goblinbox

In which there’s a free-form ramble on the topic of writing. This is a zero draft with only basic editing.

People keep telling me to write, that I should write, that I should “be a writer,” and I do write. I write hundreds of thousands of words every year, but the secret I know is that I’ve read great writers and I’m not one.

I loathe my own mediocrity, I suppose, though I grok the math of the curve and accept my position here in the middle with everyone else. It’s cool here, it’s groovy and chummy; we can’t all be the cream in this pail of milk, the world just isn’t made that way, it’s made of gradations and variations and grades and levels, and if I’m to be allowed to be very good at something then it follows that I must also be not good at something else, those are just the rules. If I’m going to be average, why can’t I do it in an office somewhere, an office with a big fat OC3 pipe to the Internet and a 401k and phones that don’t ring very often? Why do I have to write?

Like I’m not writing? I am writing. I write all the time! You’re looking at nine years of writing right here, and it’s not brilliant: I know brilliant. I eat brilliant for breakfast. I’ve read a hundred pounds of brilliant books and what I do here, my noodling, sure, it’s good in places, really good in others, I’ll give you that, but if you want to read a writer, a real writer, someone who shines, a proper real life honest-to-God writer, well, I have a list for you. In the world there are paragraphs that change the way your brain works, chapters that make you weep, phrases exquisite and ephemeral and surgical like the light in a Caravaggio.

That is not what I’m doing around here.

Just thinking about “being a writer” makes me think of the writers I’ve read, and let me tell you something, buddy: there are the brilliant, yes, but then too there are the rest: a whole big bunch these days that are crappy banal crap. So many people devour so many words each day that embarrassingly common strings of them are just available for sale any old place, just as cheap and poorly-made as any cheap poorly-made imported t-shirt with the thin fabric and the crooked seams and a flaw in every single one of the damn lot of five thousand.

My point is this: even though they sell, no one wants to make those cheap fucking t-shirts because the work sucks!

You can get bad writing all over the place, and be just as pissed as I am when I snuggle in, expectant and open, to read, only to discover that I won’t be enjoying it. If I were a writer, if I were writing I would be only slightly better than that. I love to read, I love it perfectly and without reservation: how could I stand myself to sully it with a torrent of words only barely lyrical? What is the fucking point of that, I ask you!

I do write. I’m writing right now! What you’re actually asking me to do is monetize it, turn it into a job, and do the best I can at a volume of labor that forces me, enforces me, to work at my own median level, which is the very median of all possible writing, the mean, the middle, the mediocre, and I can’t figure out why I should do to the world something like that.

Sometimes, though, sometimes: sometimes I do approach something lyrical with these words here. I’m such a late bloomer, though. Now that I’ve glimpsed it and named it and scritched it under its chin do you suppose it will take me another thirty years to tame it?

In which I share a little revelation I had last night.

While chatting with Mel over IM, I made an offhand comment containing that famous axiom from 80′s flick War Games: “The only winning move is not to play.”

And then I realized how very much I believe that.

If I find myself in a situation I do not like and that I think I can’t change, I just… stop playing. Quit. Move on.

This is why I didn’t finish my undergrad at MIU, and my only reason ever for quitting jobs or leaving relationships. Most of the time, the axiom protects me: if you’re married to someone you have nothing in common with, you can play for the rest of your life and never do anything but lose. Clearly, not playing is the only winning move. But sometimes, a more sticktoitive attitude would probably have served me better: it was hardly brilliant to drop out of college during my senior year just to make a political point that no one heard.

Is it possible that my very-low bullshit tolerance was fostered by a movie?

Eh, probably not. But maybe! I remember feeling such relief when Joshua realized that some shit was too stupid to waste one’s time (and/or processor cycles) on.

Today I live in a spare bedroom and can fit everything I own into the bed of a small pickup. I just plain don’t do or have what everyone else does. Is this because I’m a quitter, or because I simply have a different agenda than my peers?

The only person I know who has less property than I do is Corby; if his stuff is packed into his jeep he can actually see over it. (I should follow his example and get a tent and a 4WD vehicle, better to camp on your lawn with.) Everyone else, even my spiritually-inclined friends and my migrant father, have accumulations of belongings that indicate, to some degree, their stature. They own houses, furniture, Cuisinarts. They have deeds and titles and certificates. Most of them had a much higher bullshit tolerance than I ever did: they finished school, at least. Is that what enabled them to accumulate so much property? Or would they have done so anyway?

