"YOU'RE KILLING US!!": Your Toxic Relationship Is Ruining Us All

Where to fucking begin...

Have you ever had a friend that goes through a breakup and they torture everyone around them with their obsessions with their ex S.O.s and stupid doomed-from-the-start relationship??

A few AVG stats:

1. I am the coldest, most austere and rational person that I know. Most people that know me can attest to this. I only have a few triggers in life that make me go insane. "Job shit" is one of them. You wanna see me lose my shit and act like a complete freak? Watch me at work. That's because it incorporates two of my most loathed enemies: money and forced socialization. I'm a loner through and through..always have been, always will be, so work brings out a form of anxiety in me that has been a massive struggle for me to overcome. I just do not feel comfortable in any work situation. Ever. Being a bartender was probably a bad occupation path...Besides that, I'm very logical. So when people come to me with weird emotional bullshit that is more often than not of their own doing, I have no sympathy. I'm the last person you want to talk to about relationship drama..My best advice is probably something that I read in a fortune cookie. I don't really give a shit..but you knew that, right??

2. My first and last breakup pretty much made me never want to do it again. Not in a pathetic, "I'll never love again," way...in an "break ups suck and I never want to do that again. My hand met the stove. Microwave it is forever," way. I have a lot of awesome and deep conversations with my friend Jenn (over Facebook, but it still counts). I'm always so exhilarated during them! It feels amazing to exercise my mental abilities and fucking think! And then I really think...I think, "god, this is as good as I'm ever going to feel at the hands of someone else". The last time that I had an amazing conversation with a guy was that Turkish dude...He had me at seeing "The Symposium" on his Nook...Le-fucking-sigh...Hot, rich and smart...THAT was the last time that I thought, "okay...totally." Sometimes I wish that I had self-esteem issues or daddy issues or some sort of issues that would allow me to just say, "you're a guy! And you like me! Wanna be my bf4evz?!" But that's just not me. Thus, I am doomed to be a carbon copy of my mother..a perpetual bachelorette whose only male companion is a teacup Maltipoo.

Now that THAT'S out of the way, back to the original topic...

I can't handle people and their relationship shit any goddamn more. Figure that shit out. If you're gonna break up, do it clean and get the fuck out..OR  torture each other..in silence..don't subject your friends to the agony of hearing about your shitty relationship that wasn't, still is, whatever...save the Chinese Water Torture for Guantanamo Bay..figure your shit out. I'm trying to re-wrap my intellect around the whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing, but I can't..I guess it's just been a really long time, so my only frame of reference as far as why it would be appealing is the on-call sex...I can't really see any other benefits. You know it's going to end..it always does..and badly..It reminds me of this joke that Louis C.K. (whom I fucking LOVE forever and ever...or at least until he has a scandal for dropping some heinous epithet or something). He talks about having a dog when he was a kid, but it got cancer in it's snout and had to be put down. He then goes on to talk about how getting a dog is like subjecting yourself to the impending agony of it eventually dying. It's cute, and then it dies. That's what relationships are like. They're cute, and then they die. So why even buy the goddamn puppy?! Why even have a fucking relationship?! Because we're all just codependent egomaniacal narcissists searching for something to fill whatever emptiness there is in that place and time, I fucking guess.

"CRAPOCALYPSE 2012": A Shedding Of Ways.

So here we are..a few weeks into 2012..and everyone that I know is depressed, going through duress and extreme life changes. I'd be a liar if I said that I was happy right now, but I definitely think that I've got the better end of early 2012, compared to most of my friends. Between really hard breakups, assaults, emotional cutting and everything in-between, most of the people that I know are barely afloat, quasi-drowning in a sea of undoing. Why is this? I think that it's the universe forcing us all to get real and shed the excess bullshit that we've allowed to accumulate. Forced growth. I think that if I didn't stay so isolated, I definitely would be exactly where everyone else is, thus, I've got 99 problems, but a dick ain't one. Most of my issues stem from the realization that it's time to woman-up and devote myself to a career path, at the very least a job that I get fulfillment from. I've spent my late teens and early twenties bar tending and cocktail waitressing..and it doesn't make me happy..I don't know if it ever did. The money definitely made me feel great, but the ups and downs of the industry is soul-sucking. I'm tired of being at the mercy and fickleness of the bar tending tempest. I want to invest in myself and actually use my fucking brain and support myself doing it. I want to work from home and decide for myself if I want to get out of bed. I'm learning how to design websites now. It interests me so. I love solving problems and seeing the direct result of turning thoughts into action. I'm doing my best to really focus all of my energy (positive and negative) into this. Between web design and Fantasy Funeral, 2012 is going to be busy. Anything that I do from now on that does not pertain to me actually achieving these goals are either means to an end or distractions. I don't want to go into my mid-twenties doing the same fucking thing.

