Call it a new year. Call it a love for “How I Met Your Mother.” Or just call it stupid. Anyway you want to call it, it can’t necessarily be called how its seen.

I never really had the time to sit down and think about my new years resolution. A month into 2012 and I still haven’t. The past 12 months have been a whirlwind of changes that blew through my life. Yet, no matter how things seem to change, there’s always one thing that always fights to remain the same. It has nothing to do with how I wish my life would find order. In fact, I feel that my life has finally found satisfaction in many aspects I felt weren’t.

As 2012 hits the ground running, I am very optimistic about the changes to come in the next few months. Having my own place again is something I’m looking forward to. Not having to commute over 1000 miles to work looks to improve my quality of life. A move within my company which I consider a personal promotion is a huge motivation. The Chicago Bulls are 16-3. Overall, it’s looking beautiful!

However, I do feel like there’s a part of me that has been lost. Or maybe not lost, but just tucked away beneath a facade I’ve grown accustomed to show off. Either way, I think I’ve forgotten a part of who I am. Additionally, I think a lot of people in my life don’t understand that part of who I am.

There’s a show on television I’ve started to hold dear to my heart called “How I Met Your Mother.” On it, the main character, Ted Mosby, is telling the tale of how he met his future wife. Throughout the group’s hilarious antics, there is also a main theme of hopeless romanticism that connects to me on a more personal note than any before. The similarities between myself and Ted are pretty uncanny. The point of this entry isn’t to boast about how I’m represented as a television character to the tee or as a shameless plug for an amazing show. My point is to tell anyone who cares or anyone who is interested that I am who I am. For those not interested, you can stop reading at this point.

Still here?

It’s important for you to know that I haven’t changed the part of me who believes in that crazy romantic love story that all of us wish to have. I’m also not going to change the person I am to accommodate you just to make the puzzle piece fit. I’m a flight attendant. I enjoy Star Wars. I love going to theme parks when I have days off. I’m a movie buff. I like an occasional cocktail made with Ciroc. I love to take spontaneous trips whenever I feel the need to take advantage of my flight benefits. I believe you can love more than one person, but there is a person you should be spending the rest of your life with. I kiss on the first date if I can hear Sebastian the Crab singing next to our boat. I take chances and risks that may not be smart at the time, but it’s just viewed as another life lesson. I’m the one who wonders how they are getting married before I am, but couldn’t be more happy for them. I’m the person you should give a chance to, but doesn’t. I’m the one who suits up to be the wingman, but knows what it is that I truly desire. I’m not settling. I don’t want you to tolerate me; just sincerely like me and the dumb, nerdy, cheesy things that make me. I’m a hopeless romantic. Every failure I can move on from brings me one step closer to the success of my dreams.

Sure. I’m young. That doesn’t mean I’m getting any younger and it doesn’t mean I should be out there just because society says it’s acceptable. There’s a happiness I’m secretly seeking. In the mean time, of course I’m going to enjoy every minute of life with the people I love. All the people I can call my true friends and the family I can count on with my life are the ones who do a good job filling that void and keeping me busy. On the other hand, I’m still a hopeless romantic…

Robin: “You stole a blue French horn for me.”

Ted: “I would have stolen you a whole orchestra.”

Stay tuned…

Decided to handwrite an “air blog” while working my flight today. You can’t stop inspiration.

There hasn’t been much to report on my end. I’m pretty satisfied with the way everything has panned out the past few months. My focus has been on my job, my friends & my family. I’m not rushing into anything, but I’m sure a relationship will fall into my lap sooner than later. I’ve just decided not to chase skirts as much as I used to. Time to grow up & let life happen. People come in & out of my life for a reason (even though I wish some haven’t in both regards).

I’m thinking about going back to the movie reviews I’ve enjoyed writing & posting them up here. If you have any suggestions for movies I should review, let me know. And how, you ask?

Follow me on Twitter (@vivaldilavida), like me on Facebook, buy the t-shirt and ta…

Wait. I don’t have a t-shirt. Oh well. Do the other things.

Stay tuned…

There’s been some stuff bugging me lately, but none more than our so-called “pursuit of happiness” when it comes to relationships. I can admit that I’ve been guilty (on more than one occasion) of obsessing about this idea that we have to chase perfection. It can become an all-consuming entity that, in turn, can block the true pursuit of happiness in our every day lives. There will never be a perfect person; there will only be the perfect person for you.

How many times have I heard that one? More than I can count on one hand.

I’m probably the biggest hopeless romantic there is, but somewhere down the line the whole idea has become jaded to me. I’d love to fall in love again. I’d love to have my dream of getting married, traveling together, raising a family and all that jazz come true as much as the next person. After my best friend got hitched, all the guys in our “wolfpack” had a discussion on who was next in line. I believe I was listed pretty high on that list, yet here I am. I have no complaints with my life at the moment except for feeling unfulfilled in the “significant other” portion of my life. Although I feel young at heart and am on the verge of celebrating my 8th Annual 21st Birthday in less than two months, I’d like to get my feet planted and move into that next part of my life.