Even my father has a home full of objects, it just happens to be on wheels.

I can’t figure out what this means. I have no interest in buying a house and filling it with stuff. I remember really wanting to, once, but that desire is gone now, burned up. I don’t want to find a lover and build a life together anymore, either. It’s as if my brief stint as a married person absolutely finished any karma I had in those areas…

Oh. Hmm. Maybe I’ll be a renunciate in my next life. That’d be cool.

I wanted so terribly much to fall in love and get married. It was my primary goal as long as I can remember. I wanted to have the coolest house in the world. When someone finally proposed, I felt as if my life had finally done what it was supposed to!

Except being married and keeping house for yourself sucks. I didn’t like it. It’s like chaining yourself to the earth. Every new item that you acquire makes your soul heavier. I couldn’t find the desire to go into debt buying stuff to make my house nicer than functional. Who would that benefit?

But I have wonderful, inquisitive, spiritual friends who live in houses with spouses and possessions and it doesn’t fuck them up.

I don’t feel suited to the regular world any more, but at least I can pass. That’s something to be grateful for, yes?

In which Wednesday is hump day, and it totally feels like it.

Yesterday, I did a bunch of exercises. Then I walked all over town. Today my glutes hurt.

Last night, I went to GoHo (aka The Golden Horse) with Kit & Cat and had a marvelous time. They invited me backpacking with them sometime this summer, but only if I agree to carry the liquor.

Today I started reading American Gods for the One Book, One Twitter read-a-long.

I packed my lunch into a bento box because I miss the whole cute bento lunch thing:

Just now, I received a lovely and polite email from Integratechs informing me that they hired someone else. I was the runner-up, apparently. (Or maybe I wasn’t and they just say that to everybody. Either way, being second-best is hardly a consolation when you’ve been out of work for half a year.)

Tonight, I intend to eat a burrito (aka Cinco de Mayo) and then go to open mic at Barnaby’s with TonyG (aka the Wolf) and Toni (aka Betty), where I intend to drink SEVERAL cocktails because I don’t have a goddamned JOB, people.

Tomorrow I’m going to think. A lot. About things. Here’s a list:

• Should I move away? If so, where to?
• Should I go back to school?
• Why am I now the second choice rather than the first when I’m trying to get a job? Am I underqualified? Too old? Something else?
• Is Walla Walla kicking me out again?
• What about keeping one’s 87-year-old grandmother company? I’m single and childless, and she likes having me around. Isn’t that good enough? There’s a time-honored spinster tradition I wish to ruminate upon.
• What do I want? I mean, really?
• Does this mean I can’t see Amma this summer? Will I seriously have to wait until November to see Her?

I’m accustomed to being able to afford to see Mother every summer. I’m accustomed to having something to do. I’m accustomed to getting hired when I interview. I’m missing my old friends, the people with which I have actual history that goes back farther than a few months. I’m accustomed to knowing what to do next.

In other words, I feel poor, lazy, unemployable, lonely, and sad. Which sucks. Wait, I just got a text… Jules is gonna come get me! We’re going to eat Mexican food and drink margaritas and I shall endeavor to feel fortunate… at least until I feel drunk, that is. Excuse me now, please, while I put on some clothes.

In which I make an admission. And then we move on, people! Nothing to see here!

Okay, so, like, yeah: last week was an embarrassing series of over-indulgences. I overate, I partied all night (booze ain’t diet food, and neither was that nacho cheese served at afterhours), and yes, I smoked cigarettes too. (Not a lot, but even one is too many. Those fucking things.) I didn’t do my Friday exercises, and I think I did maybe twenty minutes of cardio the whole week.

I haven’t weighed yet today, but there’s no way I shed two pounds, not with that Chinese vegetarian M-1 platter debacle. And those chocolates! Oh, and the Pepsi I decided I couldn’t live without. And the late night snacks. Argh!

Today begins a new week, though. A week in which I’m back on the diet, exercise, and non-smoking wagon of Self Love. This is a lovely, shiny new week. A week of awesome!

This post has been brought to you by the letter SHAME and the number CONFESSION.

In which I can stay up all night if I want to, because I have nothing to do during the day.

Yesterday I watched TV and ate a burrito. That was my entire contribution to the world. Srsly.

