I forgot that in the motherland, when it's hot, there are cockroaches. Like, lots of them. I think I've killed more roaches in the last two days than I have over the last year. It has nothing to do with whether your house is dirty or not, they just like the warm weather and scuttle about all over the place, creeping everyone out. Some of them are ginormous. I smushed one this morning that was bigger than my goddam thumb.
Hey, but imagine what life would be like if your thumb was REALLY a cockroach. How would you explain that to people?
For a while there, I wondered if a vampire could adopt some kids and raise them up normal-like. They would have to pretend they had some kind of sun-allergy and severe anxiety about eating around others. They would also have to have a nanny, to take the kids to school and such. I got stuck on whether or not they would tell the kids, and also whether they might one day get really mad at the kids...or the nanny, I suppose...and eat them.
Yeah, when I'm staring off into space looking wistful, THIS is what's rattling around in my brain.
I looked at college websites today. It did not go well. I ended up crying a lot and cramming a lump of rocky road into my face. It didn't help.
Reading about anxiety disorders didn't help either. Mental health websites always assume that you have the money, insurance, and time to seek professional assistance. They don't tell you that once you take an anti-depressant, you'll never be approved for affordable health insurance again. They also don't tell you that all those anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs can have nasty-ass side effects that can fuck up your life even more. That's if you can afford to buy them in the first place. They don't tell you that most therapy sessions are upwards of a hundred bucks for fifty minutes, either. No wonder it's only rich people that get better from going crazy. The poor ones don't go crazy in the first place, or they kill themselves sooner, or end up in jail, or hanging out on Michigan Ave, hustling tourists for change.
It's a good thing no one reads this blog. That last poorly-articulated thought would have incited some very cranky comments. I almost want to yell at myself.
Is it bad that sometimes I think that it would be OK if some guy wanted to marry me, let me be a stay-at-home mum, and tell me not to worry my pretty little head about things like money and a career? As long as he didn't abuse me or the kids, and kept us relatively comfortable, I can think of worse things. He could even cheat on me a whole lot, as long as the kids never knew about it. I should put an ad on craigslist. If I worked out a little more, got a chemical peel, stayed on top of the whole hair situation, and stopped wearing those ugly army pants, I'd be an awesome trophy wife.
Dear God. This is what happens when I spend the entire day by myself. Somebody slap me.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Nothing but the local DJ
No online Spanish homework, a stupid exam that I stressed out about for no reason, a woeful presentation in Social Psych, and a group assignment that I did basically all the fucking work for completely justifies drinking gin and prancing about to Lady Gaga with the roomies on a Tuesday, don’t you agree?
Pah-pah-pah-poker face, pah-pah poker face!
The semester came and went basically in the blink of an eye. I have one more term at the Downtown School for People Who Aren’t Going to Actual College, and then I have to transfer to Actual College. Good gracious! How the heck did that happen? Seems like it was just two minutes ago that I was watching way too much “Wifeswap” and bemoaning the lack of direction in my life.
According to the toad-like transfer advisor, I can go to whatever gosh-darn school I like because with my shiny, shiny grades and ability to barf out a decent admissions essay, any school in these United States would be glad to have me. I love her optimism. I do not love her glaring stupidity, demonstrated through questions like “You have a 4.0? How did you DO that?”
Bitch, how the fuck you think I did it? Banged each and every one of my professors? Hatched an elaborate scheme to hack into the DSFPWAGTAC computer system and change all my grades to A’s? Promised my immortal soul to the Dark Lord in exchange for good scores? Come on. I studied my ass off, did all the reading, made sure I went to class as much as I could, and did what any fucking student would do if they wanted to do well. I FUCKING WORKED, is what I did.
Nan, yer a window-shopper, takin’ a look but ya neh-vah buy…
We switched to Lily Allen. Why did she retire? She was so good, and so British! Also, why did she let that rapper dude sample “Who’d Have Known”? That song sucks big hairy balls.
I’m still dating Ten Hut. We went to the People Who Kill Other People For the Good of the Nation Ball about a month ago. It was all very formal and had a great many foolish ceremonies involving marching and parading about and cutting a cake with a sword and stuff. I had a hard time not giggling, and an even harder time walking in my ridiculous heels. Despite this, in our drunken state (we did some heavy pre-gaming) we actually said some things to do with actually enjoying the time we spent together (albeit time that mostly involved sitting on the couch watching “Mad Men” and eating Sour Patch Kids). After that it was kind of game on. I think passing out on the Red Line wearing a formal dress but no shoes and then piggy-backing through Wrigleyville, inadvertently mooning a bunch of Trixies and Chads, brings you closer together.
We went and visited his friends in Iowa for Thanksgiving. We ate ham instead of turkey. We marveled at the lack of anything in Iowa. We played Boggle and I mercilessly kicked everyone’s ass, because I am a bad guest, but I can’t resist showing off when it comes to my quasi-autistic Boggle skills. We played with their kids and I thought, he’s hilariously clueless about how kids work, but he isn’t scared of them, that’s interesting. We drank way too much Ketel One and Diet Mountain Dew. We did a road trip that was six hours each way and came out of it not hating each other. We did terrible, questionable things in our gracious hosts’ guest bedroom. We went to the Black Friday sales (Wal-mart, Target, Best Buy, BAM!, and some mall that didn’t have a food court) and made hilarious jokes about how the maternity section has all the good clothes. We ate our weight in nasty-ass gas station food. We went to the world’s largest truck stop and laughed at terrible Christ-promoting t-shirts. We made it back to Chicago alive and he drove me to work the next morning, and I thought, gee, this was unexpected.
Oh, oh dearie me…my little brother’s in his bedroom smoking weed…
I don’t know what to believe in any more. Or maybe I do. I did sixty push-ups today. Thirty regular, thirty girly-style. I believe in that. The soreness in my pecs believes in that. I want to get eight hours of sleep a night so I feel less like a zombie and look less like a sea hag. I believe this is a good plan. I am not as dumb as I thought I was. I believe that. I don’t have any homework for tomorrow. Well, none I can’t do on the train tomorrow morning. I believe I’ll have another drink.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Line up in lines
I have to run away and pay someone to listen to me bitch and moan about stuff (therapy) in thirteen minutes, but I thought I would try and write this down first.
So as I might have mentioned, I teach wee little humans in an after-school program. When we stretch and warm up before the class, we talk about things. Mostly we talk about the weather and do we need to be wearing boots yet and if Converse are made of leather do they count as boots, or we talk about pets and the kids recount long, dull stories of amusing things their pets have done, and then express shock and horror when I tell them I do not have a dog, nor a cat, nor even a measly goldfish or hermit crab. On one memorable occasion we talked about gross things to eat. Highlights included jellyfish, eel, chalk, dirt, and Rocky Mountain oysters. I had to cut that last topic a little short. Anyhoot, yesterday I had just the one kid in my class and we were talking about school. I was bitching about having to do a Spanish test next week, and he was bitching about having to do a Spanish test tomorrow that involves knowing all the south and central American countries and their capitals (way to go on context, Pip's Spanish teacher, but epic fail on actually teaching him any Spanish). Somehow it got around to all the reading I have been having to do lately for my social psych class and I found myself trying to explain the Asch line studies to him. It went roughly as follows...
"So I had to read about this thing for my psychology class. You know what psychology is, right? How people think, and why they do the stuff they do? Yeah, pretty much. Anyway, sometimes psychology people set out to prove stuff that everyone sort of knows is true anyway. Like conformity. Do you know what that is? Like, when a bunch of people are doing something, that means you're more likely to do it, too. Or you might do something on your own, but if a whole lot of people are doing that same thing, you're almost certain to do it. Anyway, this guy Asch, he decided he was going to prove that for a fact. So he did this test thing...he got some people to look at some lines, like...well, there were three people, right? And they all had to look at some pictures of lines, like, three lines. And then they had to look at a picture of one line. And they had to say which of the first lot of lines the second line, the one all by itself, which one of the first lines it was most like. You know, like, it was as long as line A, line B, or line C. And first up, the person who was being tested, he would say what he really thought. But then the other two people, who were really in on it, like, they were working for the man who was doing the experiment, they would lie and say "Oh, I think it's like line A", when everyone could SEE it was exactly the same as line B. And then the person who was being tested would get a bit confused. And he'd think "Well, I can see it's like line B. But these two other people, they're saying it's like line A. Maybe they know something I don't. Maybe I'll look a bit dumb if I say line B and it's wrong. Hm. I better just say what they're saying. They're probably right." So even though they knew for a fact it was wrong, they'd still say it, just so they wouldn't look dumb or make a fuss or anything. Isn't that weird?"
Pip mostly listened as I spouted off this diatribe, but I think I pretty much lost him towards the end. When you try to explain a lot of things to kids, they sort of look at you like, "I have no idea what you mean, and honestly don't know why you'd even be thinking about this in the first place." Which begs the question, if we all knew to begin with that people will do stuff that other people are doing, did we really need someone to make people look at a bunch of lines to prove it?
So as I might have mentioned, I teach wee little humans in an after-school program. When we stretch and warm up before the class, we talk about things. Mostly we talk about the weather and do we need to be wearing boots yet and if Converse are made of leather do they count as boots, or we talk about pets and the kids recount long, dull stories of amusing things their pets have done, and then express shock and horror when I tell them I do not have a dog, nor a cat, nor even a measly goldfish or hermit crab. On one memorable occasion we talked about gross things to eat. Highlights included jellyfish, eel, chalk, dirt, and Rocky Mountain oysters. I had to cut that last topic a little short. Anyhoot, yesterday I had just the one kid in my class and we were talking about school. I was bitching about having to do a Spanish test next week, and he was bitching about having to do a Spanish test tomorrow that involves knowing all the south and central American countries and their capitals (way to go on context, Pip's Spanish teacher, but epic fail on actually teaching him any Spanish). Somehow it got around to all the reading I have been having to do lately for my social psych class and I found myself trying to explain the Asch line studies to him. It went roughly as follows...
"So I had to read about this thing for my psychology class. You know what psychology is, right? How people think, and why they do the stuff they do? Yeah, pretty much. Anyway, sometimes psychology people set out to prove stuff that everyone sort of knows is true anyway. Like conformity. Do you know what that is? Like, when a bunch of people are doing something, that means you're more likely to do it, too. Or you might do something on your own, but if a whole lot of people are doing that same thing, you're almost certain to do it. Anyway, this guy Asch, he decided he was going to prove that for a fact. So he did this test thing...he got some people to look at some lines, like...well, there were three people, right? And they all had to look at some pictures of lines, like, three lines. And then they had to look at a picture of one line. And they had to say which of the first lot of lines the second line, the one all by itself, which one of the first lines it was most like. You know, like, it was as long as line A, line B, or line C. And first up, the person who was being tested, he would say what he really thought. But then the other two people, who were really in on it, like, they were working for the man who was doing the experiment, they would lie and say "Oh, I think it's like line A", when everyone could SEE it was exactly the same as line B. And then the person who was being tested would get a bit confused. And he'd think "Well, I can see it's like line B. But these two other people, they're saying it's like line A. Maybe they know something I don't. Maybe I'll look a bit dumb if I say line B and it's wrong. Hm. I better just say what they're saying. They're probably right." So even though they knew for a fact it was wrong, they'd still say it, just so they wouldn't look dumb or make a fuss or anything. Isn't that weird?"
Pip mostly listened as I spouted off this diatribe, but I think I pretty much lost him towards the end. When you try to explain a lot of things to kids, they sort of look at you like, "I have no idea what you mean, and honestly don't know why you'd even be thinking about this in the first place." Which begs the question, if we all knew to begin with that people will do stuff that other people are doing, did we really need someone to make people look at a bunch of lines to prove it?
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Riddled with disease
With this god-awful chest congestion thing I have going on, I sound like Lindsey Lohan. I swear, someone spilled a drink on my alcohol-monitoring bracelet. It wasn't my fault. I'm still the lovable moppet from "The Parent Trap," honest. On a quasi-related note, we were making jokes about how with my bandana-covered hair and hacking cough, I could be a cancer patient. *cough, cough* "All I want is one more day. One more good day..." *cough* Hi-larious. There is a special place in hell for people like us.
I might get a B on a mid-term. Maybe even a C. If I get A's on everything else, I'll still get A's overall, I think. Or maybe I won't. But either way, I'll still be me. And I'll be OK. You'll still like me.
I have to activate my shiny new credit card. I am slowly becoming part of the problem.
I have to go to sleep, stat. Spanish in nine hours...ay, mi vida. Punk isn't dead, it just spends more time conjugating verbs and goes to bed earlier.
I might get a B on a mid-term. Maybe even a C. If I get A's on everything else, I'll still get A's overall, I think. Or maybe I won't. But either way, I'll still be me. And I'll be OK. You'll still like me.
I have to activate my shiny new credit card. I am slowly becoming part of the problem.
I have to go to sleep, stat. Spanish in nine hours...ay, mi vida. Punk isn't dead, it just spends more time conjugating verbs and goes to bed earlier.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
A Missive from Iphy's Interior Monologue
Let me be perfectly clear.
What I'm about to say can be boiled down to one very, very simple message: you aren't good enough. You've never been good enough and you're never going to be good enough. You will never be strong enough or smart enough. You will never be thin enough. You will never be sociable enough or achieve enough. You will never be liked enough or be organized enough.
Whatever you do, and there are so, so many things that you will NEVER do, but whatever half-assed efforts you actually get around to making, they will never be up to standard.
No one will ever be proud of you because there is nothing about you to be proud of. You will never do anything to be proud of.
You weren't good enough at gymnastics. You weren't good enough at piano. You weren't good enough at theater. You weren't good enough in high school. You certainly weren't good enough after high school. You weren't good enough to stop either of your marriages from failing. You're not good enough at your job to do it without messing it up.
You aren't a bad person, don't get me wrong. You're just a sub-par, ordinary, mediocre loser. You're inoffensive enough, not good enough to be famous and not bad enough to be infamous. It's sweet to watch you try, though. Your squeaky little efforts to practice and study and work out and be organized and get your ducks in a row are just charming. I look at you pretending like you're going to get somewhere, and I want to tell you not to bother, but it's just too much fun. Silly rabbit.
You only get what you deserve, and you don't deserve anything good. You deserve bland, ordinary nothingness, peppered with occasional spatters of pain and misery. Why are you surprised and upset when things don't turn out the way you want them to? You don't deserve to get what you want. Only people who work hard and get it right get what they want.