But what about this “pursuit of happiness” I started talking about? Well, I realized that it isn’t happiness I’ve been after. It’s more of this obsession I have with chasing perfection. I know I’m not the greatest looking fella on the planet & my normality may sometimes come into question, but I know what attracts me and what type of person I want. I just haven’t found her yet. I want a best friend. A person who can share in my laughs, someone who won’t judge me when I show her wrestling videos I recorded when I was younger, someone who can get down & dirty in a Rock Band party with my friends, someone who I can call a “penis” and she calls me “homo” right back and someone who loves me unconditionally without stressing about how insane our relationship can because we take a flight for the weekend to Aruba for no reason. And not to sound superficial, but that person also has to be the most gorgeous person in MY eyes. I don’t want Megan Fox for obvious anatomical reasons (google “Megan Fox thumbs” for a reference), but I want my sexy beast. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

How many times have I said that? Too many to count.

Maybe someday, the good guys will win again and get who they deserve. People like my brother and I are one-of-a-kind yet lady luck isn’t on our side when it comes to… the ladies. One day we’ll learn to stop chasing Amy & learn that it’s okay for her to chase us.

Stay tuned…

Don’t ask me why I just said that, but it was the first clever one-liner I could think of opening this post with.

Sitting at my crashpad in New York, I just realized I was recently inspired & didn’t take advantage of it. I just finished up a two-day trip from here to San Francisco and back. Many people give me weird looks when I’ve said it was my first visit to California, but it’s true. Needless to say, I was not disappointed.

First off, the weather was AMAZING, even in the chill of night. The crew and I ended up at the hotel around 11:30pm, but I secretly had other plans. My friend Bobby formally from Chicago ended up picking me up with his brother Jesse for a “quick drink.” A visit to The Parlor, The Supper Club (two thumbs up!) and one of their buddies’ house, I ended up laying my head back in the hotel around 5:30am (8:30am eastern time). I was beat, but didn’t let that deter me from exploring in the city the next day.

I got up around noon, took a refreshing shower & headed out to get lost. I decided to tackle Fisherman’s Wharf and its surroundings during this visit. Although I hate seafood, it was an experience like no other. I’ve shared some visual highlights of my trip below. To make a long story very short, San Francisco is definitely one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever visited. The people were all very friendly, the food was good & the architecture all around the city had me completely in awe. The buildings reminded me of the one scene in “Inception” where the city folds up on itself. I walked around expecting the same thing to happen as well.

Speaking of “Inception,” I don’t know if you can call it inspiration or not, but it’s been a while since I’ve had a dream like I had last night. It was definitely vivid and realistic unfortunately. Normally I would say this was a dream I did not want to wake up from because it was all going so perfect. However, once I realized it wasn’t real and I awoke in my bunk, it was a bit disappointing to say the least. I won’t go into too much detail about it, but I’ll leave you with a quote from my favorite movie that felt very appropriate as soon as I woke up:

Ariadne: Why is it so important to dream?
Cobb: Because, in my dreams we are together.

At any rate, I hope to be inspired once again within the next few days. My 10-day vacation is coming up next week & I’m hoping to do a LOT while I’m back home. I may just try to rent a car so I don’t have to depend on others to drive me around. I also hope to spend a lot of time with friends & family as always. For my Orlando people reading this, you should all have my phone number so let me know when I’m penciled into your schedules. In the mean time, I won’t lose sleep over any it. I’ll make plans one way or another.

Stay tuned…

A few months ago, my buddies and I embarked on an interesting but short-lived project called TheOveranalyzers.com, where we take many popular movies and dissect them to their core, pointing out the obvious and not-so-obvious flaws/facts of the flicks. It didn’t really get a chance to takeoff and reach its potential, but I figured I’d share my personal contributions on my site. The following two excerpts are my over-the-top analysis “Gremlins.” Enjoy!

Gremlins. A harmless horror comedy about cuddly creatures turned evil? Perhaps.

Or perhaps it is a mere distraction from a more menacing plot. No one may truly ever know what his motives were, but he should be considered more of a monster than any gremlin in the film. Do not be fooled by his dimwitted charm or innocent intentions, for evil lies dormant in the mind of a true killer. It was only a matter of time before malice revealed itself in the form of Randall Peltzer: inventor, husband, father and murderer.