Last night I left the house at 8 o’clock, picked up the Wolf, and went to Barnaby’s for open mic. I spent most of the evening sitting on the couch in the back playing with my iPod, but I did go sing a blues song with a couple of the Feedback boys. My voice isn’t really doing anything cool this week because of The Cold, but it was fun to sit in.

After open mic, the group migrated to Ming Court. People played pool. I read and had a couple of drinks.

After pool, there was poker. We drove to the afterhours party, but it turned into naptime instead. (Seriously. There were three people asleep on the couch. Adorable.) The Wolf and I went to Shari’s and had omelets; as we were finishing up his cell rang: poker was back on.

I didn’t play poker. I took a nap!

I got to bed at five this morning.

Anyway.

In which unemployment is beginning to take its toll.

I stayed up well past two, watching Torchwood on Netflix. (I still love you, Ianto!) Then I slept for about twelve hours.

Not straight through, though. I actually woke up at ten and thought about getting up, but I didn’t. I just laid there until I went back to sleep. About three times.

Why? Because I don’t really have anything to do. A girl can only consume so much media, and it hardly seems imperative to get up and watch TV shows or read a book or study when there’s simply no deadline for anything.

There are things I can do, of course. I could get crackin’ on the Clean The Junk Out Of The Attic project (I bagged up an assload of old clothes but have as yet not figured out where to take them, and there’s always the old computer equipment to dispose of) or do laundry or study for my CCNA or meditate or work out or get drunk.

But I don’t have to, so I don’t.

This morning (where ‘morning’ equals late afternoon) I rolled out of bed onto the floor, did some gentle stretching yoga, and listened to some Eastern house (DJ Cheb i Sabbah‘s Krishna Lila, actually) for awhile. Then I went downstairs and had a cardamom latte while I made a batch of black olive hummus. A bit later, my brother came over and he and I nommed some Falafel Madness together while chatting with G’ma.

Now it’s dark again already and I’ve barely finished my coffee. I’d like to do something other than sit around in my (very comfortable, tricked out, OMG I pretty much never have to leave this room) bedroom, but I’m unemployed and feel guilty about spending money on things like cocktails or meals out even though I’m getting unemployment benefits and it’s not like I don’t have any money.

~+~+~
I had an interview on Thursday afternoon. It lasted nearly an hour, the people (cute HR girl and cute geek guy) were great, and I feel perfectly qualified for the position in a rural power co-op’s small Internet division.

The position is a typical ISP mix of support, dispatch, billing, sales, and on-call time. Their delivery modality is wireless, which I don’t know a bunch about but I can certainly learn it. I’d have to climb the occasional ladder and be on the occasional roof, but dispatch time would only be about 20% of the job. The fun stuff like email and web hosting is outsourced, which is a little sad, and I’d have to lose the frivolous manicure in order to make cable and haul equipment, but I’d have actual responsibility and I’d get to learn a whole new technology and its equipment and I think it would be a nearly ideal fit for my experience.

Which doesn’t explain why I’m so utterly freaked about it.

I am, in equal parts, afraid they’ll offer me the job, and afraid they won’t.

I’ve gotten lazy and soft. My last few thousand hours of employment have required me to do little more than show up (and when I was very lucky I got to think real hard for a few minutes). I’ve gotten used to sitting on my ass at a desk. I haven’t been on call or done an actual customer premise dispatch in years. I haven’t put a plug end on a CAT-5 cable for a long time. I mean, although it’s been awhile I’ve done all this stuff and I’m a perfect match for their job description.

I just don’t know if I want it, and that just makes me question the whole inside of my silly head. Why wouldn’t I want a perfect job?

If they don’t offer me the job, I’ll freak that it’s because I’m a girl who showed up for a job she knew entailed actual non-desk work with a crazy manicure (my nails are currently gold with red airbrushed designs on them) or because I’m too old (!!!) to be climbing ladders in rural areas or because I unwittingly fucked up in the interview or because I’m actually not as hireable as I believe I am.

I know the Universe prefers that I decide what I want, but I honestly can’t figure out if I want this job or not. It’s here in Walla Walla (not in Dayton, where the rest of the company is), it’s a small department (which keeps politics to a minimum), I wouldn’t have to do first tier tech support (they outsource that), and I’d get to learn a whole new delivery technology! It’s true I’m not stoked about the sales and billing aspects, but every ISP job I’ve ever had – ten years’ worth – entailed a little of both, it’s just the nature of the beast and it’s hardly onerous. Of course I have some nervousness about having to drive around an area I don’t know, but it’s not like it’s hard to drive somewhere. It’s not like I don’t have GPS on my fucking phone, either, and while I don’t love driving it’s hardly a deal breaker.