You don't work hard. Everyone thinks you do, but they're wrong. You don't practice enough or study enough. You don't have your promo together. You don't do any of the things you supposedly wish you could do because you can't get your shit together to take a class or make a phone call. It's all so easy, but somehow it's too hard for you.You could make it easy on yourself. You could fix up your promo and then get enough gigs to just perform and not teach. You could have gotten scholarships and not had to worry about school fees. You could have set up a study schedule. You could have been organized and got your shit together, but you didn't. And then you have the audacity to complain because things are difficult?
Is it dark, hiding there in the shadow of Your Potential? That great, big Potential that you supposedly have? You could performed all over the world, but you haven't. You could get a wonderful, high-paying job in the straight world if you wanted to, if you could finish up a degree in Something Sensible. You could change lives through the social arm of your current job, if you just committed yourself. You could work with big name companies if you'd just get your promo together and audition. You could get a street show together and do all the festivals and have a life that was one big party. But there's always an excuse, always a reason why you don't, can't, couldn't, didn't. And so your Potential looms, and you crouch there in the dark, getting paler and weaker and more insignificant every year.
So go ahead and pretend like you're going to change and things will be different, you'll get better, you'll be happier. You'll take your meds and go to meetings and show up on time to class and get straight A's and practice two hours a day and lose ten pounds and call your parents every week and see the dermatologist and get that scholarship and date guys who think you're just wonderful...and you still won't be good enough. Because even if you fulfil my list of demands, you're still falling short. Because you should have done it better, and you should have done it five years ago. You should never have let this happen in the first place.
Stick as many cheery post-its on your mirror as you want, repeat positive affirmations until you're blue in the face, tell yourself you're nice and pretty and everyone likes you...knock yourself out. I'll still be sitting back here, laughing at your feeble efforts. You and me, we're always going to be together. You can't get a divorce or move to another country to get away from me. I'll always be with you, little Iphy. You can count on me to keep you in line and stop you from getting ideas above your station. You'll never be good enough, and as long as you're not, I'll be right here to remind you of that.
What I'm about to say can be boiled down to one very, very simple message: you aren't good enough. You've never been good enough and you're never going to be good enough. You will never be strong enough or smart enough. You will never be thin enough. You will never be sociable enough or achieve enough. You will never be liked enough or be organized enough.
Whatever you do, and there are so, so many things that you will NEVER do, but whatever half-assed efforts you actually get around to making, they will never be up to standard.
No one will ever be proud of you because there is nothing about you to be proud of. You will never do anything to be proud of.
You weren't good enough at gymnastics. You weren't good enough at piano. You weren't good enough at theater. You weren't good enough in high school. You certainly weren't good enough after high school. You weren't good enough to stop either of your marriages from failing. You're not good enough at your job to do it without messing it up.
You aren't a bad person, don't get me wrong. You're just a sub-par, ordinary, mediocre loser. You're inoffensive enough, not good enough to be famous and not bad enough to be infamous. It's sweet to watch you try, though. Your squeaky little efforts to practice and study and work out and be organized and get your ducks in a row are just charming. I look at you pretending like you're going to get somewhere, and I want to tell you not to bother, but it's just too much fun. Silly rabbit.
You only get what you deserve, and you don't deserve anything good. You deserve bland, ordinary nothingness, peppered with occasional spatters of pain and misery. Why are you surprised and upset when things don't turn out the way you want them to? You don't deserve to get what you want. Only people who work hard and get it right get what they want.
You don't work hard. Everyone thinks you do, but they're wrong. You don't practice enough or study enough. You don't have your promo together. You don't do any of the things you supposedly wish you could do because you can't get your shit together to take a class or make a phone call. It's all so easy, but somehow it's too hard for you.You could make it easy on yourself. You could fix up your promo and then get enough gigs to just perform and not teach. You could have gotten scholarships and not had to worry about school fees. You could have set up a study schedule. You could have been organized and got your shit together, but you didn't. And then you have the audacity to complain because things are difficult?
Is it dark, hiding there in the shadow of Your Potential? That great, big Potential that you supposedly have? You could performed all over the world, but you haven't. You could get a wonderful, high-paying job in the straight world if you wanted to, if you could finish up a degree in Something Sensible. You could change lives through the social arm of your current job, if you just committed yourself. You could work with big name companies if you'd just get your promo together and audition. You could get a street show together and do all the festivals and have a life that was one big party. But there's always an excuse, always a reason why you don't, can't, couldn't, didn't. And so your Potential looms, and you crouch there in the dark, getting paler and weaker and more insignificant every year.
So go ahead and pretend like you're going to change and things will be different, you'll get better, you'll be happier. You'll take your meds and go to meetings and show up on time to class and get straight A's and practice two hours a day and lose ten pounds and call your parents every week and see the dermatologist and get that scholarship and date guys who think you're just wonderful...and you still won't be good enough. Because even if you fulfil my list of demands, you're still falling short. Because you should have done it better, and you should have done it five years ago. You should never have let this happen in the first place.
Stick as many cheery post-its on your mirror as you want, repeat positive affirmations until you're blue in the face, tell yourself you're nice and pretty and everyone likes you...knock yourself out. I'll still be sitting back here, laughing at your feeble efforts. You and me, we're always going to be together. You can't get a divorce or move to another country to get away from me. I'll always be with you, little Iphy. You can count on me to keep you in line and stop you from getting ideas above your station. You'll never be good enough, and as long as you're not, I'll be right here to remind you of that.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
A Sonnet For Alexandra
Each week I come to see you and we dance.
I call upon you of my own volition.
Your awful patience strengthening my chance
to one day break with years of sick tradition.
The rotting dead you sweetly make me raise;
unearthing years of useless, fetid stuff.
I watch my hands, I cannot meet your gaze.
To stammer out the words is work enough.
A litany of faults all on display,
all pulled apart, a pin in every section.
Dissected in a kind and gentle way,
I shudder at your terrible affection.
What keeps me coming back? I think I know.
The gasping freedom when you let me go.
I call upon you of my own volition.
Your awful patience strengthening my chance
to one day break with years of sick tradition.
The rotting dead you sweetly make me raise;
unearthing years of useless, fetid stuff.
I watch my hands, I cannot meet your gaze.
To stammer out the words is work enough.
A litany of faults all on display,
all pulled apart, a pin in every section.
Dissected in a kind and gentle way,
I shudder at your terrible affection.
What keeps me coming back? I think I know.
The gasping freedom when you let me go.
Ketchup!
Here are some updates.
1. School has started for the fall. I enjoy learning about sonnets, the Pueblo Revolt, the "Warm / cold" experiment, and how to tell someone in Spanish that their shirt doesn't match their pants. I do not enjoy three hour classes, having to listen to that one stupid dude in history who ALWAYS has a comment to make on everything the teacher says but somehow never manages to say anything relevant, or having to haul ass up ten flights of stairs because of those d-bags on the escalators who don't move and stand side by side so no-one can get past them. I have to meet with a counselor person soon because apparently the time has come to apply for Real School. Ugh. This means I have to join the Smart People's Club and do the Give Me Money form. I've been putting those things off for...well, about a year and half now.
2. It has dawned on me that perhaps I wouldn't look so hideous, feel so crabby, be so achey, and cry so easily if I wasn't pushing myself to absolute breaking point on such a regular basis. I could go on indefinitely like I have been, but if it means ending up a neurotic, sobbing sea-hag, then why would I want to? As they say, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. The only tricky part is figuring out how the hell to a) relax more, and b) work less. Maybe I should convince a doctor I'm in chronic pain, get a bunch of Vicodin, take a little of it, and sell the rest. Best plan ever.
3. I'm still occasionally seeing Bruiser. We had a little adventure involving the lake at 3am, Jay-Z karaoke, contraband substances, and a very nice girl who we'll call Snowflake. I would like to repeat this escapade, preferably soon.
4. I have continued to hang out with the young man who has so Generously Served This Great Nation etc. Let's call him Ten Hut. He is comfortably unexciting, laughs at most of my jokes, and might be fun to take random road trips with. He also has freckles on his shoulders that I find inexplicably charming.
5. I saw W54 again. I don't think I've talked about her before. I went on a date with her awhile ago, and I see her every time I do anything with the derby people. She is hot and tough and knows how to sew weave tracks and I am in awe of her. I have no game with girls. I think it's because with the gentlemen, for the most part, I really don't give a rat's ass if they end up with their precious little feelings hurt. Sorry, boys. Consider it residual revenge for all those centuries of oppression at the hands of the patriarchy. With girls, it's kinda different. I wouldn't want to be mean, intentionally or otherwise, to W54. Partly because of the strong sense of empathy I have with her, but also because I know exactly how long she could hold a grudge and how easily she could psychologically destroy me if she wanted to.
1. School has started for the fall. I enjoy learning about sonnets, the Pueblo Revolt, the "Warm / cold" experiment, and how to tell someone in Spanish that their shirt doesn't match their pants. I do not enjoy three hour classes, having to listen to that one stupid dude in history who ALWAYS has a comment to make on everything the teacher says but somehow never manages to say anything relevant, or having to haul ass up ten flights of stairs because of those d-bags on the escalators who don't move and stand side by side so no-one can get past them. I have to meet with a counselor person soon because apparently the time has come to apply for Real School. Ugh. This means I have to join the Smart People's Club and do the Give Me Money form. I've been putting those things off for...well, about a year and half now.
2. It has dawned on me that perhaps I wouldn't look so hideous, feel so crabby, be so achey, and cry so easily if I wasn't pushing myself to absolute breaking point on such a regular basis. I could go on indefinitely like I have been, but if it means ending up a neurotic, sobbing sea-hag, then why would I want to? As they say, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. The only tricky part is figuring out how the hell to a) relax more, and b) work less. Maybe I should convince a doctor I'm in chronic pain, get a bunch of Vicodin, take a little of it, and sell the rest. Best plan ever.
3. I'm still occasionally seeing Bruiser. We had a little adventure involving the lake at 3am, Jay-Z karaoke, contraband substances, and a very nice girl who we'll call Snowflake. I would like to repeat this escapade, preferably soon.
4. I have continued to hang out with the young man who has so Generously Served This Great Nation etc. Let's call him Ten Hut. He is comfortably unexciting, laughs at most of my jokes, and might be fun to take random road trips with. He also has freckles on his shoulders that I find inexplicably charming.
5. I saw W54 again. I don't think I've talked about her before. I went on a date with her awhile ago, and I see her every time I do anything with the derby people. She is hot and tough and knows how to sew weave tracks and I am in awe of her. I have no game with girls. I think it's because with the gentlemen, for the most part, I really don't give a rat's ass if they end up with their precious little feelings hurt. Sorry, boys. Consider it residual revenge for all those centuries of oppression at the hands of the patriarchy. With girls, it's kinda different. I wouldn't want to be mean, intentionally or otherwise, to W54. Partly because of the strong sense of empathy I have with her, but also because I know exactly how long she could hold a grudge and how easily she could psychologically destroy me if she wanted to.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Beam and lime-ade
According to the terrible crosswords I occasionally do in Us Weekly and Star, "ades" means drinks. Like, lemonades. Or lime-ades. I didn't think you could use a suffix in a crossword, but apparently what I don't know could fill a warehouse. I couldn't tell you how to effectively use hot rollers, either.
We had a gig last night at that stupid tourist attraction that is so thoroughly entrenched in the minds of the masses as a Chicago landmark that you can never convince an out-of-towner not to bother with it cuz it's basically a waste of everyone's time. I have only ever been there once when I wasn't being paid to be there, let's put it that way. And I was with my in-laws (well, ex-in-laws now, but whatever) at the time. It's big and and striking-looking and all that, but seriously, people! We have so much more going on than a goddam ferris wheel and some fireworks.
Although if you'd like to know more about ferris wheels and why they are important to the Second City, I suggest you read "The Devil in the White City". But you still shouldn't bother with Navy Pier.
Anyhoot, we had a gig there and there were gift bags involving screaming monkeys and flash drives. There was also a little person hosting the show. I kind of wanted to befriend him, mainly because his patter was so fucking filthy, I couldn't help but think he was probably a nice person. He also seemed like someone who would understand the ins and outs of being a charming oddity or moving wall-paper. Kind of like that time I wished I could make friends with that nice break-dancer boy, or the girl who worked as a human sushi platter. Too bad I'm a socially-retarded wienie-burger who doesn't know how to talk to people. Le sigh.
Oh man, I totally want kitfo right now. Spicy raw meat. Nom. I will settle for an American Spirit and then about seventeen glasses of water to try and kill my buzz before I go to sleep. I have a private class with Little T tomorrow morning at eight thirty, and while I'll happily show up hungover as fuck, reeking of cigarettes and bad decisions, to teach my kids at That Place I Work With Kids, I want Little T to view me as a somewhat stable adult who has her best interests in mind.
On a completely unrelated note, I went on some dates with a dude who has spent the last however long Serving His Country. My eighteen-year-old self would be disgusted. My twenty-seven-year-old self is a little more open-minded, but mostly wants to see how such a spectacularly incompatible pairing pans out.
We had a gig last night at that stupid tourist attraction that is so thoroughly entrenched in the minds of the masses as a Chicago landmark that you can never convince an out-of-towner not to bother with it cuz it's basically a waste of everyone's time. I have only ever been there once when I wasn't being paid to be there, let's put it that way. And I was with my in-laws (well, ex-in-laws now, but whatever) at the time. It's big and and striking-looking and all that, but seriously, people! We have so much more going on than a goddam ferris wheel and some fireworks.
Although if you'd like to know more about ferris wheels and why they are important to the Second City, I suggest you read "The Devil in the White City". But you still shouldn't bother with Navy Pier.
Anyhoot, we had a gig there and there were gift bags involving screaming monkeys and flash drives. There was also a little person hosting the show. I kind of wanted to befriend him, mainly because his patter was so fucking filthy, I couldn't help but think he was probably a nice person. He also seemed like someone who would understand the ins and outs of being a charming oddity or moving wall-paper. Kind of like that time I wished I could make friends with that nice break-dancer boy, or the girl who worked as a human sushi platter. Too bad I'm a socially-retarded wienie-burger who doesn't know how to talk to people. Le sigh.
Oh man, I totally want kitfo right now. Spicy raw meat. Nom. I will settle for an American Spirit and then about seventeen glasses of water to try and kill my buzz before I go to sleep. I have a private class with Little T tomorrow morning at eight thirty, and while I'll happily show up hungover as fuck, reeking of cigarettes and bad decisions, to teach my kids at That Place I Work With Kids, I want Little T to view me as a somewhat stable adult who has her best interests in mind.
On a completely unrelated note, I went on some dates with a dude who has spent the last however long Serving His Country. My eighteen-year-old self would be disgusted. My twenty-seven-year-old self is a little more open-minded, but mostly wants to see how such a spectacularly incompatible pairing pans out.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
A Party You Don't Want To Go To
Here are some things that I don't like.