Let’s take a look at the evidence for a moment. The inventor goes straight into an old Chinese drug store to sell one of his oddball mechanisms to the owner, Mr. Wing, and is smitten by a cuddly creature called a mogwai, who is also apparently a hummingbird of sorts. Daddy Peltzer then asks to buy the mysterious creature for his teenage son Billy. However, as Mr. Wing discusses the rules of owning a mogwai, such as not feeding it after midnight, not letting it near water and not exposing it to bright lights, Randall doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t question the rules, doesn’t ask what this non-existent creature has come from or even ask if the mogwai has rabies. No, instead he insists on purchasing the little guy anyways. It’s not until we see his home when it starts to make more sense. Sitting in the kitchen is an “egg cracker” that acts more like the hammer of Thor than an appliance. On the main counter is the failure of an orange juicer that spews out green gunk which I believe to be a poisonous pesticide instead of a normal orange color. After the murder plan via appliances had failed, he brings home Gizmo. Daddy Peltzer decides to let Billy figure it out on his own as he head out of town for an inventor’s conference, in which we only see him in a phone booth calling home in every shot. I’m sure he is waiting for no answer in order to confirm the death of his family. Hijinks ensue as the evil gremlins go through asexual reproduction and terrorize the entire town.

(I’m getting hungry so I’m cutting this short, Vargas.)

As the family is reunited back home, a mysterious figure comes knocking at the door. Obviously, it is Mr. Wig.

Wait – obviously? How the hell does this Chinese dude know where the Peltzer’s live? Was there a credit check performed on Randall that we missed earlier? No. All of the phone calls Peltzer made in that phone booth had purpose, including refund demands of Gizmo from Mr. Wig. After all of the failed attempts on his family’s life, he decided to cover his tracks. However, his plot was bound to be uncovered at any moment. You read it here first, folks!

And another plot…

We’ve failed to notice that these gremlins, whether cute or evil, are f*cking geniuses! No matter how primitive or violent they seem, gremlins are what happen when you mix Flava Flav and Macgyver. When I was born, I couldn’t walk let alone operate a snowplow. In the midst of chaos, these creatures take their Baby Einstein learning and jack it with steroids. In one scene, the gremlins take over Dorry’s Tavern, where Kate works at night. There’s nothing strange about this at all… if you don’t consider gremlins dealing in a game of Texas Hold ‘Em, operating a radio or perfectly playing an arcade machine weird! And another thing: how did they get money for the arcade anyways? There’s a perfectly good explanation for that actually. THEY DIDN’T HAVE MONEY SO THEY RIGGED THE ARCADE FOR FREE GAMES USING THEIR ADVANCED BRAIN POWER & MACGYVER SKILLS! And where did the hundreds of gremlins get all their clothes in such a small amount of time? Did they rob a Baby Gap store on the way to the bar? Apparently they’re not only great with rigging electronics but they’re also masters of the textile arts. Where is this custom tailor of gremlins? The creatures all end up in a movie theater to watch “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” in order to portray them as sensitive, caring contributors to society. However, the dwarfs are all fine workers of the mine, even though some of them have flawed character traits and narcolepsy. It is no wonder why the gremlins feel such a direct tie to them. They are one in the same. I personally think that the gremlins have one up on the dwarfs, considering how the crazy gremlins can even operate the projectors in movie theaters. Free movies forever? Send Gizmo my way and I’ll throw that little poof into the nearest body of water just to open up my own AMC.

Stay tuned…

Two people can be perfect for each other but if the timing’s wrong it’s never going to work out. Bad timing is the reason that most normal people end up single. Weirdos and creeps are single cause they are weird and creepy but people like us are single because of bad timing.

-Love & Sex

I thought I’d take advantage of some new-found inspiration and write just for a moment or two. It’s very refreshing (and sometimes rare) to meet a person who you have a conversation with and halfway into it, you take a big sigh of relief while slowly realizing to yourself, “Wow. Someone gets me.” I recently found myself in this situation while working a red-eye turn to Cali and back. It can be a bit awkward working a long flight like this with people you may not have anything in common with or don’t find interesting enough to have a natural-flowing conversation with. Thankfully, this was not the case last night.

There were a few points we touched on that I wanted to share with my loyal readers who have found some of my writings regarding relationships and their occasional struggles helpful.

It has taken me a while to really comprehend how important timing is in life. It can either ultimately build or destroy a relationship. However, as important as it is, we shouldn’t really think about it. Don’t get me wrong – I believe we should acknowledge and respect it, but timing isn’t something we should obsess over. The point of life and love is to enjoy it. We don’t have fun when we force ourselves to. You can’t force a person to go on a roller coaster or haunted house and expect them to enjoy themselves while experiencing it. Deep down, the person already has a preconceived idea of what their experience will be like. Granted, a handful of people may be pleased after the ride is over, but the majority will run off & find the nearest bathroom or trash can to vomit in. Relationships can work the same way. Our human nature does not like us to be alone and without companionship. On the same token, it does want us to find happiness. The pursuit of this particular happiness is the issue. We try to force ourselves into situations and relationships just to fulfill our own personal status quo. Ultimately, we don’t want to be alone. So we sacrifice our own happiness for the sake of being with someone in this moment. We settle for less than we deserve, even if it feels socially acceptable. We sometimes allow ourselves to sacrifice happiness based on what the world shoves in our faces regarding age, race and even our own personal type preferences.

