Through My Eyes: A Journal

By Liz Root

Contact Liz by emailing her at liz@vagrantcafe.com

Click here for weekly archives

11/10/2001
nothing like working all day on a saturday. today is one of those days where after a certain point at night, i have no idea whatsoever is going on. joel and i are going to the les savy fav show tonight, and some others are going to the blamed/squad five-o show, and others aren't going to either, yet somehow i suppose we'll all meet up.

i might go see U2 two days before i leave for the south. jill is buying tickets today and so it's a definite possiblity. that would just be super cool. i love U2. i've been pretty indifferent to going to their shows before this...but i mean, if i have the opportunity to go...then why not? i guess i've never really been too into going to huge coliseum type shows before. the last really big show i went to was the counting crows about a year and a half ago. but anyway...seeing U2 would be pretty dang cool. so i'll cross my fingers.

reasons why i am such a girl: i plan outfits for specific times when i know lots of cool people will be around. i'm still not entirely sure what tonight's outfit will be, but it will most likely involve the new leather skirt.

please please please let work not suck today.


- liz r. - 11/10/2001

11/8/2001
it's nights like these that leave me wondering if i'll ever see change. slowly but surely, it seems i have been taking steps to change myself...some kind of a mix between determination and divine intervention i think. they would seem like relatively small things to anyone else but me. i look at this washed and medicated face in the mirror wondering (despite yesterdays topic) why and if anyone would find this beautiful. i look at these flabby thighs that ache from the daily torture i've been inflicting upon them (the eliptical trainer at the ymca). these first three days of working out haven't been too bad, but some of the motivation is leaving. still...i suppose if there's a day where i should make it even more of a priority to care...it should be the day that i least feel like it. the day where i want to gorge myself on chocolate and pancakes and what not.

i've been crying a lot today. not from anything emotional, but from cutting and slicing about 15 onions, and allergies. still...i think there must be some emotional connection. because usually, if i'm abnormally teary-eyed from things such as these, it puts me into a funk. this probably isn't healthy. it's probably my subconscious saying, "you should cry more." i never cry. probably because when i do, i feel helpless, and generally worse off than before, so crying serves no purpose. so i'm kind of in the strange funk right now. i hope it doesn't last into tomorrow.

anyway...discipline of sorts is telling me i should go to bed so i can get a good rest so i can wake up and go be healthy tomorrow. woo hoo.


- liz r. - 11/8/2001

11/6/2001
today's edibles: two eggs, a salad with some roasted chicken, cucumber, and fat free (meaning: disgusting) ranch dressing, about four cookies, some heated up scrambled eggs when i got home from work, two wafer cookies, and two cups of Yukon blend starbucks coffee. not that anyone cares what i eat.

one thing i love is Clinique products. such as their shampoo. i love how friendly the people who work there are, and how knowledgeable they are, and how not super salesy they are. if you are a girl, please please please stop shopping at the local drugstore for your makeup, and start buying clinique. it's not much more expensive, and will last you three times as long. think of it...compacts where the powder stays together! that alone is worth the switch! personally...just the fact that i know i'll get good service, and can get a free makeover to try stuff out before i buy it is worth the extra $$.

wow, i really sound girly in this post. i suppose i'm allowed. being a girl and all.

sometimes when i look at all these female pop icons, i don't know whether to cry or laugh. i was listening to the radio at the gym yesterday and some jennifer lopez song was on about "i live life to the limit and i love it." if life to the "limit" means the hundreds of people to dote on you night and day, then go for it. i am underwhelmed. i guess my problem is that these girls want to be taken seriously as artists, yet they didn't create any of who they have become. they have to go through someone even to change their own hairstyle. they hardly put forth contribution to the songs they sing. are they performers? yes. can they sing? well...some of them. (this is where i say that although i do not care too much for christina aguilera, at least she can sing with some force.) can they dance? sure. and although i suppose it's nothing new for people to praise these human beings who can sing and dance...it leaves me questioning how far we as humans are really coming along.

i hope i'm not coming off like i sound jealous of these girls. perhaps in some small way i am jealous, but no more so than of any other beautiful girl i see on a daily basis. my problem is that when you see the faces and bodies of these airbrushed stars plastered on every billboard, gas station soda cup, and 5 second song clip in the latest "best of the top 40" cd they're advertising at midnight while i'm trying to watch Conan, we begin to think that this is what we should all attain to, and that these images are what is real. is it good to be healthy? sure. hence my working out and feeling the need to confess my daily cookie intake. (darn those cookies!) is it wrong to want to look beautiful? of course not. but as a society, and now more than ever...we need to take steps to begin to recognize true beauty. a friend of mine commented once that i find the strangest people attractive, and that i find so many more people attractive than she does. and i told her that's because her life centers around Nordstrom and In Style magazine, and that she has always grown up knowing that guys like her and found her attractive, and what not...whereas although I know i'm not ugly, i also know that i've got more of an exotic beauty. so because it's more of a struggle to find myself beautiful...it actually makes it easier to find so many other people beautiful and attractive. anyway...back to topic. is britney spears beautiful? yes. even without all that makeup? probably so. are *you* beautiful? of course you are...it's just idiots out there too consumed with themselves and some kind of image they're trying to attain to, and expect everyone else to attain to, that will never see it. and truthfully...would you really *want* those people to find you attractive? it's kind of like how sometimes i'll meet a really attractive guy, and then he speaks five words and pretty much becomes revolting.

anyhow...i have rambled. if you don't find yourself attractive, chances are...it doesn't matter. chances are someone out there who is used to seeing beauty in unconventional places (such as yourself) will see you and think, "my, my, my."



- liz r. - 11/6/2001

11/4/2001
i am the anti-thesis to self control. well, in regards to food. i'm on a diet of sorts...nothing set in stone...just trying to keep a better eye on what i eat. also, working out regularly. too bad health is the one thing you can't get instantly in america.

today at work this guy walked in the door and i had to do a double take to make sure it wasn't adam. this guy was actually better looking (can it be true?), but the height and build and hair was the same. and instinctively, i knew he was from south dakota. he came in with his father, and they ordered food, and at the end, the dad asks if he could use his punchcard here, so i look at it, and sure enough...it's got these south dakota cities on it. how do i know these things? i just figure...if there's going to be a guy that i'm extremely attracted to from the first look, he's going to be from south dakota.


- liz r. - 11/4/2001