1. Looking at pictures of myself performing.
2. Looking at videos of myself performing.
3. Talking to people about my performances.
4. Taking compliments or feedback about my performances.
5. The way I look in my costumes.
6. The way I look in general.
7. My lack of self-control.
8. My amazing ability to eat everything in sight and pack on pounds at a rate of knots.
9. How much time I spend thinking about how I look and what I eat and how much I suck because of those two things.
This week, instead of eating, I will do other things. Here are some other things I will do.
1. Practice. For hours and hours and hours. Practice until everything is perfect every time. There's nothing like setting achievable goals.
2. Work with my diabolo. It makes me happy and stops me from thinking too much.
3. Drink water. Even though fish fuck in it.
4. Read children's books in Spanish. I have to start remembering all the stuff I've forgotten from last semester before fall classes start, and perusal of libros infantils en espanol (yes, I know I missed the accents marks. Shut up,) is a good way to do that.
5. Go running. Because giving myself shin splints and destroying my knee cartilage will definitely distract me from the heft of my thighs.
6. Sew and glue sequins on things. It's hard to cram food into your face when your fingers are covered in E-6000.
7. Make lists of all my wonderful, wonderful qualities that are not reliant on having no cellulite and fitting into a size four. Although someone my height should be a size two. Which I'm not. And never will be, because I'm a lazy, fat, greedy slob who can't control herself. Oh, am I digressing? Sorry.
Here is the first of those lists.
1. I am good at spelling.
2. I can type quickly.
3. Children like me. They would probably still like me if I was fatter than I am.
4. I read a lot. People seem to think this is a good quality to have.
5. I am a good student. I might not be the smartest, but I am usually the hardest-working.
6. I have an excellent collection of jewelry shaped like violent things.
7. I am a good writer. You may disagree with this, but I am going on what various professors have told me, so while I may suck balls at blog creation, I'm apparently quite good with essays.
8. I'm good at picking act music.
9. I will probably never make you feel bad about yourself.
That last point gives me pause. I might be Positive Fucking Patty and build your sense of self-worth all the way the kingdom come, but when it comes to myself, it's all put-downs and loathing, all the time.
As evidenced by the previous exercise. People who like themselves don't need to make lists of their positive attributes. I wouldn't say I'm throwing myself a pity party, per se. More of a disgust party.
Which ends now. If I can't think anything nice about myself, then I'm not going to think anything at all. If anyone needs me, I'll be practicing diabolo.
1. Looking at pictures of myself performing.
2. Looking at videos of myself performing.
3. Talking to people about my performances.
4. Taking compliments or feedback about my performances.
5. The way I look in my costumes.
6. The way I look in general.
7. My lack of self-control.
8. My amazing ability to eat everything in sight and pack on pounds at a rate of knots.
9. How much time I spend thinking about how I look and what I eat and how much I suck because of those two things.
This week, instead of eating, I will do other things. Here are some other things I will do.
1. Practice. For hours and hours and hours. Practice until everything is perfect every time. There's nothing like setting achievable goals.
2. Work with my diabolo. It makes me happy and stops me from thinking too much.
3. Drink water. Even though fish fuck in it.
4. Read children's books in Spanish. I have to start remembering all the stuff I've forgotten from last semester before fall classes start, and perusal of libros infantils en espanol (yes, I know I missed the accents marks. Shut up,) is a good way to do that.
5. Go running. Because giving myself shin splints and destroying my knee cartilage will definitely distract me from the heft of my thighs.
6. Sew and glue sequins on things. It's hard to cram food into your face when your fingers are covered in E-6000.
7. Make lists of all my wonderful, wonderful qualities that are not reliant on having no cellulite and fitting into a size four. Although someone my height should be a size two. Which I'm not. And never will be, because I'm a lazy, fat, greedy slob who can't control herself. Oh, am I digressing? Sorry.
Here is the first of those lists.
1. I am good at spelling.
2. I can type quickly.
3. Children like me. They would probably still like me if I was fatter than I am.
4. I read a lot. People seem to think this is a good quality to have.
5. I am a good student. I might not be the smartest, but I am usually the hardest-working.
6. I have an excellent collection of jewelry shaped like violent things.
7. I am a good writer. You may disagree with this, but I am going on what various professors have told me, so while I may suck balls at blog creation, I'm apparently quite good with essays.
8. I'm good at picking act music.
9. I will probably never make you feel bad about yourself.
That last point gives me pause. I might be Positive Fucking Patty and build your sense of self-worth all the way the kingdom come, but when it comes to myself, it's all put-downs and loathing, all the time.
As evidenced by the previous exercise. People who like themselves don't need to make lists of their positive attributes. I wouldn't say I'm throwing myself a pity party, per se. More of a disgust party.
Which ends now. If I can't think anything nice about myself, then I'm not going to think anything at all. If anyone needs me, I'll be practicing diabolo.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Melting in your mouth
I still haven't been to the lake. Things keep happening to prevent me from having to time to spend an afternoon alternating between submerging myself in water and lying about in the sun, which bothers me. I might be done with school for the summer session, but I still have a large, unpleasant pile of work going on, and it's really cutting into my drinking / novel-reading time.
I should be working right now. I should be practicing for that gig in Indianapolis later this month, and also practicing for tonight's show. I am not. Instead, I am sitting in the office hoping that those students I just taught are no longer hanging out in the hallway because I want to go get a diet Coke and some M and M's from the machine, but walking by them would mean having to stop and talk and pretend to be human. I am in no frame of mind for that.
I'm not actually crabby or angry or foul-tempered today, just tired. I hung out with Bruiser last night, eating pizza, drinking beer, and smoking cigarettes on his back deck until two am. Bruiser is the latest addition to Iphy's Dating Game, and is turning out to be quite interesting, actually. He is a little older than me, and unlike most of my gentleman callers, has even more baggage than I do, in the form of an ex-wife and two young children. I have never really had to negotiate the child factor before.
Baby-daddy has Red Rum, but we were only friends when I met that ungodly spawn, plus I was still married, so there wasn't really anything to worry about. Red Rum and I played trains and read Dr. Seuss for a few afternoons and got along swimmingly. He must be...yowser, almost six now? Man, I haven't hung out with BD in forever. I don't miss him casually bragging about all the festivals he goes to for free, but I do miss hanging out at the bar and laying around on his couch watching "Portlandia", eating pretzels.
But back to Bruiser...I know from books and TV (where I learn everything, ever) that the kids are always going to come first, and that's how it's supposed to be, and if it WASN'T like that, then there would be cause for concern. I know that the "so, do you want kids someday?" conversation no longer applies. I know that he probably isn't looking for something particularly serious (marriage will do that to a person). I know that he and his ex get along fairly well and she's also dating, so she's probably not going to accuse me of destroying her family and come after me with a buzz-saw or anything.
There are things I don't know, however. Is it OK to fool around with someone when their kids are asleep upstairs? Is it OK to ask a lot of questions about their kids, just because you like kids and you like talking about kids and all the weird shit they say and do? When are you supposed to meet those kids, if ever? How friendly are you meant to be, if and when that happens? Should you ask the ex's permission if it ever comes up that you might be spending time with those kids? I can see why some people just immediately write someone's date-ability off if they have kids. People with no encumbrances are much less difficult to work with.
However, I think it's worth the awkward dip into unchartered waters. A guy like Bruiser is something of a rarity, it seems. A guy who wants to hold your hand while walking in public, who makes reservations after studiously researching restaurants on Yelp, who buys you earrings at a street fair, who laughs at your jokes, who sends the right amount of hilarious and dirty text messages, who looks at you sometimes like he wants to eat you up, who is disturbingly smart in some areas and remarkably down-to-earth in others, who disturbingly resembles a certain celebrity you didn't even know you found attractive, who has the kind of body that makes you bite your lip and shake your head a little every time he takes off his shirt, who you can stay up all night chatting to over Parliaments and mid-range beer...well, it's probably worth it to make time with a guy like that.
Guitardbot is still intermittently about the place, although trying to find out how he actually feels about anything is like nailing water to a wall, so we'll see how long that lasts. I'm actually supposed to go and see his band tomorrow. I don't know how that'll go down. It's becoming quite apparent that we differ vastly in opinion when it comes to music. I don't care how influential and significant they were, Sonic Youth are, as Juno so aptly put it, just noise, and I am never going to enjoy listening to them.
I used to have a blog on MySpace. (Remember MySpace? Like Facebook, but not successful enough to make a movie about?) Since it was MySpace, everyone knew it was my blog, everyone knew it was all about me and my friends and my co-workers, and there were a lot of things I couldn't say on there. It wasn't really a place to specifically rant and vent, as I occasionally do on here. Weirdly enough, I think it reads more interestingly than this one does.
Holy fucking shit, I love M and M's.
I should be working right now. I should be practicing for that gig in Indianapolis later this month, and also practicing for tonight's show. I am not. Instead, I am sitting in the office hoping that those students I just taught are no longer hanging out in the hallway because I want to go get a diet Coke and some M and M's from the machine, but walking by them would mean having to stop and talk and pretend to be human. I am in no frame of mind for that.
I'm not actually crabby or angry or foul-tempered today, just tired. I hung out with Bruiser last night, eating pizza, drinking beer, and smoking cigarettes on his back deck until two am. Bruiser is the latest addition to Iphy's Dating Game, and is turning out to be quite interesting, actually. He is a little older than me, and unlike most of my gentleman callers, has even more baggage than I do, in the form of an ex-wife and two young children. I have never really had to negotiate the child factor before.
Baby-daddy has Red Rum, but we were only friends when I met that ungodly spawn, plus I was still married, so there wasn't really anything to worry about. Red Rum and I played trains and read Dr. Seuss for a few afternoons and got along swimmingly. He must be...yowser, almost six now? Man, I haven't hung out with BD in forever. I don't miss him casually bragging about all the festivals he goes to for free, but I do miss hanging out at the bar and laying around on his couch watching "Portlandia", eating pretzels.
But back to Bruiser...I know from books and TV (where I learn everything, ever) that the kids are always going to come first, and that's how it's supposed to be, and if it WASN'T like that, then there would be cause for concern. I know that the "so, do you want kids someday?" conversation no longer applies. I know that he probably isn't looking for something particularly serious (marriage will do that to a person). I know that he and his ex get along fairly well and she's also dating, so she's probably not going to accuse me of destroying her family and come after me with a buzz-saw or anything.
There are things I don't know, however. Is it OK to fool around with someone when their kids are asleep upstairs? Is it OK to ask a lot of questions about their kids, just because you like kids and you like talking about kids and all the weird shit they say and do? When are you supposed to meet those kids, if ever? How friendly are you meant to be, if and when that happens? Should you ask the ex's permission if it ever comes up that you might be spending time with those kids? I can see why some people just immediately write someone's date-ability off if they have kids. People with no encumbrances are much less difficult to work with.
However, I think it's worth the awkward dip into unchartered waters. A guy like Bruiser is something of a rarity, it seems. A guy who wants to hold your hand while walking in public, who makes reservations after studiously researching restaurants on Yelp, who buys you earrings at a street fair, who laughs at your jokes, who sends the right amount of hilarious and dirty text messages, who looks at you sometimes like he wants to eat you up, who is disturbingly smart in some areas and remarkably down-to-earth in others, who disturbingly resembles a certain celebrity you didn't even know you found attractive, who has the kind of body that makes you bite your lip and shake your head a little every time he takes off his shirt, who you can stay up all night chatting to over Parliaments and mid-range beer...well, it's probably worth it to make time with a guy like that.
Guitardbot is still intermittently about the place, although trying to find out how he actually feels about anything is like nailing water to a wall, so we'll see how long that lasts. I'm actually supposed to go and see his band tomorrow. I don't know how that'll go down. It's becoming quite apparent that we differ vastly in opinion when it comes to music. I don't care how influential and significant they were, Sonic Youth are, as Juno so aptly put it, just noise, and I am never going to enjoy listening to them.
I used to have a blog on MySpace. (Remember MySpace? Like Facebook, but not successful enough to make a movie about?) Since it was MySpace, everyone knew it was my blog, everyone knew it was all about me and my friends and my co-workers, and there were a lot of things I couldn't say on there. It wasn't really a place to specifically rant and vent, as I occasionally do on here. Weirdly enough, I think it reads more interestingly than this one does.
Holy fucking shit, I love M and M's.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
So this is what happened
So first of all, the president decides to have his birthday party around the corner from the place you work, so you can't catch the train in because it's not running.
So you take a cab, because you got all caught up writing those skill sets for that standardizing thing they're doing this fall at that one place you work, and you didn't really leave the house early enough to factor in not being able to take the train. You briefly beat yourself up for having to pay twenty dollars for your own lack of organization, then shrug it off and forget about it. Then you realize you've forgotten an essential item of work clothing, which you have to go and buy from a store around the corner. Make that a dis-organizational cost of twenty eight dollars. Face palm.
Then you get to work and you realize that there's some other program going on in the space and your class doesn't start for an hour and fifteen minutes. One of your kids has also not realized this and is looking very confused, asking you what to do now. You go upstairs, with the kid in tow, figuring you'll just sit in the conference room and hang out until the class starts. But all the other big kids are there because they're having a meeting of some sort with the Powers That Be. So you sit down with that one kid and draw with markers while the meeting goes on. You also plays noughts and crosses and hangman, and feel annoyed that the big kids have to sit through a pointless, boring meeting full of endless blathering on that wastes time and achieves nothing. You also feel glad that you're not actively involved, because making that one kid guess "chicken butt" when you're playing hangman is much more entertaining than discussing the company's plans for progressive levels of instruction.
So then it's your class, the one where the kids really like you for some reason, and you teach it, and it's rad, and you feel pretty good.
Then it's the big kids and they do their Big Important Act for the Big Important Thing in Washington or wherever the hell it is. Aaaaand...your kids sort of suck. It isn't really their fault, or your fault, either. They got thrown on to an apparatus that only one of them has ever used before, working under conditions that none of them are used to, with a month to put together an act. So you have to cut some stuff and rearrange some stuff and plan an extra rehearsal and it's all pretty much OK. You still wish that they could have been wonderful and perfect and had a super-awesome expertly choreographed act that they performed with flawless technique...but you tell them that they worked hard and did a good job and it's all coming together the way it should.