I must be being lazy, which tells me I need to get my ass kicked a little, which tells me this job would probably be great for me because I don’t even have it yet and it’s challenging me already. I can’t remember the last time I had a really good brain stretch at work! And autonomy! Responsibility! Root on actual deployed, mission-critical boxen!

I think this is where my weirdness lies: I think I’m having a location crisis. If they offer me the job, I’ll need to commit to a life in Walla Walla. If they don’t, I’ll have to move because I have already applied for literally every single job I’m qualified for around here, and I’ll have to do it doubting my hireability because when you don’t get hired for a job you’re perfectly suited for, you freak out. You just do.

I’ve been weird about living in Walla Walla for awhile now (I intended it to be a temporary move when I came here), but here’s the kicker: I didn’t immediately gear up to leave when I became unemployed. I had daydreams about moving away, but I don’t actually want to live anywhere but right here or New York City. And moving to New York is a non-trivial undertaking: I’d need a bunch of money and a place to land, and what about my dog? I could move to Portland or Seattle, or a few places in California where I have relatives, or even Colorado where there appears to be a lot of tech work, but I don’t really like any of those places. (Not like I like New York.) And I’m actually starting to have a life here, and friends, and the band’s already got some festivals booked for next summer, and c’mon – my rent and utilities are $150 a month. Which, in my tax bracket, is the only reason I get to take such awesome vacations every year.

I think I was expecting that there’d be no work here; that Walla Walla was going to kick me out like it did the last time; that the decision was going to be made for me. I think I thought I was going to lie around collecting unemployment for a few months and then have go somewhere else. The big push! Sort through your shit, make plans, scramble, freak out! Change! Stress! Excitement! And look, I have to do this, I’m reacting – not acting! Nothing’s my fault if it doesn’t turn out! Whee!

But, while I am a total weirdo, at least I’m not dishonest about it: I haven’t taken a single step toward moving away. The only remote job I applied for was in Seattle, and I was terrifically overqualified for it. I was waiting to have to move away. Which must be a case of the grass is always greener, right?

The existence of a job I didn’t expect has broken my brain. Tell me what I dork I am, please, mmm’kay?

In which I decide that in a perfect world I’d be a professional student. And then I complain.

Following are the things I have considered studying – in the past two weeks alone – if only I had the required time and/or money:

Astronomy. There’s a cool online course I want to take; it costs a couple hundred bucks and starts in a month or two. Why? Because all of my astronomy has come from reading hard sci-fi.

French. I hate that I have only one language. I hate that I only get about half of Eddie Izzard’s standup when he suddenly and inexplicably switches to French. Yes, Spanish would be a more functional choice considering where I live, but I actually know more French.

Piano. Because I should be writing original material and my nails are too long to play guitar.

Opera. Because it’s been twenty years since my last classical voice lesson and I think it would be fun. And hard. And fun! And it’s mostly in Italian and German!

Networking. Not because I feel compelled to study networking for its own sake, but because I keep thinking I should get my CCNA or MCSE or something in order to widen my employment opportunities (read: maek moar munny).

History. Wouldn’t it be great to take a history-of-the-world class again? Just for the hell of it?

I just wanna know things.

The things that are easy to know I simply look up. The things that are slightly more complex I learn from people in regular daily interactions. The things I really want to know, however, are more complex than ten minutes of face time and require some sort of formal structure.

Enter my nemesises nemesii: time and money.

I just want to learn. I don’t learn on a daily basis any more. How crap is that?

Some people solved the stay-in-school-forever thing by becoming professors. That had been a plan of mine at one point – before I got distracted by poverty, two re-locations, and a disastrous marriage – I was going to get my PhD in Lit (or history! or philosophy! or music! who cares!) and eventually teach just so I could stay in university forever.

Now I owe so much on my compounded student loans I couldn’t in good conscience ever go back to school again; I doubt I’ll ever fully pay off what I already owe, and I’d certainly be unlikely to live long enough to pay off another twenty to sixty grand additionally.

[BEGIN RANT] In all seriousness, they never should have loaned me all that money in the first place! Holy shit! How the hell is any 18-year-old supposed to figure out how not to live on credit when all they do is teach you that it’s okay to live on credit? I moved out at 17, got my own place, signed my name a few places, and ended up with a bunch of what was effectively free stuff: free classes, free books, free room and board, free mad money. All I had to do was go to class! Yeah!

