin’!!! Karma’s workin’ for me, bitches! I am like Earl! I finally decide to not try to do something the illegal way to get more for free, and break down and pay for it, and look what I get! 12 months worth of subscription for the price of 3!!! I guess I could be ghetto and get a refund, since now I can listen to free, I’d just have to deal with a few ads. But I’m not going to. I’m gonna bank my karma and g’on about my way. You do good things, and good things happen to you. You do bad things, and they come back to haunt you. Karma is a funny thing