So while you're putting your shoes on, the stupid hippie in charge gets on your case for being late for this one thing with this one Rich Kid whose parents might bankroll a bunch of shit or something. You know you should be on time just as a general rule, but you've been late to a bunch of other classes and she's never gotten on your case about it before. She only cares this time because she wants to kiss up to this Rich Kid's parents so they'll give a bunch of money to the company. She pretty much tells you this when she informs you that you are to do everything possible to keep Rich Kid and his family happy. You consider asking whether blowing Rich Kid's father would fall into the category of Keeping Them Happy, but decide it might be counterproductive. Instead you agree to mend your wicked, tardy ways, hastily tie your sneakers, and haul ass out of there. You rant to your skinny juggler friend (who works with you at this one place) about what a stupid bitch the hippie in charge is. He agrees with you whole-heartedly.
So you get done teaching and you want to go practice, but the president's still having his birthday shin-dig and it's basically impossible to get on a bus or a train or anything. So you walk for about a million miles, then get on a bus that takes about ten thousand years to get downtown, then walk for another million miles to get to that OTHER bus, which takes another ten thousand years to arrive. You get to the practice space at the time that you're usually getting ready to leave it. You are not amused.
You are even less amused when you can't find either of your i-pods and can't work your acts to music because of it. You wonder if this will incur a dis-organizational cost of about three hundred bucks to replace the lost i-pods and decide to wait a few days and see if they show up before buying anything new. You practice, and then you feel a bit better.
Then you have to get home. You started later than usual, and practiced for longer than you thought you would. This means that there are no longer any buses running to your place of residence. You munch spicy almonds and contemplate whether you should walk through the scary, rape-y industrial area to the train, or shell out for a cab. Eventually, the amount of almonds you eat makes you think that a walk would probably not be the worst thing in the world. So you chug on over to the train, singing Johnny Cash songs in your horrible, off-key voice that is 99.9% effective in warding off would-be muggers. Then you wait for your train for about a jillion years, then ride on up to the 'hood, after which you walk to your house, snapping your gum as obnoxiously as possible.
And you FINALLY get home, and your room-mate is stomping about cleaning things, and everything smells like bleach. You can't be bothered figuring out what she is so passive-aggressively demonstrating anger about, so you head to the couch and you write a bunch of stuff in your blog for the first time in about a zillion ka-billion years.
And then you feel sort of better, but you're still quietly hoping that your stupid-ass hippie boss gets scabies from bathing infrequently, and your room-mate passes out from all the bleach fumes and bangs her head on the tiles. You also think Obama should hire a better logistics team so that his goddam birthday party doesn't effectively isolate an entire neighborhood by cutting off all public transportation to and from it. You ruminate on the fact that you are really not a very nice person, then decide that maybe you are just not very nice when you are tired and inconvenienced and dealing with difficult people. You can't be all that bad if that one kid was happy to hang out with you and draw pictures of penguins and play word games for over an hour during that boring-ass meeting. You will probably be ok.
So you take a cab, because you got all caught up writing those skill sets for that standardizing thing they're doing this fall at that one place you work, and you didn't really leave the house early enough to factor in not being able to take the train. You briefly beat yourself up for having to pay twenty dollars for your own lack of organization, then shrug it off and forget about it. Then you realize you've forgotten an essential item of work clothing, which you have to go and buy from a store around the corner. Make that a dis-organizational cost of twenty eight dollars. Face palm.
Then you get to work and you realize that there's some other program going on in the space and your class doesn't start for an hour and fifteen minutes. One of your kids has also not realized this and is looking very confused, asking you what to do now. You go upstairs, with the kid in tow, figuring you'll just sit in the conference room and hang out until the class starts. But all the other big kids are there because they're having a meeting of some sort with the Powers That Be. So you sit down with that one kid and draw with markers while the meeting goes on. You also plays noughts and crosses and hangman, and feel annoyed that the big kids have to sit through a pointless, boring meeting full of endless blathering on that wastes time and achieves nothing. You also feel glad that you're not actively involved, because making that one kid guess "chicken butt" when you're playing hangman is much more entertaining than discussing the company's plans for progressive levels of instruction.
So then it's your class, the one where the kids really like you for some reason, and you teach it, and it's rad, and you feel pretty good.
Then it's the big kids and they do their Big Important Act for the Big Important Thing in Washington or wherever the hell it is. Aaaaand...your kids sort of suck. It isn't really their fault, or your fault, either. They got thrown on to an apparatus that only one of them has ever used before, working under conditions that none of them are used to, with a month to put together an act. So you have to cut some stuff and rearrange some stuff and plan an extra rehearsal and it's all pretty much OK. You still wish that they could have been wonderful and perfect and had a super-awesome expertly choreographed act that they performed with flawless technique...but you tell them that they worked hard and did a good job and it's all coming together the way it should.
So while you're putting your shoes on, the stupid hippie in charge gets on your case for being late for this one thing with this one Rich Kid whose parents might bankroll a bunch of shit or something. You know you should be on time just as a general rule, but you've been late to a bunch of other classes and she's never gotten on your case about it before. She only cares this time because she wants to kiss up to this Rich Kid's parents so they'll give a bunch of money to the company. She pretty much tells you this when she informs you that you are to do everything possible to keep Rich Kid and his family happy. You consider asking whether blowing Rich Kid's father would fall into the category of Keeping Them Happy, but decide it might be counterproductive. Instead you agree to mend your wicked, tardy ways, hastily tie your sneakers, and haul ass out of there. You rant to your skinny juggler friend (who works with you at this one place) about what a stupid bitch the hippie in charge is. He agrees with you whole-heartedly.
So you get done teaching and you want to go practice, but the president's still having his birthday shin-dig and it's basically impossible to get on a bus or a train or anything. So you walk for about a million miles, then get on a bus that takes about ten thousand years to get downtown, then walk for another million miles to get to that OTHER bus, which takes another ten thousand years to arrive. You get to the practice space at the time that you're usually getting ready to leave it. You are not amused.
You are even less amused when you can't find either of your i-pods and can't work your acts to music because of it. You wonder if this will incur a dis-organizational cost of about three hundred bucks to replace the lost i-pods and decide to wait a few days and see if they show up before buying anything new. You practice, and then you feel a bit better.
Then you have to get home. You started later than usual, and practiced for longer than you thought you would. This means that there are no longer any buses running to your place of residence. You munch spicy almonds and contemplate whether you should walk through the scary, rape-y industrial area to the train, or shell out for a cab. Eventually, the amount of almonds you eat makes you think that a walk would probably not be the worst thing in the world. So you chug on over to the train, singing Johnny Cash songs in your horrible, off-key voice that is 99.9% effective in warding off would-be muggers. Then you wait for your train for about a jillion years, then ride on up to the 'hood, after which you walk to your house, snapping your gum as obnoxiously as possible.
And you FINALLY get home, and your room-mate is stomping about cleaning things, and everything smells like bleach. You can't be bothered figuring out what she is so passive-aggressively demonstrating anger about, so you head to the couch and you write a bunch of stuff in your blog for the first time in about a zillion ka-billion years.
And then you feel sort of better, but you're still quietly hoping that your stupid-ass hippie boss gets scabies from bathing infrequently, and your room-mate passes out from all the bleach fumes and bangs her head on the tiles. You also think Obama should hire a better logistics team so that his goddam birthday party doesn't effectively isolate an entire neighborhood by cutting off all public transportation to and from it. You ruminate on the fact that you are really not a very nice person, then decide that maybe you are just not very nice when you are tired and inconvenienced and dealing with difficult people. You can't be all that bad if that one kid was happy to hang out with you and draw pictures of penguins and play word games for over an hour during that boring-ass meeting. You will probably be ok.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Iphy Hates School
You can get all hung up
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on.
You'll be left in a Lurch.
You'll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you'll be in a Slump.
And when you're in a Slump,
you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.
I don't know if this is a slump or a lurch or feeling bummed about the mater leaving town or what. Maybe this is just how an over-achieving academic perfectionist feels when it looks like she's going to be getting her first B ever on a midterm. Maybe it's becoming more and more apparent that I hate school and want to quit. It's just so...pointless. All these hoops to jump through in order to achieve something that I don't even know if I want.
It's easy for me to say this. I know plenty of people with useless degrees just like mine...
< For those of you just now tuning into the Iphy show, I have a bachelor degree from the motherland. Because I'm still deciding how much I want to identify myself on this old word-receptacle, I might not say what it's in...suffice it to say, it makes sculpture or art history look like really rational, grown-up choices. Anyhoot...>
...and they have jobs! Not jobs they like much, but I also know a lot of people with Very Good In Demand degrees who are working in pertinent fields who also don't like their jobs much. I know a lot of ex-dance, theater, music, philosophy, and history majors who are all gainfully employed in areas that, while boring as bat shit, pay the bills.
I could just front up to an employment agency and say "Yo, bitches. I have a bachelor degree, seven years experience owning, running, and marketing a small business, I can type sixty five words a minute, I'm reasonably computer-literate, and I don't have a prison record or a drug habit." I bet you they'd find me something. I almost want to try it, just to see what happens.
Maybe I should just stick around for the fall session of school, take statistics and that one computer class, and call it good. Fuck if I know.
I'd think about it more, but I have to go and write a specific purpose statement for an informative speech that will inform no one about anything and achieve nothing except another inch towards a piece of paper signifying that I am Highly Educated.
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on.
You'll be left in a Lurch.
You'll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you'll be in a Slump.
And when you're in a Slump,
you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.
I don't know if this is a slump or a lurch or feeling bummed about the mater leaving town or what. Maybe this is just how an over-achieving academic perfectionist feels when it looks like she's going to be getting her first B ever on a midterm. Maybe it's becoming more and more apparent that I hate school and want to quit. It's just so...pointless. All these hoops to jump through in order to achieve something that I don't even know if I want.
It's easy for me to say this. I know plenty of people with useless degrees just like mine...
< For those of you just now tuning into the Iphy show, I have a bachelor degree from the motherland. Because I'm still deciding how much I want to identify myself on this old word-receptacle, I might not say what it's in...suffice it to say, it makes sculpture or art history look like really rational, grown-up choices. Anyhoot...>
...and they have jobs! Not jobs they like much, but I also know a lot of people with Very Good In Demand degrees who are working in pertinent fields who also don't like their jobs much. I know a lot of ex-dance, theater, music, philosophy, and history majors who are all gainfully employed in areas that, while boring as bat shit, pay the bills.
I could just front up to an employment agency and say "Yo, bitches. I have a bachelor degree, seven years experience owning, running, and marketing a small business, I can type sixty five words a minute, I'm reasonably computer-literate, and I don't have a prison record or a drug habit." I bet you they'd find me something. I almost want to try it, just to see what happens.
Maybe I should just stick around for the fall session of school, take statistics and that one computer class, and call it good. Fuck if I know.
I'd think about it more, but I have to go and write a specific purpose statement for an informative speech that will inform no one about anything and achieve nothing except another inch towards a piece of paper signifying that I am Highly Educated.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Grin and bear this.
One day, I'm not going to be a good sport. I won't turn the other cheek or keep the peace. When you come out with some ridiculous bullshit and expect me to go along with it, I'll shock the hell out of you by refusing, and not politely. I won't smile sweetly or engage in severe cognitive dissonance just to maintain the status quo. I'll tell you exactly what I think, not just of the situation and your suggestion relating to it, but what I think of you, as well. Someone should tell you. Someone should tell you what a spoiled, self-centered brat you are. Someone should tell you that your carefully acquired "slumming" mannerisms don't hide your bred-in-the-bone snobbery. Someone should call you out on the shitty way you treat people. In fact, everyone should treat you equally as badly for a few months, just so you can get a taste of it. For all your ambition, you're never going to get anywhere. You're one-dimensional, uncreative, and impossible to get along with. I hope I'm there the day you give up. I can't wait to see the look on your face.
Guitardbot accuses me of being punk rock, even when I don't know the name of the band Johnny Rotten had after the Sex Pistols. He's mistaken. If I was really punk rock, I wouldn't be this much of pushover. I wouldn't be scared to tell people when they were acting like assholes. A true punk rock girl would flip someone off for suggesting that she bend over backwards to accommodate everyone else, and if they asked her more than once, she'd spit in their face. She wouldn't acquiesce as a matter of course, seething silently all the while.
Iphy: easy to work with.
Iphy: totally flexible and prepared to work to everyone else's schedule.
Iphy: never a diva or a drama queen or overly demanding.
Iphy: just give her a steady supply of Diet Coke and the occasional trip to Wal-Mart and she's happy as a clam.
Iphy: low maintenance.
Iphy: silly, flakey, crazy, cranky, tardy Iphy, who can't ever request or suggest anything because she's a walking joke.
Iphy: if you want to make a really outrageous request or subtly insult someone, go see Iphy, because there's no way in hell she'll put up any kind of a fight.
Iphy: aren't you glad you're not her?
I hope I'm reincarnated as a necrotizing fascitis bacteria. It's pretty hard to get along with something that's actively eating away at your flesh and making you look like an extra from a George Romero film.
Guitardbot accuses me of being punk rock, even when I don't know the name of the band Johnny Rotten had after the Sex Pistols. He's mistaken. If I was really punk rock, I wouldn't be this much of pushover. I wouldn't be scared to tell people when they were acting like assholes. A true punk rock girl would flip someone off for suggesting that she bend over backwards to accommodate everyone else, and if they asked her more than once, she'd spit in their face. She wouldn't acquiesce as a matter of course, seething silently all the while.
Iphy: easy to work with.
Iphy: totally flexible and prepared to work to everyone else's schedule.
Iphy: never a diva or a drama queen or overly demanding.
Iphy: just give her a steady supply of Diet Coke and the occasional trip to Wal-Mart and she's happy as a clam.
Iphy: low maintenance.
Iphy: silly, flakey, crazy, cranky, tardy Iphy, who can't ever request or suggest anything because she's a walking joke.
Iphy: if you want to make a really outrageous request or subtly insult someone, go see Iphy, because there's no way in hell she'll put up any kind of a fight.
Iphy: aren't you glad you're not her?
I hope I'm reincarnated as a necrotizing fascitis bacteria. It's pretty hard to get along with something that's actively eating away at your flesh and making you look like an extra from a George Romero film.
Monday, June 13, 2011
At last we meet, Mr Bond...
So I finally, FINALLY hung out with Guitardbot. He got back from tour last week, and then I had an out-of-town gig over the Thursday through Saturday. Sunday night, we met up at the bar, ate poutine, drank cider (me) and IPA (him...at least, I think it was IPA), wandered around, went to Cafe Hipster al Fuckwad (you know, the one with all the movie and TV merchandise from the 80s and 90s to make twenty- and thirty-somethings nostalgic for their spoiled-white-kid childhoods parked in front of the idiot box? That one?), drank a vanilla latte (him) and a peppermint tea (me), walked around a little, went to his place, sat on the couch and talked about books, smoked in the yard, sat on the couch again, talked about books some more...aaaaaand then...I very, very awkwardly mentioned that I wanted to kiss him. Which I had actually been wanting to do for about five hours, at that point. Turns out there was a reason I wanted to kiss (and do other things with) him. That reason was...awesomeness.