Well, five years later I couldn’t answer my phone because of the collections calls. Who gives an 18-year-old with no income student loans and credit cards?

I’ve been out of school for a long time and I still owe over forty grand for student loans. It pisses me off that it was so easy to get so much money when I was too young to understand that it would stick with me forever. [/END RANT]

Yeah, so, maybe I’ll buy a keyboard and take some piano lessons.

Or maybe I’ll take the SAO Short Course.

Or maybe I’ll just buckle down and throw money at books and tests until I have a piece of paper that says I can subnet in my head and pull CAT5 from switch to workstation.

[BEGIN RE-RANT] Actually, I forgot: I was scholarship material. Oregon State offered me a partial scholarship in opera but for some reason I didn’t take it and went to my local community college instead.

I might actually regret not going to Oregon State, now that I think about it. I wonder what would have been different if I’d gone to college at a state school on an opera scholarship?[/END RE-RANT]

In other words: if I had ample resources, I’d be doing something other than what I’m doing. Money, as little as I regard it in my day-to-day life, actually owns me. I am money’s bitch.

I live in an attic because of money. I work a day job because of money. My entire life actually revolves around money – obtaining it, hoarding it, spending it – and I don’t even like the stuff. I’m lying in this bed I made, this bed of debt. (Note to self: never ever ever get married again ever ever EVER.)

You know what’s fucked up, my babies? That I am old enough to say – and genuinely mean – the following:

YOU WILL NEVER REGRET THE THINGS YOU DID.
YOU’LL REGRET THE THINGS YOU DIDN’T DO.

Just you wait. You too will wake up forty-something one day, and believe me: your dick will fall off. THAT’S how weird it is.

In which every time I go to New York, I have some sort of revelation about how unhappy I am. This is a very long post; YHBW.

The last time I was in New York, I’d gone to sing on my friend Barbara’s a capella album. I went because I was invited, not because I’d decided to check out New York. But when I got there, I had an amazing and transformative week.

My then-husband was off in Colorado at the Telluride Blues & Brews festival. I’d been to that festival before, and while it is hella fun, lemmie tell you what: it ain’t no fucking New York City.

I loved every single second in the city but I kept having the recurring thought, each time I was transcendently happy with what I was experiencing, that my husband, if he’d been sitting next to me, would not have dug it. I realized that he would not have liked the food, the company, the conversation, any of it.

In short, I finally really grokked that my husband and I were utterly unsuited. Add to that the observation that I’d been panic-free the entire trip (save for the episode I had my last night there, when I thought about having to return home), and I’d had a life-changing breakthrough: I wasn’t sick, I had a panic disorder. I had a panic disorder because I was deeply unhappy. I was unhappy because I hated my life: my husband and I had nothing meaningful in common and I was emotionally, intellectually, and socially starved. On Maslow’s chart I was essentially hovering between the bottom two states, with no hope in sight of ever going any higher. Ever again.

This was a revelation to me (although perhaps not to those around me) because I honestly hadn’t allowed myself to know how miserable I really was. I had been trying to count my blessings, I’d been trying to make the most of my choices, and I was trying to honor both my wedding vows and the terms of my mortgage. It just turned out that, after trying both, I didn’t like marriage or country living. Not even a little.

So I left New York after a deliriously happy and fulfilling week, and went home knowing that if I were to survive some shit seriously had to change. Within the year I had separated from my husband and moved back to town. What followed then was a period of fucking off and being selfish, followed by a period of being responsible again.

Five years later I’m having regular panic symptoms again, and once again I’m trying to attribute them to physiological anchors – I wrote a post about my luteal phase less than two weeks ago, didn’t I? Well, I don’t know if it’s perimenopause. I think I might just be really fucking unhappy. Again.

Read the rest of this entry »

In which I travel for twelve hours and end up right back where I started from a week ago.

I got up at seven this morning (that’s FOUR in the fucking MORNING Pacific time, my babies, but WHO’S COUNTING?) and met my car in front of Jake’s condo at 7:20. Arrived at La Guardia twenty minutes later, checked in at American Airlines and then shambled through security.

Flew to Chicago. Ate a burrito.

Flew to Seattle. Ate a cheeseburger with no burger and extra cheese. (I didn’t order the extra cheez, they just made it that way.)

Flew to Walla Walla. Ate a slice of apple pie.

