bisous bisous

Sometimes I think all allergens settle in the back of my mouth, making my throat and the roof of my mouth itch like crazy.

I can't stand when someone I'm dating calls me babe or baby but I don't mind when others do. Hun/hon/honey, I only want to hear from someone I am dating. But I still don't want to hear it often. Anyone and everyone is welcome to call me "love". I absolutely love it : ) Or "beautiful"

It drives me crazy when people respond to "Hi, how are you" by asking the same question. It is okay to also ask, but at least answer it first. 

I am so terribly afraid of spiders and bees that my heart still races for a while after they're no longer in my view.  Even after being in a car accident, I was calm and collected until I saw a spider crawling near my feet but I just tried to hide the fear as I casually stepped away.

I can't think of anything else that scares me, even just a little bit.

If you are going to try to scare me, you should probably wear a helmet, a cup and maybe shoulder/elbow pads because it won't phase me mentally but my body does have reflexes when prompted.

I can hold more liquor than one would think, based on my petite physique. But that doesn't mean I've never over-done it.
I've never smoked anything in my life but I have dreams where I am addicted to cigarettes and I think I can really tell what it would actually feel like. Sometimes, I crave them in the day time. Especially if I'm stressed out.
I don't get stressed out easy or often but when I do get stressed out, I go all out.
My best friend has maybe seen me cry three times in my life and most other people I know have never. Even when something minor is bugging me and I don't feel like crying at all, sometimes having my dad around just makes me break into tears and I still don't really get how that works.
I think the world of my nieces and nephew. I have about the same visitation as a divorced parent gets and when they're not in school, I see them even more.
My family means a lot to me, as they have raised me to feel. This is how I know they'll always be there for me in whatever ways possible even if/when I move away.
I hate being cold more than anything in the world. If I am cold, I feel angry and have a hard time concentrating on anything but my misery. I have never been to California but I feel it is the perfect place for me to live.
If love at first sight is actually possible, I should have gone to Italy this summer. I have never felt the same way about a guy as I felt about one whose name I never actually heard. I only read it off a scrap-paper with his name and number that he handed to me after leaving my workplace and coming back with it already written.
I wish I was raised bilingual because it was very difficult for me to learn the French that I learned in University and retaining it is even harder since I find hardly anyone around me speaks it.

I feel accomplished when I empty a bottle of lotion or a tube of toothpaste.

I believe three years ago was the first time I cooked a grilled cheese.Three boyfriends-cooking-for-me later and I can prepare meals all by myself : P It makes me proud when my nieces ask for my "breakfast potatoes" which is really an easy, quick recipe I learned from my last ex.  Every time I break up with someone, even if I'm doing the dumping, I feel really down but in the end, I always feel better off single.

I love kids and a lot of people point out how great I am with them but I honestly never see myself having any. Maybe that will change in a few years. But maybe not- don't get your hopes up.

I think Chuck Palahniuk is a literary genius and I feel ashamed for never even daring to think about having half as much courage as anyone of his created characters have.

Sometimes I feel incredibly inspired but get almost shy to draw things out or start a creative creation process because I'm afraid I won't be able to translate what's in my head to real life. And that would be embarrassing.

Whenever someone says phenomenon or phenomena, I think of the Dr. Pepper commercial where they sing something that sounds like "meh na men ah" followed by some cheery "do"s. 

When people say, "but, um" I think "bu dum bum" like comedic drums.

Ever since teachers started pointing out when people use fillers such as "like" and "um," I have tried to omit them from my speech. Sometimes, instead, I start a sentence over an over again until I figure out a way to word things because I try my best to avoid those and feel awkward sometimes just pausing instead.

In some short quirks-biography of a girl I knew, I read that she hated the sound of people chewing. That never used to bother me but it does now. It actually drives me so bizerk that I dismiss myself from the room before I end up saying something so as not to make the chewer self-conscious.

I don't like the spoiler on my car because I know they have a purpose on sports cars but are just used for looks on normal cars-to make them look sporty and I feel like a poser.

même des artichauts a du coeurs

A friend from the Gump recently quoted another friend on Facebook. It made me think of another thing he said that deemed quote-worthy. He, mimicking a popular childish saying, said, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words may break my heart."
I got to thinking about that today and about the original saying ending, "but names will never hurt me." What are we telling kids to say? If you really want to hurt me, start throwing rocks?
Are we trying to raise kids to be unaffected by the words of another human being? Sure this saying is originated to apply to foolish childish torment but what does it say about our society? Like my friend mentioned, words can burn much deeper than physical pain. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes we need another person's insight to realize that we are becoming something we don't want to be. Sometimes we need a critique that burns deep in our chest to drive us to succeed. If we say that words, or names for that matter, don't hurt us we are just saying that we've finally cut off a communicative tool that makes us human and that motivates us to change, teaches us to be better and encourages us to appreciate praise.
Words can hurt. We should teach children that instead. And, even when the words are aimed to dig deep and hurt, they can counter-intuitively lead the victim of said words to progress.  It may just be a song but there are plenty of real life instances where these lyrics from Dirty Head's "Check the Level" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHoN9FOGos4) can apply: "she didn't know that the things they said that left her hurting would actually turn out to make her a better person". It's just a little lengthy to say "sticks and stones may break my bones but those mean words you say can turn out to make me a better person so watch what you say."
In the end, I like the way my friend put it, "words may break my heart." This encourages thought and apathy. It appeals to our morale rather than our drive to hurt others. It explains that we are human and that language can be a very effective tool. It can motivate us to chose our words carefully, to engage our brains when we move our tongues. Overall, it reminds us that we are all human and that we all have feelings and, at some level, we care about what others think of us.

<3 *the title is a quote from Amelie, an amazing French movie. A rude, often crude and stubborn, man is calling his employee a vegetable and someone chimes in that at least he (the man, not the employee) could never be a vegetable, because even artichokes have hearts.

call me Bella

This is hardly a love story. But I hope you love it. I want it to inspire. There are so many blogs out there and I have hardly a clue what they're all about. I just know that I want this one to make sense and have purpose. I wish for someone to benefit. Words are so easily tossed around and often forgotten. I'm not expecting these words to forever be remembered but know that they are not coming easily. And they are not being tossed.
I am the kind of person who won't say something if I can't word it the way I want. This blog is not going through five stages of editing but each post will be carefully thought out. Words should not be wasted.

Not even in a blog.

Here is how I see it: Life is a struggle of purpose and beauty. If you fail to serve a purpose, you should at least be beautiful. Which is easier?

I love "would you rather"s. So here is one that I would like to share: Would you rather wake up and know that you're beautiful and see beauty when you look in the mirror but know that the rest of the world sees something more along the lines of ugly OR wake up and see ugly but know that the rest of the world thinks you are beautiful?