So, yes. I totally failed at taking my time, showing restraint, following "The Rules", and thinking with my brain rather than my junk, but whatever. I got all my homework done and THEN went and fooled around with someone I'd just met in real life, despite having known them on the interwebs for nearly four months.
There are many messy overshares I could engage in here, but I think it's time to go to sleep. It's nice when someone turns out to be as rad as you suspected they were.
So, yes. I totally failed at taking my time, showing restraint, following "The Rules", and thinking with my brain rather than my junk, but whatever. I got all my homework done and THEN went and fooled around with someone I'd just met in real life, despite having known them on the interwebs for nearly four months.
There are many messy overshares I could engage in here, but I think it's time to go to sleep. It's nice when someone turns out to be as rad as you suspected they were.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
A One-Eyed Marine
I wish I could have talked to him. He had skin where his right eye should have been. You could see the outline of his eye socket through it. I wanted to go up and touch it and tell him about all of the things in me that are broken and it's not fair because I bet he's totally normal but probably some people treat him like a freak, and here I am, fundamentally, profoundly damaged goods, wrapped up in a nice little normal shell, ripe for friendly approaches and no untimely staring. But it was crowded and I was hustling for tips and he was busy being all Marine-y with his friend. They were so cute in their shiny jackets and white pants.
The crazy came back. I stopped taking my meds, not really on purpose, just sort of inadvertently. I didn't mean to, I just kept forgetting, and then nothing bad happened, so I just stopped altogether. And then today I couldn't make the online psych program work and started to cry in the library. The day pretty much went downhill from there. I know I'm supposed to be fighting the stigma against mental illness and accepting it for what it is and making lemons out of lemonade and all that shit, but if I'm honest...I really, really wish I didn't have to deal with this depression rubbish. So often, I find myself wanting to throw my hands up and moan, "Why me?" I know the answer is really, "why not me?", but that's cold fucking comfort, my friend.
This evening I wanted to excise myself from my body. Like when they cut out a melanoma. I wanted someone to take a scalpel and very carefully remove my personality. Then they could take someone else's temperament and thought processes and graft them into my shell. Everyone would win and this stupid, pathetic, lazy, mediocre, boring, weak, melodramatic, self-pitying piece of shit I call a character would end up in the hospital incinerator.
Funny thing is, I don't actually feel like that now. It's weird how all that just comes and goes.
The crazy came back. I stopped taking my meds, not really on purpose, just sort of inadvertently. I didn't mean to, I just kept forgetting, and then nothing bad happened, so I just stopped altogether. And then today I couldn't make the online psych program work and started to cry in the library. The day pretty much went downhill from there. I know I'm supposed to be fighting the stigma against mental illness and accepting it for what it is and making lemons out of lemonade and all that shit, but if I'm honest...I really, really wish I didn't have to deal with this depression rubbish. So often, I find myself wanting to throw my hands up and moan, "Why me?" I know the answer is really, "why not me?", but that's cold fucking comfort, my friend.
This evening I wanted to excise myself from my body. Like when they cut out a melanoma. I wanted someone to take a scalpel and very carefully remove my personality. Then they could take someone else's temperament and thought processes and graft them into my shell. Everyone would win and this stupid, pathetic, lazy, mediocre, boring, weak, melodramatic, self-pitying piece of shit I call a character would end up in the hospital incinerator.
Funny thing is, I don't actually feel like that now. It's weird how all that just comes and goes.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
I'm at least as interesting as Kevin Smith
Ok, that's a lie. I haven't created any cult-classic films that are hallmarks of a generation, nor have I been through the shit-storm that is being friends with a junkie. And I don't have a hot wife or a mansion or a cute little kid. I'm not friends with any movie stars. I'm not culturally significant. But one thing this blog has going for it that the Boring-ass Life doesn't is that I don't tell you every single time I take a dump. I don't feel you need to know the intricate details of my bowel movements, somehow, nor do I particularly want to be well-versed in the same in regards to Mr Smith. No matter how rad I think he is.
Guitardbot got back from his tour yesterday. I'd like to hang out with him but I don't actually want to suggest it. I never should have read that damn book, "The Rules". The only reason I'm a "creature unlike any other" is that I can burp the alphabet and floss between my nose and mouth with a folding balloon.
Summer classes start tomorrow. I'm taking an introductory speech class and for the first assignment, I need to write about someone who inspires me. This sort of claptrap generally makes me want to stab myself in the face with a take-out spork, but I think I could have a little fun with it. Here are some ideas I've had so far.
1. The Donner Party. I think their heroic actions capture the American spirit of perserverance.Way to manifest destiny, dudes.
2. Dan Savage. Let's talk about sex, baby. In disgusting, squishy, over-share-y detail and make all the squares cringe. And let's do it on NPR. Oh, and also, let's help gay teenagers not kill themselves due to being hassled by fucktards.
3. Legs. How many paraplegic contortionist circus / burlesque stars do you know? None. None many.
4. Mabel Stark. Bitch was married five times and wrestled tigers for a living. What's not to respect? Also, she wound up topping herself, just to make sure she was in charge of it all right 'til the end.
5. The homeless guy at the Division Red Line stop. For someone with a terrifyingly deformed leg, he sure is chipper. Plus I bet he knows at least four different ways to kill someone with an empty fo'ty.
Guitardbot got back from his tour yesterday. I'd like to hang out with him but I don't actually want to suggest it. I never should have read that damn book, "The Rules". The only reason I'm a "creature unlike any other" is that I can burp the alphabet and floss between my nose and mouth with a folding balloon.
Summer classes start tomorrow. I'm taking an introductory speech class and for the first assignment, I need to write about someone who inspires me. This sort of claptrap generally makes me want to stab myself in the face with a take-out spork, but I think I could have a little fun with it. Here are some ideas I've had so far.
1. The Donner Party. I think their heroic actions capture the American spirit of perserverance.Way to manifest destiny, dudes.
2. Dan Savage. Let's talk about sex, baby. In disgusting, squishy, over-share-y detail and make all the squares cringe. And let's do it on NPR. Oh, and also, let's help gay teenagers not kill themselves due to being hassled by fucktards.
3. Legs. How many paraplegic contortionist circus / burlesque stars do you know? None. None many.
4. Mabel Stark. Bitch was married five times and wrestled tigers for a living. What's not to respect? Also, she wound up topping herself, just to make sure she was in charge of it all right 'til the end.
5. The homeless guy at the Division Red Line stop. For someone with a terrifyingly deformed leg, he sure is chipper. Plus I bet he knows at least four different ways to kill someone with an empty fo'ty.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Hee Ha Ha
I spent ten hours today at work cleaning things, hanging things up, and organizing things. It sucked. I am now in a terrifically crabby mood and have no interest whatsoever in cleaning my room, doing laundry, taking a shower, or not behaving like a bitch of Katherine Heigl-esque proportions. I will be glad when things are back to normal and I can practice and teach and that's that, without having to scrub anything with bleach or cover it in Con-tact paper.
I'm sitting in our stairwell, waiting for take-out Thai to arrive. A gloopy, greasy noodle-fest isn't exactly the best idea ever after a day of questionable food choices (Peppermint Bark Ingredients Jelly Bellies, anyone?), but cooking really wasn't on the cards at this point. I wish I didn't have to eat. I wish I could just think, I'm not going to eat, and then...actually not eat. I believe this is called "wanna-rexia". Naw, fo' reals. Google that shit. It's right up there with "drunk-orexia" (where you starve yourself all week to make up for the gajillions of calories you'll consume during the weekend's bender), "web-orexia" (where you go on the internets and tell everyone the best way to dress for protruding ribs while fawning over pictures of Angelina Jolie in her Jonny Lee Miller years), and "big-orexia" (which will be in the DSM V under "muscle dysmorphia", if you're interested). "Wanna-rexia", in a nutshell...when you wish you had the conviction and drive to starve yourself to death. I don't want to starve myself to death, I just want not to want things. And if I'm going to want things, I want to have the power to refuse them and do just fine without. If I can hammer a nail into my head and not die, why can't I not eat?
This is all very heavy for a Tuesday evening, but I suppose these are the things I am frequently thinking about. Aren't you glad my supposedly-above-average intelligence is being used to ponder such important, high-minded things? I know I am.
I wish our doorbell worked. I'm in the stairwell because the delivery person doesn't know the doorbell is purely for show, and will give up on getting my food to me pretty damn quick when I don't answer the door due to not knowing they're there. I feel like something of a tool sitting out here in my blue negligee. I'm not trying to be sexy, it's just too damn hot to wear actual clothes.
Ooh, a car door just slammed. Maybe that's the delivery guy. Maybe if it isn't, I'll bang my head on the wall until I pass out, and then dinner will no longer be an issue.
I'm sitting in our stairwell, waiting for take-out Thai to arrive. A gloopy, greasy noodle-fest isn't exactly the best idea ever after a day of questionable food choices (Peppermint Bark Ingredients Jelly Bellies, anyone?), but cooking really wasn't on the cards at this point. I wish I didn't have to eat. I wish I could just think, I'm not going to eat, and then...actually not eat. I believe this is called "wanna-rexia". Naw, fo' reals. Google that shit. It's right up there with "drunk-orexia" (where you starve yourself all week to make up for the gajillions of calories you'll consume during the weekend's bender), "web-orexia" (where you go on the internets and tell everyone the best way to dress for protruding ribs while fawning over pictures of Angelina Jolie in her Jonny Lee Miller years), and "big-orexia" (which will be in the DSM V under "muscle dysmorphia", if you're interested). "Wanna-rexia", in a nutshell...when you wish you had the conviction and drive to starve yourself to death. I don't want to starve myself to death, I just want not to want things. And if I'm going to want things, I want to have the power to refuse them and do just fine without. If I can hammer a nail into my head and not die, why can't I not eat?
This is all very heavy for a Tuesday evening, but I suppose these are the things I am frequently thinking about. Aren't you glad my supposedly-above-average intelligence is being used to ponder such important, high-minded things? I know I am.
I wish our doorbell worked. I'm in the stairwell because the delivery person doesn't know the doorbell is purely for show, and will give up on getting my food to me pretty damn quick when I don't answer the door due to not knowing they're there. I feel like something of a tool sitting out here in my blue negligee. I'm not trying to be sexy, it's just too damn hot to wear actual clothes.
Ooh, a car door just slammed. Maybe that's the delivery guy. Maybe if it isn't, I'll bang my head on the wall until I pass out, and then dinner will no longer be an issue.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Second helping
Plenty of booze and nothing good on the interwebs makes for a talkative Iphy, it seems. Maybe I can make up for my massive poetic disappearance with two posts in one night. It totally works like that, right?
Roses was saying she's doing this whole journaling thing...Jebus, I hate the term "journaling". As Calvin put it, verbing weirds words. Anyhoot, Roses was saying she's on this whole kick where she writes a minimum of three pages every day in the interests of stimulating her creativity, or some such hippie nonsense. I don't know if I need my creativity stimulated, but according to the therapist, writing might serve to calm me down and prevent that vein in my forehead from getting any bigger due to rage and / or suppressed emotions.
Eh. Mostly I like a challenge. Three pages or a brief ramble in this ol' word-receptacle shouldn't pose that much of problem, right?
Pssht. Of course it will. I couldn't stick to a plan if I was lint and said plan was a dark-colored sweater.
Here are some things that are rattling about in my brain-pan.
1. Getting older. It's freaking me out. Wrinkles and veins and maybe grey hairs (but maybe they're just really light blonde? Or growing out of moles on my scalp? There's only been, like, two of the damn things...). The thing that bothers me most about my physically appealing qualities diminishing due to age is that it makes me realize exactly how much of my self-worth is based is being "appealing" in the first place. I never thought I was one of those girls who skated by on being pretty, but now that the pretty is apparently starting to fade, I've no idea whether or not that's the case. There was a whole thing on "Glee" about this recently. When the fuck did ageing become a topic for an after-school special? I don't know what to think about it all, but I know I'm morbidly terrified of being one of those women of a certain age who pack their sagging asses into skinny jeans, attempt to fill in their wrinkles with foundation, and desperately try to prove to the world in general that they're still sexually attractive, and therefore relevant. A sad old slapper, with nothing going for her. Jesus fucking lizard, if this is how I am when I'm in my late twenties, imagine how I'm going to be when I'm forty-five. Botox ahoy!
2. Possibly not maintaining my 4.0. Yes, I am a gigantic nerd. Thus far it's been all A's, all the time, but I think I might have got a B in that Abnormal Psych class, and it's pissing me off. I want to get a scholarship to the University of Where I Live, and having a perfect GPA will definitely help with that. I also want to prove to myself (and to the world in general) that I'm not as dumb as I look. Sure, having a perfect GPA from a city college ain't nothing to brag about (I believe the appropriate comparison is a midget winning a height contest), but it wouldn't hurt, right? Plus I work with poor little underprivileged children and I'm a poor little kind-of-underprivileged-but-definitely-foreign immigrant. Scholarship-giving assholes eat that shit up, from what I understand.
3. Boys. Myep. Despite the fact that I am a withered old crone, I will still refer to my paramours as boys, not men. It is bothering me in the dark recesses of my mind that the gentlemen callers who like me tend to be the kind I am generally unimpressed by, and I am yet to find any who are really worth the effort, ie. ones that I think are all that and a bag of chips and totally worth pulling out all the stops for. Since I'm basically a gigantic whore, no one can accuse me of being too picky, but really, this shit is getting ridiculous. Right now I'm doing a lot of texting with a guy named Guitardbot. Clearly, this is not his name or he would have cut his parents up and stuffed the pieces in the freezer as soon as he was old enough to feel shame and doubt, but this is what I shall refer to him as for the purposes of this epistle. Guitardbot gives good text. He is funny and flirtatious without being creepy, curious about my life without being disturbingly obsessive, confident without being a gigantic jackass, and fully prepared to laugh at most of my jokes without being afraid to point out the painfully unfunny ones. If I hadn't been raised as a staunch agnostic, I would light a candle to Saint Bridget Jones, patron saint of single women, to guarantee he is as awesome in person as he is in forty words or less.
Ugh. Pathetic much? Life will go on, whether or not Guitardbot is rad or loaded with suck-ness. Life will go on, whether or not I pair up and breed, or whether I'm a spinster for the rest of my life and my arms keep me warm on cold and lonely nights, to paraphrase Kimya Dawson. It's not like it matters. It'd just be cool to meet someone who was...well, cool.