Kissed my dog. Reset the time zone on my netbook and iPod Touch and realized it was five, not eight. Uploaded and titled and tagged much of the Bodacious New York Vacation Set.

Am truly dead tired, and not entirely sure that I’m glad to be home. Had so much fun in the city, even when it was pretending to be Portland and rained all over me, that leaving was a letdown the comforts of home have failed to assuage. *insert non-age appropriate emo sigh*

In other news, I regret to inform you that I have to re-relaunch Operation: Quit Smoking. Again. (Further experience indicates that perhaps the nicotine-replacement faction is right.)

In which I’m not looking, oh HELL no I’m not, but if I were looking there’d be a pretty stringent list.

Apropos of absolutely nothing, here’s what my standard looks like these days (this applies only to mates, and not any other type of relationship):

1. You must not be a goddamned stoner.
2. You must not be an alcoholic.
3. You must not be currently or recently addicted to speed, pills, coke, heroin, or any other street, pharma, or pseudo-pharma drugs.
4. You must be a devotee, preferably of Amma’s.
5. You must not be a slob at home, at work, or in your car.
6. You must not watch more than five hours of television per week on average.
7. You must have a few hobbies or directions of study that interest you so deeply that you occasionally wander off and immerse yourself in them.
8. You must have a broad command of grammar and be able to spell.
9. It would really help if you were a ‘roo.
10. If you smoke cigarettes, it’s less than half a pack a day and you’re thinking about quitting.
11. Your glass is half-full.
12. You must respect the place you live in enough to clean and repair it as needed without being told by an outside source that it needs to be done.
13. You must not be co-dependent or passive-aggressive.
14. You must not be fundamentally angry.
15. You must know or be willing to learn enough about music and computers and my other interests to nod at the right places when I talk about them.
16. You must support yourself financially.
17. You must love to travel and be well-traveled.
18. You must be essentially good-natured.
19. You must not be obsessed with material possessions – actually, you shouldn’t be obsessed with anything.
20. You must be tolerant.
21. You must be contemplative by nature.
22. You must be reasonably healthy and take a certain amount of care of your person.
23. You must consider compassion to be one of your basic personality traits.
24. You must be vegetarian, or very close to it.
25. You must be very, very intelligent.
26. You must read. A lot.
27. You must never have been routinely cruel to persons or animals and you must not be so now.
28. It would really help if you’re not a morning person, but if you are be mellow about it.
29. You must not blame the shape or condition of your life on anyone but yourself.
30. You must be funny, and laugh a lot.

I’m made in such a way that I would genuinely rather be single than put up with things I’ve come to know that I hate: like stoners, for instance. Dear God, if I never find myself attracted to another goddamned pothead I’ll consider it a miracle. (Fat chance, though. Why are so many interesting men hell-bent on retarding themselves with endless bong hits? And DON’T let me hear again that “at least pot’s natural.” Whatever, you dumb stoner. Crude oil’s natural, too, but I don’t see you smoking that. And no, I don’t agree that everybody would be better off if they’d just get stoned, and how utterly unique of you to say so.)

And slobs: Christ! I cannot figure out what makes an adult person want to live like a pig! Pick it up, wash it, and put it away already. Messy rooms smell bad. Your mother doesn’t live here. Whoever let you think that masculinity was synonymous with slovenliness totally did you a disservice.

And unhealth: if there’s something wrong with your body, adjust your lifestyle. Continuing to party like it’s 1999 and eating crap food because you “don’t like vegetables” is suicide, so why not just save us all some time and fucking shoot yourself and quit with the trying to get laid already? What makes you think you have anything to offer if you can’t put your own house in order? And what sort of grown man is too much of a pussy to lay off the fast food? Hello! Are you twelve or what?

I particularly dislike listening to someone say mean shit about people because it’s exhausting to be around. We all have bad days, sure, and I’m all for a good venting session, but if you’re negative and mean all the time I just plain old don’t want to hear it. Your attitude is your problem, not mine.

I’m no longer interested in non-devotees, either, let alone atheists. Clearly I’m too intelligent to believe in the Sistine Chapel ceiling version of god so quit assuming that I do. My philosophy is fundamental to me and I really don’t want to have to hide it, nor do I want to explain it in endless detail. It’d be so much easier if it was understood implicitly.