That guy is too old/young for you. Won’t our parents be mad if you bring HIM/HER around? Isn’t he/she a little too tall/short for you? Ew. They wear glasses?

Sorry. I went a bit off course for a minute there.

Let’s continue.

We shouldn’t obsess so much on timing. That’s not the point. Just let it happen. Let go and stop thinking. This flows into my next point: complexity versus complicatedness. The dictionary definition of these words are nearly identical. In relationship context, however, they couldn’t be any more different. Love and relationships are complex; as human beings, we make them complicated. We tend to overanalyze our relationships more than the meaning of life itself. Yes, there are many moving parts to relationships and trying to make them work. However, once we pull out the wrench and attempt to fix or tweak those parts in order to make it perfect, the wrench slips and gets caught in a gear and complicates the complex machine that we call love. We don’t have all the answers, no matter how much YOU personally think you do. It comes down to just letting go and having fun with that person. I can speak for myself and say that I’d love to settle down. I just haven’t found the person who wants the same thing without complicating the relationship. I would love to find someone who has their own friends, their own independence & their own personality, but also someone who has a passion, excitement and joy for life that we both can share. Too much to ask? Sometimes it feels that way.

Stay tuned…

We talk about things such as closure, conclusions, endings and finishes. Some people make it look so easy. They go on with their lives in their own way, whether good or bad. I feel like I’ve put my time in & have been able to move on in my own way. And not only move on, but move on productively. Granted, there were many bumps in the road to recovery, but overall, I feel like I’ve come full circle. However, it feels as though it is becoming a yearly event where I sit around aimlessly thinking about the dreaded “what if” scenarios.

What if I tried to fight for it? What if I didn’t give up so easily? What if I didn’t take “no” for an answer? What if we had stayed together? Where would we be? What would my ring finger look like at this moment in time? What if I didn’t wait so long to tell you how I felt? What if I knew then what I know now?

I’m not looking for advice, words of encouragement or pity. I’m just looking to vent a little.

I used to think that falling in love was so easy. It probably had to do with the fact that I “fell” for nearly every girl I dated in my teenage years. However, it was just a veil that covered that feeling of infatuation. Now I wonder if this feeling of regret or lack of closure is just a veil for my insecurities or fear of being alone for the rest of my life. Somehow, I doubt it. Love is a word that I can say I’ve thrown around frantically throughout my life. I’ve thrown it around blindly just to make other people happy as well. However, if these recurring feelings of regret and incompleteness continue to surface, I feel that a true love will always be to blame. It may be something that I need to accept and embrace in order to move on. I don’t know what else can be said for me to accept the fact that the person may not be back in my life ever again. Yet, a hint of doubt creeps in just to whisper, “What if…”

But what if I can find that same love? Who’s to say it can’t exist for me again? I don’t remember if I knew I was in love right off the bat, so maybe it just grew out of nothing.

I suppose… I’ll just know.

Stay tuned…

But I digress.

As I sit in the JFK Crew Lounge and wait for that call from Crew Services, I’ll leave you all with a few last thoughts: the life of an InFlight Crewmember is exciting, adventurous, unpredictable, romantic and stressful. Or so I’ve heard. If you ask me, I’ll say that it’s so far, so good. The best is yet to come. As always, stay tuned…

Johanna, myself and Mom right after graduation from jetBlue.

Does anyone else think that there should be a sequel to “Tron: Legacy?” I felt incomplete after watching it over again. I am happy to report, however, that I did enjoy it more the second time around. There were a few more parts that reminded me of the original, which made me appreciate it just a bit more.

If anyone is in need of a good laugh, check out the episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force titled, “Broodwich.” I admit that I had a good lonely laugh.

Most of you have been updated with the recent developments in my life regarding relationships with others and with myself. I am happy to inform everyone that I am at peace with myself and am making strides towards the positive, responsible & mature side of my life that I had come to know during my learning experience in Chicago. I’ve used a lot of this recent free time for reading, resting & reflection. I’m just excited for a lot of changes that are hopefully coming within the next month. With God’s help, I’ve been able to tweak my life priorities a bit & truly appreciate honestly in myself and others. Boom. Roasted.

Looks like the trailer for the final Harry Potter movie has been released since just about 80% of my friends have posted a link on Facebook. Nerds.

For my birthday, I would like a new suit. Not sure where I’d wear it to, but I’d like to coordinate and look good for a special occasion someday.

Vegas & Italy by the end of the year. Bottom line.

And yes, I still do love you.

Stay tuned…