4. My shoulder. I'm seeing a new physical therapist. Previously on "The B.S.A.S.O.Q.D", I messed up my shoulder around this time last year spotting too many hefty children and doing too much silks. It's gotten better and worse in the time in between then and now, but not better enough for me to be able to ignore it any longer. I'm doing lots of PT stuff that is very, very funny to look at, but appears to be helping somewhat. I need to keep it up and get this shit fixed. Constant pain is a total downer, yo.
5. Cher mamán. She's coming to visit. The day after tomorrow. Fuck it in a bucket with Mrs Luckett. (Mrs Luckett was my form teacher in years 8 to 10. She was a very nice lady and I hope I'm just like her when I'm in my 60's and working in a high school library somewhere.) What the hell am I going to do with my mother for three whole weeks when I have school and teaching and training and studying and gigs and so on? Can I just give her one of those Life Alert thingies and send her on her merry way to explore the White City? Am I meant to constantly supervise her every move? Am I REALLY not going to get laid for the next month? Because that's going to be an issue, for reals.
Ugh. I need to go to bed. I have to help finish up with moving at work tomorrow, and then set about creating a laugh-a-minute activity plan for the mater, as well as hiding all the sex toys, drug paraphernalia, and general accoutrements of my debaucherous lifestyle. I'm a fuck-up, and I know she knows I'm a fuck-up, but for the next two weeks we're all going to play a super fun happy game of Let's Pretend Iphigenia Is A Wonderful Daughter Who Spends Her Time Scrap-booking And Cross-stitching Pictures of Kittens. FML.
Roses was saying she's doing this whole journaling thing...Jebus, I hate the term "journaling". As Calvin put it, verbing weirds words. Anyhoot, Roses was saying she's on this whole kick where she writes a minimum of three pages every day in the interests of stimulating her creativity, or some such hippie nonsense. I don't know if I need my creativity stimulated, but according to the therapist, writing might serve to calm me down and prevent that vein in my forehead from getting any bigger due to rage and / or suppressed emotions.
Eh. Mostly I like a challenge. Three pages or a brief ramble in this ol' word-receptacle shouldn't pose that much of problem, right?
Pssht. Of course it will. I couldn't stick to a plan if I was lint and said plan was a dark-colored sweater.
Here are some things that are rattling about in my brain-pan.
1. Getting older. It's freaking me out. Wrinkles and veins and maybe grey hairs (but maybe they're just really light blonde? Or growing out of moles on my scalp? There's only been, like, two of the damn things...). The thing that bothers me most about my physically appealing qualities diminishing due to age is that it makes me realize exactly how much of my self-worth is based is being "appealing" in the first place. I never thought I was one of those girls who skated by on being pretty, but now that the pretty is apparently starting to fade, I've no idea whether or not that's the case. There was a whole thing on "Glee" about this recently. When the fuck did ageing become a topic for an after-school special? I don't know what to think about it all, but I know I'm morbidly terrified of being one of those women of a certain age who pack their sagging asses into skinny jeans, attempt to fill in their wrinkles with foundation, and desperately try to prove to the world in general that they're still sexually attractive, and therefore relevant. A sad old slapper, with nothing going for her. Jesus fucking lizard, if this is how I am when I'm in my late twenties, imagine how I'm going to be when I'm forty-five. Botox ahoy!
2. Possibly not maintaining my 4.0. Yes, I am a gigantic nerd. Thus far it's been all A's, all the time, but I think I might have got a B in that Abnormal Psych class, and it's pissing me off. I want to get a scholarship to the University of Where I Live, and having a perfect GPA will definitely help with that. I also want to prove to myself (and to the world in general) that I'm not as dumb as I look. Sure, having a perfect GPA from a city college ain't nothing to brag about (I believe the appropriate comparison is a midget winning a height contest), but it wouldn't hurt, right? Plus I work with poor little underprivileged children and I'm a poor little kind-of-underprivileged-but-definitely-foreign immigrant. Scholarship-giving assholes eat that shit up, from what I understand.
3. Boys. Myep. Despite the fact that I am a withered old crone, I will still refer to my paramours as boys, not men. It is bothering me in the dark recesses of my mind that the gentlemen callers who like me tend to be the kind I am generally unimpressed by, and I am yet to find any who are really worth the effort, ie. ones that I think are all that and a bag of chips and totally worth pulling out all the stops for. Since I'm basically a gigantic whore, no one can accuse me of being too picky, but really, this shit is getting ridiculous. Right now I'm doing a lot of texting with a guy named Guitardbot. Clearly, this is not his name or he would have cut his parents up and stuffed the pieces in the freezer as soon as he was old enough to feel shame and doubt, but this is what I shall refer to him as for the purposes of this epistle. Guitardbot gives good text. He is funny and flirtatious without being creepy, curious about my life without being disturbingly obsessive, confident without being a gigantic jackass, and fully prepared to laugh at most of my jokes without being afraid to point out the painfully unfunny ones. If I hadn't been raised as a staunch agnostic, I would light a candle to Saint Bridget Jones, patron saint of single women, to guarantee he is as awesome in person as he is in forty words or less.
Ugh. Pathetic much? Life will go on, whether or not Guitardbot is rad or loaded with suck-ness. Life will go on, whether or not I pair up and breed, or whether I'm a spinster for the rest of my life and my arms keep me warm on cold and lonely nights, to paraphrase Kimya Dawson. It's not like it matters. It'd just be cool to meet someone who was...well, cool.
4. My shoulder. I'm seeing a new physical therapist. Previously on "The B.S.A.S.O.Q.D", I messed up my shoulder around this time last year spotting too many hefty children and doing too much silks. It's gotten better and worse in the time in between then and now, but not better enough for me to be able to ignore it any longer. I'm doing lots of PT stuff that is very, very funny to look at, but appears to be helping somewhat. I need to keep it up and get this shit fixed. Constant pain is a total downer, yo.
5. Cher mamán. She's coming to visit. The day after tomorrow. Fuck it in a bucket with Mrs Luckett. (Mrs Luckett was my form teacher in years 8 to 10. She was a very nice lady and I hope I'm just like her when I'm in my 60's and working in a high school library somewhere.) What the hell am I going to do with my mother for three whole weeks when I have school and teaching and training and studying and gigs and so on? Can I just give her one of those Life Alert thingies and send her on her merry way to explore the White City? Am I meant to constantly supervise her every move? Am I REALLY not going to get laid for the next month? Because that's going to be an issue, for reals.
Ugh. I need to go to bed. I have to help finish up with moving at work tomorrow, and then set about creating a laugh-a-minute activity plan for the mater, as well as hiding all the sex toys, drug paraphernalia, and general accoutrements of my debaucherous lifestyle. I'm a fuck-up, and I know she knows I'm a fuck-up, but for the next two weeks we're all going to play a super fun happy game of Let's Pretend Iphigenia Is A Wonderful Daughter Who Spends Her Time Scrap-booking And Cross-stitching Pictures of Kittens. FML.
Remembering dead guys
So it's Memorial Day and we've got a wading pool set up on the back deck and the burgers are on the grill and we're in onesies and swimsuits and short-shorts and oh my fuckin' God, it's finally summer, finally! There was a massive thunderstorm yesterday that was basically like winter in the old country and that sucked ten different kinds of balls, especially taking the bus. But today was a public holiday and we moved all the junk from the Old Studio to the New Studio...it didn't take nearly as long as we thought it would, for some reason. Maybe because we had eleventy-one volunteers. Repetitive manual labor totally suited the mood that I was in today. Sweeping out the small space all by myself while listening to That Music You Liked in High School (aka the local alternative station) was pretty much just what I needed. There is a certain sense of accomplishment in looking at the place that was previously covered in multiple layers of crud and is now shiny-shiny clean with no allergy risk whatsoever.
I ate a burger patty raw while scoping music for Wednesday's act. Lounge music blows dogs for quarters, I will tell you that for free. What does not suck is raw hamburger. Squishy and delicious. I am going to carnivore hell.
I got a smarty-pants phone. It's a lot easier to send boys pictures of myself doing questionable things, but a lot harder to text-message for some reason. I also like being able to get directions on the fly. Anyone who knows me will tell you that my sense of direction is shoddy, at best. I blame the bumps to my head as a child. I don't know how I feel about being part of this whole technological revolution doo-hickey, but it's nice pretending to be Penny from Inspector Gadget when I need to know what that one place that serves sushi at four am is called.
Sunshine just called me on eating the raw burger patty. He asked if I was worried about e coli at all, and was slightly scandalized to learn that I like the texture of raw meat. He said he wouldn't have expected it. I have no idea what people expect of me. I tend to assume "epic failure" is the standard setting for people's ideas about the outcomes of my endeavors, but that's probably just me projecting. Whatev.
God, I'm going to miss Sunshine and Roses. They've been staying with us for almost a month now and they're going back to the magical land of Canadia tomorrow. I don't want them to leave. Roses is better at everything than me, ever, except I don't hate her for it, and I'm not sure why. I wish she lived here. I think hanging out with her would probably be good for me. Sunshine is...well, he got his nickname for a reason. He is an honest-to-God, mother-fucking, no-punches-pulled, jen-yoo-ein, ray of sparkly, sparkly sunshine. The guy says "Shut the front door!" when he questions the validity of whatever it is you're saying, for crying out loud. He cooks dinner and does dishes and fixes drinks with style and flair and panache. He gives you constructive criticism that makes you feel better than any compliment ever could. And he makes a lot of dick jokes. Le sigh. Why do all the cool people live somewhere that I'm not?
I miss Legs. She's back in the homeland, kicking proverbial ass and taking all kinds of names. She was such a good level of of comparison for everyone, from jeans to dance shoes to boys to box wine. Miss you, you mingy mingah-rangah. Binty fuck-shake!
Jesus, you can develop some decidedly confusing linguistics with people you're in frequent contact with. Senorita Fregoso would love that shit.
I ate a burger patty raw while scoping music for Wednesday's act. Lounge music blows dogs for quarters, I will tell you that for free. What does not suck is raw hamburger. Squishy and delicious. I am going to carnivore hell.
I got a smarty-pants phone. It's a lot easier to send boys pictures of myself doing questionable things, but a lot harder to text-message for some reason. I also like being able to get directions on the fly. Anyone who knows me will tell you that my sense of direction is shoddy, at best. I blame the bumps to my head as a child. I don't know how I feel about being part of this whole technological revolution doo-hickey, but it's nice pretending to be Penny from Inspector Gadget when I need to know what that one place that serves sushi at four am is called.
Sunshine just called me on eating the raw burger patty. He asked if I was worried about e coli at all, and was slightly scandalized to learn that I like the texture of raw meat. He said he wouldn't have expected it. I have no idea what people expect of me. I tend to assume "epic failure" is the standard setting for people's ideas about the outcomes of my endeavors, but that's probably just me projecting. Whatev.
God, I'm going to miss Sunshine and Roses. They've been staying with us for almost a month now and they're going back to the magical land of Canadia tomorrow. I don't want them to leave. Roses is better at everything than me, ever, except I don't hate her for it, and I'm not sure why. I wish she lived here. I think hanging out with her would probably be good for me. Sunshine is...well, he got his nickname for a reason. He is an honest-to-God, mother-fucking, no-punches-pulled, jen-yoo-ein, ray of sparkly, sparkly sunshine. The guy says "Shut the front door!" when he questions the validity of whatever it is you're saying, for crying out loud. He cooks dinner and does dishes and fixes drinks with style and flair and panache. He gives you constructive criticism that makes you feel better than any compliment ever could. And he makes a lot of dick jokes. Le sigh. Why do all the cool people live somewhere that I'm not?
I miss Legs. She's back in the homeland, kicking proverbial ass and taking all kinds of names. She was such a good level of of comparison for everyone, from jeans to dance shoes to boys to box wine. Miss you, you mingy mingah-rangah. Binty fuck-shake!
Jesus, you can develop some decidedly confusing linguistics with people you're in frequent contact with. Senorita Fregoso would love that shit.
Friday, April 22, 2011
A hammer with which to shape it
This week has been every kind of blah. There are many things to blame for this, but the upshot of it all is, I need to think about all the things I work so hard at distracting myself from. This came to my attention after a teary outburst with Forthright last weekend. His brutal honesty is helpful up to a point, and then it just makes me angry. If I don't want to deal with my issues with my parents and my eating disorder and my lack of direction in life and my lack of fiscal responsibility, then dadgummit, I'm not going to. Real mature, Bradley.
Here are some things that attract my attention at the moment.
Thing 1: Raw meat. I've taken to ordering my burgers rare and then only eating the patty. These days I like my steaks oozing blood, preferably just waved over the grill once or twice. I also discovered kitfo, an Ethiopian version of steak tartare. It's spicy and when freshly served, resembles a small brain of some kind. I may be turning into some sort of zombie.
Thing 2: Reading about dictatorships. I think this stems from the History 216 unit on Latin American tyrants who caused mass exoduses from various nations. Trujillo and Fidel and Pinochet and those fabulous Somozas. The Critic leant me a book of interviews some Italian journalist did with a bunch of deposed dictators. Idi Amin was mutha-fuckin' batshit keeee-razy, yo. Crazy to the tune of 300, 000 people dead or disappeared during his reign. It's amazing how incredibly awful humans can be.
Thing 3: Powder foundation as opposed to liquid foundation.
Thing 4: Considering actually trying to make a go of what I started out doing and got sidetracked from. I know that's obtuse, but said consideration is possibly one of the things adding to the blah-ness of this week, and I don't really feel like getting into it at this juncture.
Thing 5: Practising. Running my new single hoop act again and again and again and again. And working on that "Ring of Fire" thing. Also trying to do abs and lower body every day. I know hearing about someone's workout regimen is maybe up there with watching paint dry, so I haven't really been talking to anyone about it, but I think things are looking a little better. Hey, I didn't start this entry with a paragraph of self-loathing body-related babble, did I?
I'm writing this paper about literature affecting the formation of culture as well as reflecting it. I want to light myself on fire every time I think about it, mainly because it's not done yet and I wish it was, but it's got me thinking. Could this word-vomit have some impact on how things are going to turn out? Could it help me figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do next? At this point, anything would be preferable to this hot mess of indecision.
Here are some things that attract my attention at the moment.
Thing 1: Raw meat. I've taken to ordering my burgers rare and then only eating the patty. These days I like my steaks oozing blood, preferably just waved over the grill once or twice. I also discovered kitfo, an Ethiopian version of steak tartare. It's spicy and when freshly served, resembles a small brain of some kind. I may be turning into some sort of zombie.