As much as I wish I could let it go, bad spelling and grammar drive me batshit. I’ve always thought people who sucked at English would at least be good at math, but while probably sixty percent of my lovers couldn’t spell ‘thorough’ if they tried, I have yet to bed a mathematician. Go figure.

I don’t like TV. There are shows on TV that I enjoy, yes, but overall TV is crass and evil and fills your head with shit. It is a waste of time. While I’ve been known to veg in front of the glass teat myself, it’s a diversion for me and not a lifestyle. TV makes you complacent, stupid, and greedy, and while it does so it systematically makes you think you’re cleverer than you really are while simultaneously undermining your self-confidence. Fuck TV. People who watch too much TV are voluntarily crippling themselves.

I’ve tried to be tolerant of FODA, too, but I’m going to just come on out and admit for the first time anywhere that it grosses me out to taste meat in someone’s mouth or smell it in their sweat. It’s been so long since I’ve eaten meat myself that I can no longer perceive it as food: to me, it’s the dead body of a living creature that you just chewed up and swallowed because you’re, well, most likely thoughtless or greedy. Meat-eating is as disturbing to me as eating human flesh would be to you, actually. I just don’t say much about it because I know how statistically insignificant I am in this culture of rampant meat-eating.

Of course, I stink like cigarette smoke, so, yes, I’ll just shut the fuck up now, but the majority of my lovers have been smokers so the comparison isn’t equal.

Oh, and you should have already figured out that you need to have a job. If you’re still working on that one, fine, take your time, but I don’t wanna watch. I’m not a freeloader and no man has ever supported me; the reverse should be true for you. I’ll pay my way, you pay yours, okay?

And please, know what you need to be happy. Don’t expect me to know, because I’m not you. Have your own interests and pursuits and hobbies, and get your various needs met through them on your own. People without interests are both creepy and impossible to satisfy. And please note that buying things then abandoning them untouched in the shed does not qualify as a bona fide hobby.

I don’t care if you’re competitive and aggressive, just don’t take it to the point that you really believe that compassion is for weaklings. That’s just stupid. Compassion is fundamental – I am That, Thou art That, and all of This is That – so man up and volunteer already…

Uh, yeah. I could go on for hours, but I’ll just quit now. Don’t I just sound like a card-carrying bitch? I really do, don’t I.

The good news is that I’m quite prepared to die single, because the bad news is that I obviously will.

Oh, well. Someone has to be the childless old maid in the family, I guess.

In which I am totally out of condition for the kapha Olympics.

Took myself out for awesome chile rellenos at Rosita’s on Friday night. Got my hair done on Saturday morning. Went out for sushi with Teh [Now Ex] BF on Saturday night. Did laundry Sunday and watched a vid. Walked the dog a couple times.

I took three naps.

I inadvertently got so damned rested that I woke up at 5:30 this morning and never went back to sleep. I got up, meditated, ate breakfast, showered, shaved, dried and straightened my hair, put on makeup, walked the dog, packed a bento, AND had time to stop for coffee on the way to work!

FOR FUCK’S SAKE!

I feel dirty. This is just like being a morning person, and I don’t like it. Not one bit.

I really hope they move me to an 11 to 8 schedule or something because this just sucks ass. Productivity! In the morning! *shudder*

In which I accomplish virtually nothing whatsoever.

I had plans to get some shit done this weekend, but The Curse™ arrived and I decided to be lazy instead.

I watched a bunch of classic Doctor Who. I ate hash browns with gravy, a weird and completely non-nutritious dish I get occasional cravings for. I knitted. I made a big mess on my bedroom floor with all my knitting stuff:

I napped. I walked the dog. There was a trip with Teh BF to Berny’s Tacos for dinner at some point.

I tried on one of my saris, but didn’t manage to bust out the ironing board and sewing machine to alter it as I’d meant to do. Right now the sari in question is in a big messy pile, and it still has no pleats and no hem.

I did do some yoga on Saturday, and I did meditate.

I did not work on the bento article for the paper, nor did I make and photograph any bentos for said article.

I did not fill up my cute set of travel bottles with shampoo, conditioner, moisturizer, or what have you, in preparation for Dallas on the 26th.

I did not launder anything.

I did not bathe. I did not shave my legs. I did pluck my eyebrows, though… at one in the morning, because I’d slept in and napped and couldn’t sleep.

The band guy did not call, and I did not go to an audition.

The slovenliness even seeped into the work week, because even though I’m expecting a package I did not go to the post office today.

Conclusion: I did not do more than I did do.