On another note, I want to analyze what the fuck is going on with everyone and their mothers breaking up or having opposite sex drama right now. I don't think I've ever seen so much dissension in that area as a collective in my life. There is a palpable agony in the air. Maybe I spend too much time on Facebook, so I get to see all of the maudlin status updates and "in a relationship" to "single" profile changes. It's insane. I said it before, I'll say it again. I really think that it's a communal atrophy. We're all just getting rid of stuff that doesn't work anymore. I'm a firm believer in the principle that if you don't initiate change, then the universe will do it for you, but it won't be pretty when it does. Relationships are fucking tough. Every aspect of the human experience is tough. I've been re-reading "The plague" by Camus, and it really reminds me of what a lot of the people that I know are going through. You see the rats, they're signs, but you ignore them, until there's a full-blown plague. And here we are in 2012 and everyone's got it. so how do we cure ourselves? How do we recover? First step, get rid of the rats. Second, heal thyself. We can't rely on crutches like drugs, alcohol or other people to get better, stronger. We gotta do it ourselves, from the inside out. So many people spend their lives looking for their other/better halves..I would love to meet someone awesome as fuck etc, but I refuse to settle..I'll waste my own time, thank you..but I see so many people that put all of themselves into another person, so when it doesn't work out, it's almost as though it's a slight against who they are as people, which is just not so. I also think that a lot of people get caught up in weird fantastical romance scenarios..I don't know. Perhaps I'm a cynic..maybe i'm just the bitter single girl, I don't fucking know..but I feel pretty lucky that I do not have trippy S.O. shit going on. I'm a logical and guarded person with too much objectivity anyway, so for me to get swept up in some sort of all-consuming love affair is insanely unlikely. I think too much.

Anyway, I hope that all of my homies can get through all of this shit relatively unscathed psychologically and able to love again. 2012 is still in it's infancy, and I have faith that all the barely floating will end and we'll all be back to swimming.

"Some Men Just Want To Watch The World Burn.": ASHLEY STARTS A RECORD LABEL

Yes. I, Ashley, am starting a record label. No, not a super cooper serious one, but one that's mainly online releases. How did this come about? Funny you should ask! I've been making music since I was 19 years old. I've played shows, released some shit, but I'm not the kinda gal who screams, "LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME!!" Or begs people to go to her show..Or beats down doors of record labels..It's just not my thing..For all of my fuckery, I am quite shy and detest being at the mercy of others. It took some time, but FINALLY, I feel as though I have a sound that is mine all mine and fits who I am..Straight Funeral Parlor Shit. I'm super stoked that the playing field has finally been leveled for musicians..Sure, they'll always be a Lady Gaga, and shitty pop ain't going anywhere. But for DIY-ers like myself, it's a lot easier to get your shit out there AND actually make money from it. And with this, I have decided to start my own label! Why the fuck not?! A couple of weeks ago, I brought my MacBook in for a repair to the store in Georgetown. The little Genius that helped me asked me what I used my laptop for. I told him that I made music and wrote. He asked me to explain the type of music that I made. After I did, he asked me for my contact info so that he could try and setup a show for me there...Gulp...WHAT?! In Raleigh, my live performances are legendary. From smashing beer bottles, to dry humping audience members. I AM LEGEND. On top of that, a lot of my songs are soo explicit that I couldn't imagine a Georgetown Yuppie jamming to my shit..?? So I just chalked it up to the little Genius trying to flirt a bit..No big deal. Well a few days ago I received an email from the fucking Apple Store informing me that I would be receiving another email from a head honcho in regards to playing a show. It renewed my interest in reviving my music, and on my own terms. So now I am starting a little label for me to release my music. If it actually turns into something moderately successful, maybe i'll have an opportunity to sign other acts..That'd be fucking awesome. the name of the label is "Fantasy Funeral". I think that it describes the type of music that I make perfectly. I love a good church organ..