Thing 2: Reading about dictatorships. I think this stems from the History 216 unit on Latin American tyrants who caused mass exoduses from various nations. Trujillo and Fidel and Pinochet and those fabulous Somozas. The Critic leant me a book of interviews some Italian journalist did with a bunch of deposed dictators. Idi Amin was mutha-fuckin' batshit keeee-razy, yo. Crazy to the tune of 300, 000 people dead or disappeared during his reign. It's amazing how incredibly awful humans can be.
Thing 3: Powder foundation as opposed to liquid foundation.
Thing 4: Considering actually trying to make a go of what I started out doing and got sidetracked from. I know that's obtuse, but said consideration is possibly one of the things adding to the blah-ness of this week, and I don't really feel like getting into it at this juncture.
Thing 5: Practising. Running my new single hoop act again and again and again and again. And working on that "Ring of Fire" thing. Also trying to do abs and lower body every day. I know hearing about someone's workout regimen is maybe up there with watching paint dry, so I haven't really been talking to anyone about it, but I think things are looking a little better. Hey, I didn't start this entry with a paragraph of self-loathing body-related babble, did I?
I'm writing this paper about literature affecting the formation of culture as well as reflecting it. I want to light myself on fire every time I think about it, mainly because it's not done yet and I wish it was, but it's got me thinking. Could this word-vomit have some impact on how things are going to turn out? Could it help me figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do next? At this point, anything would be preferable to this hot mess of indecision.
Monday, March 14, 2011
We done hosted a shindig...
There was green food coloring in the drinks and people playing go despite hefty language barriers. We danced badly and sang along loudly to Lily Allen songs. No one threw up, but someone broke the lounge chair downstairs, probably doing something scandalous. Anglais borrowed one of my shirts and we almost had a million dollar makeover moment, complete with a Bangles soundtracked montage...but I think it'll be awhile before her self-esteem is healthy enough for her to feel comfortable wearing one of my trashy, besparkled hussy outfits. Tink (my new roommate) loudly and frequently proclaimed her joy at now living with two happily brazen tarts like Dys and myself. I guess the people she used to live with weren't as open-minded, or some such silly thing.
Not me, though. Apparently I'm both open-minded and open-legged. I invited both Scuzz and Burn-out (whose knee surgery went very well, in case you were wondering. He is no longer bombed out on Vicodin, and his cane has been exchanged for a far less fetching knee brace), assuming that one or both of them would bail at the last minute. Not so. Burn-out showed up when I was more than a little plastered, and because I am a terrible host and was more preoccupied with making the perfect party playlist than taking care of him, he spent much of the evening chatting to Keiko, the nice Japanese exchange student. I actually found out he texted her last week, bless him. I think he has a thing for girls with accents...but I hope he isn't as mean to her in bed as he was with me. She's a sweet little thing and I think she might get a bit scared. Then again, you never can tell.
Anyway, all my cruel neglect didn't stop Burn-out from getting comfortable in my bed and removing his trousers later on in the evening. Unfortunately, just as I reached critical drunken mass and collapsed facedown in my bed alongside him, fully prepared to pass out and ignore any sexual overtures, Scuzz made an entrance with quite the curious look on his face. Uh oh. All of this is remembered through a thick alcoholic haze, so the exact conversational details are kind of haphazard, but I think it went something like this.
Scuzz: What's going on?
Me: (face smooshed into pillow) I dunno. M'tired.
Burn-out: What do you think, man?
Scuzz: Who's this guy? Are you ok?
Me: Myep. M'tired.
Scuzz: ...
Burn-out: ...
Me: Oh! Scuzz, this is Burn-out. He's a fireman. Burn-out, this is my friend Scuzz. I used to teach him stuff.
Scuzz: Am I...can I still stay over?
Me: Myep.
Burn-out: I think it's time for you to leave, bud.
Scuzz: Listen man, I don't know who the hell you are, but I'm Iphy's friend, and I was invited to be here.
Burn-out: *angry face*
Me: Guys. C'mon. This is dumb. I'm tired. C'mere. *gesturing at Scuzz to lay down next to me, which he did* We can totally figure this out, yo. This is a thing that can work.
I don't remember what was said after that, but the following sequence of events began with me kissing Scuzz, then leaning over and kissing Burn-out, and pretty much continued in that vein. Hello, my first ever devil's threesome.
No one can say I don't have spectacular problem-solving skills.
Not me, though. Apparently I'm both open-minded and open-legged. I invited both Scuzz and Burn-out (whose knee surgery went very well, in case you were wondering. He is no longer bombed out on Vicodin, and his cane has been exchanged for a far less fetching knee brace), assuming that one or both of them would bail at the last minute. Not so. Burn-out showed up when I was more than a little plastered, and because I am a terrible host and was more preoccupied with making the perfect party playlist than taking care of him, he spent much of the evening chatting to Keiko, the nice Japanese exchange student. I actually found out he texted her last week, bless him. I think he has a thing for girls with accents...but I hope he isn't as mean to her in bed as he was with me. She's a sweet little thing and I think she might get a bit scared. Then again, you never can tell.
Anyway, all my cruel neglect didn't stop Burn-out from getting comfortable in my bed and removing his trousers later on in the evening. Unfortunately, just as I reached critical drunken mass and collapsed facedown in my bed alongside him, fully prepared to pass out and ignore any sexual overtures, Scuzz made an entrance with quite the curious look on his face. Uh oh. All of this is remembered through a thick alcoholic haze, so the exact conversational details are kind of haphazard, but I think it went something like this.
Scuzz: What's going on?
Me: (face smooshed into pillow) I dunno. M'tired.
Burn-out: What do you think, man?
Scuzz: Who's this guy? Are you ok?
Me: Myep. M'tired.
Scuzz: ...
Burn-out: ...
Me: Oh! Scuzz, this is Burn-out. He's a fireman. Burn-out, this is my friend Scuzz. I used to teach him stuff.
Scuzz: Am I...can I still stay over?
Me: Myep.
Burn-out: I think it's time for you to leave, bud.
Scuzz: Listen man, I don't know who the hell you are, but I'm Iphy's friend, and I was invited to be here.
Burn-out: *angry face*
Me: Guys. C'mon. This is dumb. I'm tired. C'mere. *gesturing at Scuzz to lay down next to me, which he did* We can totally figure this out, yo. This is a thing that can work.
I don't remember what was said after that, but the following sequence of events began with me kissing Scuzz, then leaning over and kissing Burn-out, and pretty much continued in that vein. Hello, my first ever devil's threesome.
No one can say I don't have spectacular problem-solving skills.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Comin' Up From Behind...
I'm fat. I'm pudgy and puffy. Fatty fatty, two by four. I'm bulgy, malformed and lumpy. I am the big fat sow for the winter's lard that Johnny Cash was singing about in his version of "Country Trash." I am a hideous, 5'2 pile of cellulite and self-pity. I will most certainly shuffle off this mortal coil in a filthy house with reinforced walls, surrounded by Twinkie wrappers, my gigantic gut smushed up against the flat screen. And when the stench of my putrefying corpse finally disturbs my neighbours and they realize that the Big Fat Scary Lady Who Never Goes Outside has gone to Jesus, they will kindly see to it that a crane hauls me out of the house and carts me away to the hospital furnace, which my big fat ass will probably clog up and break.
Yeah, this is what happens when I can't train as much as I want to due to my piles upon piles of schoolwork and a busted shoulder. My jeans feel tight and the Belt of Truth won't do up on the "it's ok, you're not morbidly obese" notch. The teeny tiny sane portion of my brain knows that I'm probably not that much bigger and that a week of working out and eating soup and Subway turkey sandwiches will get me back to where I was before. But the much larger and noisier crazy part of my brain is insisting that this is the beginning of my turning into a lard-ass like my father and if I had any kind of resolve and wasn't such a lazy, useless loser, this wouldn't be happening.
Sigh. Everyone feel sorry for me and my body image issues. One two three, go.
In other news, I gave Brick the arse. That doesn't mean I let him do that booty-pokin' thing that so many boys think is so darn nifty. It's actually a charming Australian term for letting someone know their services are no longer required. He turned out to be a waste of text messaging budget. I still haven't seen Forthright, but I hit up Babydaddy last week. He took me to a Blackhawks game which fucking ruled. I like hockey, so many things crashing into other things. I've never hung out with Babydaddy without getting shit-housed, which I suppose is somewhat concerning, but whatever. He's fun and he always has Vitamin Water in his fridge and an ample supply of goldfish crackers.
Kitty peer-pressured me into getting a tattoo with her last weekend. I've been thinking about it for a while, so it wasn't a total spur-of-the-moment, talked-me-into-it thing. I think it looks pretty rad, or at least at will when it stops being all scabby. A tattoo fits nicely into this rock'n'roll lifestyle I seem to be enjoying at the moment. Now all I need is a sex-tape scandal, a DUI, and a stint at Promises, and I'll really be one of the cool kids.
Yeah, this is what happens when I can't train as much as I want to due to my piles upon piles of schoolwork and a busted shoulder. My jeans feel tight and the Belt of Truth won't do up on the "it's ok, you're not morbidly obese" notch. The teeny tiny sane portion of my brain knows that I'm probably not that much bigger and that a week of working out and eating soup and Subway turkey sandwiches will get me back to where I was before. But the much larger and noisier crazy part of my brain is insisting that this is the beginning of my turning into a lard-ass like my father and if I had any kind of resolve and wasn't such a lazy, useless loser, this wouldn't be happening.
Sigh. Everyone feel sorry for me and my body image issues. One two three, go.
In other news, I gave Brick the arse. That doesn't mean I let him do that booty-pokin' thing that so many boys think is so darn nifty. It's actually a charming Australian term for letting someone know their services are no longer required. He turned out to be a waste of text messaging budget. I still haven't seen Forthright, but I hit up Babydaddy last week. He took me to a Blackhawks game which fucking ruled. I like hockey, so many things crashing into other things. I've never hung out with Babydaddy without getting shit-housed, which I suppose is somewhat concerning, but whatever. He's fun and he always has Vitamin Water in his fridge and an ample supply of goldfish crackers.
Kitty peer-pressured me into getting a tattoo with her last weekend. I've been thinking about it for a while, so it wasn't a total spur-of-the-moment, talked-me-into-it thing. I think it looks pretty rad, or at least at will when it stops being all scabby. A tattoo fits nicely into this rock'n'roll lifestyle I seem to be enjoying at the moment. Now all I need is a sex-tape scandal, a DUI, and a stint at Promises, and I'll really be one of the cool kids.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Face-palm!
Last night something very disturbing happened. No, it was not my watching of "Jennifer's Body" for a second time, despite the fact that my first viewing made me want to call Diablo Cody up and tell her it was ok, she was still awesome, and I could totally see what she'd been trying to do with it all. No, it was not the realization that my teeth are turning brown and that in itself is motivation to make some mother-fucking changes up in this bee-yatch. (That actually happened on Sunday night, but whatever) No, it wasn't learning that there is such a thing as corn whiskey and people with more disposable income than sense will pay dearly for it.
Nosireebob. Here is the thing that happened and, for some reason, has shaken me to my very core:
I wet the bed.
Not even MY bed. Forthright's bed. Forthright's nice bed with the high thread count sheets and ergonomic pillows. Forthright's bed that he lets me sleep in with him even if all we do is sleep. My really good friend and occasional grade-A fuckbuddy Forthright's bed. Face to the g.d.m.f palm, with a slap so loud it echoes.
I don't know what happened. I wasn't drunk. I've never been so drunk I've wet the bed, anyway. I wasn't, like, sick or anything. I had consumed about a litre of diet soda throughout the evening, but that's hardly unusual for me and has never had such soggy results ever before. Bed-wetting wasn't a problem for me past the age of about four, and even then, I think I was a pretty standard child in that regard.
All I know is I woke up cold and clammy, desperately hoping I'd just sweated a lot. I went to the bathroom, took off my sodden underwear and freaked out very, very quietly. I then went back into the bed room and lay down smack in the middle of the mattress so as to form a wall between Forthright and the incriminating damp patch. I lay awake wondering whether he could smell it, if I could somehow launder, dry and replace his sheets between eight thirty and ten am the following morning, and if not, could I somehow just clean the nasty part and dry it with a hair-dryer? I watched the clock, waiting for the night to be over so I could sort out this gross and confusing issue.
I must have fallen asleep at some point because I woke up to Forthright shifting his sleeping position so he was facing me, legs entangled with me. Normally this would make me a happy camper, but not this morning, no way, Jose. I froze and tried to figure out what to do. Eventually he woke up and smiled at me, at which point it was pretty much beyond me to think of an elaborate ruse. Forthright doesn't have many limits, but he loathes being lied to with the fire of a thousand suns. I don't know if that hatred extends to urine-related mishaps, but I wasn't about to find out.
"Um...so I have something really gross and embarrassing to confess. Last night I...well, I guess I wet myself. And the bed. I'm sorry."
He seemed fairly unpeturbed, to the effect of, "Well, that's ok. It happens. It's no big deal."
"No, it doesn't! Not to me! I wasn't even drunk! I'm sorry."
"It's really ok. Don't worry about it."
And then he went back to sleep for another hour before getting up and going to work, at which point I sprawled out on his side of the bed and slept the sleep of the thoroughly exhausted. Upon waking up, I removed the sheets, left them at the foot of the bed, and went on my merry way.
I am very confused right now. I am also hoping Forthright never tells anyone about this or starts making Depends or Pull-ups jokes, because then I would have to murder him and make ear-muffs out of his curly scalp.
Nosireebob. Here is the thing that happened and, for some reason, has shaken me to my very core:
I wet the bed.
Not even MY bed. Forthright's bed. Forthright's nice bed with the high thread count sheets and ergonomic pillows. Forthright's bed that he lets me sleep in with him even if all we do is sleep. My really good friend and occasional grade-A fuckbuddy Forthright's bed. Face to the g.d.m.f palm, with a slap so loud it echoes.
I don't know what happened. I wasn't drunk. I've never been so drunk I've wet the bed, anyway. I wasn't, like, sick or anything. I had consumed about a litre of diet soda throughout the evening, but that's hardly unusual for me and has never had such soggy results ever before. Bed-wetting wasn't a problem for me past the age of about four, and even then, I think I was a pretty standard child in that regard.
All I know is I woke up cold and clammy, desperately hoping I'd just sweated a lot. I went to the bathroom, took off my sodden underwear and freaked out very, very quietly. I then went back into the bed room and lay down smack in the middle of the mattress so as to form a wall between Forthright and the incriminating damp patch. I lay awake wondering whether he could smell it, if I could somehow launder, dry and replace his sheets between eight thirty and ten am the following morning, and if not, could I somehow just clean the nasty part and dry it with a hair-dryer? I watched the clock, waiting for the night to be over so I could sort out this gross and confusing issue.
I must have fallen asleep at some point because I woke up to Forthright shifting his sleeping position so he was facing me, legs entangled with me. Normally this would make me a happy camper, but not this morning, no way, Jose. I froze and tried to figure out what to do. Eventually he woke up and smiled at me, at which point it was pretty much beyond me to think of an elaborate ruse. Forthright doesn't have many limits, but he loathes being lied to with the fire of a thousand suns. I don't know if that hatred extends to urine-related mishaps, but I wasn't about to find out.
"Um...so I have something really gross and embarrassing to confess. Last night I...well, I guess I wet myself. And the bed. I'm sorry."
He seemed fairly unpeturbed, to the effect of, "Well, that's ok. It happens. It's no big deal."
"No, it doesn't! Not to me! I wasn't even drunk! I'm sorry."
"It's really ok. Don't worry about it."
And then he went back to sleep for another hour before getting up and going to work, at which point I sprawled out on his side of the bed and slept the sleep of the thoroughly exhausted. Upon waking up, I removed the sheets, left them at the foot of the bed, and went on my merry way.
I am very confused right now. I am also hoping Forthright never tells anyone about this or starts making Depends or Pull-ups jokes, because then I would have to murder him and make ear-muffs out of his curly scalp.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
A downward spiral of Reznor-ian proportions
I've had all sorts of things to write about lately, and no time to do any writing. I've been drinking and doing every stupid thing I can think of and showing up to class ridiculously tired and hungover. Witness my decline into squalor and sloppy, unattractive alcoholism.
I had a little yelling moment this morning when I got lost on the way to a ballet class I wanted to take. It was raining and it seemed like there was no point in ever trying to do anything positive, because I'm completely incapable of doing anything that doesn't destroy me in some way. Why should I work out, eat right, study, spend time with friends, try out new hair styles, check items off my to-do list and read worthy tomes when it's so much easier to ruin my liver, binge on peanut butter, hand work in at the last minute, avoid people's phone calls, rock an ugly, ratty ponytail, achieve absolutely nothing of substance, and voraciously consume copies of Star and Us Weekly?
I think all the booze is messing with my meds. Or maybe the not remembering to take the damn things in the first place. That could be it, too.
Burn-out is getting a knee reconstruction later this week. I haven't seen him much lately. He says he's been sick, but I'm inclined to believe he's found someone more interesting than me to rail. I don't really feel bad about that, although I would have preferred to be the one to get bored with him rather than vice versa.
Same thing with Brick. He texts me here and there, saying how much he wants to see me and wanting to know when we can hang out. His idea of hanging out involves my trekking over to his house and staying over. At least Burn-out comes to me, rather than my having to go to him. I can't be bothered with lengthy CTA trips in the name of getting laid, for the most part. Although a sleepover at Brick's means I can play with his very cute Rottweiler while catching up on Teen Mom and Tosh.0 and eating cookie dough purloined from the fridge.
I went out with a new guy last week, Man-child. He's in the middle of an ugly divorce and has two small children. Neither of these fun-facts are on his OKC profile, and I don't think he'd intended on sharing them but for some reason did. He also looks about twenty, but not in a hot way. Inexplicably, it seemed like a good idea to bring him home, until he dropped the bomb about his ex-wife being the only person he'd ever slept with, How the fuck do I find these losers? Man-child rides a fucking razor scooter, for God's sake. Why did I not just head for the hills as soon as I saw that?
One small dumpling of awesomeness in the otherwise gloopy and burnt-tasting wonton soup of my life is the realization that I am capable of administering my own Brazilian waxes. Considering how much I like picking at things and pulling out stuff with tweezers, it's sort of surprising that it took me this long to figure this out. Also, that's sixty bucks a month I'm saving, yo. Sixty bucks that COULD be going towards the hefty bill that would go along with the smart phone I'm thinking about getting. My shitty-ass flip phone is on its last legs, and I'm sick of being the only person who doesn't get to play Angry Birds while riding the bus.
I miss Forthright. He's out of town this weekend and we didn't hang last weekend. I think I need to spend more time with him and less with the other harem members. In a slightly different mindframe, Forthright would be a very good boyfriend. Right now, he's a very good person to talk to about my dating exploits while we watch crappy movies and eat m and m's. We might be doing that tomorrow. I hope so. I need something good to happen right now.
I had a little yelling moment this morning when I got lost on the way to a ballet class I wanted to take. It was raining and it seemed like there was no point in ever trying to do anything positive, because I'm completely incapable of doing anything that doesn't destroy me in some way. Why should I work out, eat right, study, spend time with friends, try out new hair styles, check items off my to-do list and read worthy tomes when it's so much easier to ruin my liver, binge on peanut butter, hand work in at the last minute, avoid people's phone calls, rock an ugly, ratty ponytail, achieve absolutely nothing of substance, and voraciously consume copies of Star and Us Weekly?
I think all the booze is messing with my meds. Or maybe the not remembering to take the damn things in the first place. That could be it, too.
Burn-out is getting a knee reconstruction later this week. I haven't seen him much lately. He says he's been sick, but I'm inclined to believe he's found someone more interesting than me to rail. I don't really feel bad about that, although I would have preferred to be the one to get bored with him rather than vice versa.
Same thing with Brick. He texts me here and there, saying how much he wants to see me and wanting to know when we can hang out. His idea of hanging out involves my trekking over to his house and staying over. At least Burn-out comes to me, rather than my having to go to him. I can't be bothered with lengthy CTA trips in the name of getting laid, for the most part. Although a sleepover at Brick's means I can play with his very cute Rottweiler while catching up on Teen Mom and Tosh.0 and eating cookie dough purloined from the fridge.
I went out with a new guy last week, Man-child. He's in the middle of an ugly divorce and has two small children. Neither of these fun-facts are on his OKC profile, and I don't think he'd intended on sharing them but for some reason did. He also looks about twenty, but not in a hot way. Inexplicably, it seemed like a good idea to bring him home, until he dropped the bomb about his ex-wife being the only person he'd ever slept with, How the fuck do I find these losers? Man-child rides a fucking razor scooter, for God's sake. Why did I not just head for the hills as soon as I saw that?
One small dumpling of awesomeness in the otherwise gloopy and burnt-tasting wonton soup of my life is the realization that I am capable of administering my own Brazilian waxes. Considering how much I like picking at things and pulling out stuff with tweezers, it's sort of surprising that it took me this long to figure this out. Also, that's sixty bucks a month I'm saving, yo. Sixty bucks that COULD be going towards the hefty bill that would go along with the smart phone I'm thinking about getting. My shitty-ass flip phone is on its last legs, and I'm sick of being the only person who doesn't get to play Angry Birds while riding the bus.
I miss Forthright. He's out of town this weekend and we didn't hang last weekend. I think I need to spend more time with him and less with the other harem members. In a slightly different mindframe, Forthright would be a very good boyfriend. Right now, he's a very good person to talk to about my dating exploits while we watch crappy movies and eat m and m's. We might be doing that tomorrow. I hope so. I need something good to happen right now.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Happy End-times!
They're calling it Snow-pocalypse...because the Illinois media are clever like that.
Yeah, there's snow. Lots of snow. Also wind, and lightning. The house is shaking and the back deck has a four foot high snow drift on it. I dig it. I feel like I'm in Little House on the Prairie (well, On the Banks Of Plum Creek, if we're going to be anal about it) and I need to bring in more logs from the wood pile. Weather is much more exciting in this country than it is in the motherland. Also more solid.
I got mercilessly jostled by a savage gust of wind while walking from the gym to the red line, which caused me to slide about six feet across State Street. It was rad. I squealed, cussed, and was complimented on my antics by another girl crossing the road.
Brick wanted me to come over tonight, but I was all like, hell to the no! This was on account of a) I didn't want to die a lonely, frosty death at the bus stop, and b) I don't want him thinking he can just wiggle his nose a la I Dream of Jeannie and have me magically appear at his house, ready to fuck, cuddle, and listen to him endlessly talk about "his guys" at work. Brick is short for Brick Shithouse, btw, because the lad in question is built like one. He was a selection from the OKC Buffet and looks set to become a regular in Iphigenia's Super Fun Happy Harem. He's three years younger than me and I can't decide if he's genuinely stupid or if he smokes too much pot or if all those concussions from his football days have finally caught up with him. Or maybe I'm just a judgmental troll who shouldn't be some mean about someone who has been nothing but nice to me. Who knows? He's working from home tomorrow because of the blizzard and I have the day off school (ditto), so I might go over to his and study while he works.
I need to study more, I think. I need to read more at the gym and watch less silly music videos. I swear, if I have to watch that "Dutty Love" clip one more time, I'm going to put my foot in Sean Kingston's big fat ass. Not even Nicki Minaj can save that steaming shit-pile of a song. Anyway, I should be absorbed in gendered Spanish nouns, Latin American history, and anxiety disorders while getting my sweat on.
Or, you know, I could spend less time chasing boys and more time with my books. Yeah, right. Because that'll totally happen. *snort*
I have a burlesque show on Thursday that I sort of forgot about. I've kind of dropped off the face of the burly-Q earth since I started school and began getting more regular gigs. It's too much work for too little pay-off, and let's face it, there's only so many ways you can take off your clothes in front of an audience before that shit gets old. This week's effort should be reasonably straightforward. Pick song, pick moves, pick costume, combine all three. Take equipment and costume to venue, perform act, try not to knock anything over, and remember to smile. Use drink tickets, avoid creepy dudes at the bar, get paid, take cab home. Or take cab to Brick's house still wearing costume and blow his sheltered little mind. Hm.
I could use the money. This shoulder issue is lingering far longer than it should have, so I'm teaching less and getting prodded and poked by Dr Jack more than I'd like. It'll be ok eventually, I suppose.
Maybe Burn-out can recommend a physical therapist. Burn-out is this damaged fire fighter I've been out with a couple of times. He's about a million feet tall and walks with a cane because he fucked up his leg...fighting a fire, I suppose. I'll write a full description of him and our rather diverting first hang-out some other time. Right now, though, it's time to hit the hay. Peace, suckahs.
Yeah, there's snow. Lots of snow. Also wind, and lightning. The house is shaking and the back deck has a four foot high snow drift on it. I dig it. I feel like I'm in Little House on the Prairie (well, On the Banks Of Plum Creek, if we're going to be anal about it) and I need to bring in more logs from the wood pile. Weather is much more exciting in this country than it is in the motherland. Also more solid.
I got mercilessly jostled by a savage gust of wind while walking from the gym to the red line, which caused me to slide about six feet across State Street. It was rad. I squealed, cussed, and was complimented on my antics by another girl crossing the road.
Brick wanted me to come over tonight, but I was all like, hell to the no! This was on account of a) I didn't want to die a lonely, frosty death at the bus stop, and b) I don't want him thinking he can just wiggle his nose a la I Dream of Jeannie and have me magically appear at his house, ready to fuck, cuddle, and listen to him endlessly talk about "his guys" at work. Brick is short for Brick Shithouse, btw, because the lad in question is built like one. He was a selection from the OKC Buffet and looks set to become a regular in Iphigenia's Super Fun Happy Harem. He's three years younger than me and I can't decide if he's genuinely stupid or if he smokes too much pot or if all those concussions from his football days have finally caught up with him. Or maybe I'm just a judgmental troll who shouldn't be some mean about someone who has been nothing but nice to me. Who knows? He's working from home tomorrow because of the blizzard and I have the day off school (ditto), so I might go over to his and study while he works.
I need to study more, I think. I need to read more at the gym and watch less silly music videos. I swear, if I have to watch that "Dutty Love" clip one more time, I'm going to put my foot in Sean Kingston's big fat ass. Not even Nicki Minaj can save that steaming shit-pile of a song. Anyway, I should be absorbed in gendered Spanish nouns, Latin American history, and anxiety disorders while getting my sweat on.
Or, you know, I could spend less time chasing boys and more time with my books. Yeah, right. Because that'll totally happen. *snort*
I have a burlesque show on Thursday that I sort of forgot about. I've kind of dropped off the face of the burly-Q earth since I started school and began getting more regular gigs. It's too much work for too little pay-off, and let's face it, there's only so many ways you can take off your clothes in front of an audience before that shit gets old. This week's effort should be reasonably straightforward. Pick song, pick moves, pick costume, combine all three. Take equipment and costume to venue, perform act, try not to knock anything over, and remember to smile. Use drink tickets, avoid creepy dudes at the bar, get paid, take cab home. Or take cab to Brick's house still wearing costume and blow his sheltered little mind. Hm.
I could use the money. This shoulder issue is lingering far longer than it should have, so I'm teaching less and getting prodded and poked by Dr Jack more than I'd like. It'll be ok eventually, I suppose.
Maybe Burn-out can recommend a physical therapist. Burn-out is this damaged fire fighter I've been out with a couple of times. He's about a million feet tall and walks with a cane because he fucked up his leg...fighting a fire, I suppose. I'll write a full description of him and our rather diverting first hang-out some other time. Right now, though, it's time to hit the hay. Peace, suckahs.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Cue the R rating
This blog is going to be a thing. It is going to be a thing that I do, once a week or so. It will be an alternative to googling overpriced beauty products that I'll never buy, reading shit about celebrities who are faintly interesting at best, and playing Boy Buffet on Okcupid. I need a record of all the ridiculous antics I plan on getting up to in the next however long and this seems to fit the bill.
So I'm single now, again. All-Star and I broke up a few days after my birthday, and I'm still moderately annoyed that I got gypped out of a birthday present as well as all the Christmas presents his family would have got me. What can I say, I was looking forward to that Bath and Body Works gift card. I miss his family in general, actually. They were nice folks, completely willing to accept a random foreigner into their holiday gatherings and not complain when she spent the whole time hanging out with the kids.
The dating shenanigans commenced while I was back in the motherland over the holidays. I gave myself the Christmas gift of a boy from high school who was dumb as a box of rocks but remarkably well endowed. 'Twas the season, I guess.
So I'm single now, again. All-Star and I broke up a few days after my birthday, and I'm still moderately annoyed that I got gypped out of a birthday present as well as all the Christmas presents his family would have got me. What can I say, I was looking forward to that Bath and Body Works gift card. I miss his family in general, actually. They were nice folks, completely willing to accept a random foreigner into their holiday gatherings and not complain when she spent the whole time hanging out with the kids.
The dating shenanigans commenced while I was back in the motherland over the holidays. I gave myself the Christmas gift of a boy from high school who was dumb as a box of rocks but remarkably well endowed. 'Twas the season, I guess.
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