Quote of the Week

"I suggest you go to a movie...or a bar." - my mother, in response to both my internet and cable going out due to a car hitting a pole down the street.

"You have to be pretty drunk to lose a shoe."

I really need to go to a tropical island,

OR

I am a complete exhibitionist.

I don’t like wearing clothes in the summer. Which is not the same as being comfortable naked – I wouldn’t say that I am. I balked at a boy’s suggestion that I should become a stripper a few weeks ago – I have flaws. Dubiously, he gave me the once over and begged explanation. “I’m not going to point them out to you – then you’ll see them,” I replied. I’m no fool. (Don’t respond to that)

I went to the Oregon coast with a group of friends this weekend. Despite a near cloudless sky, the temperature on the beach (factoring in a nice old-fashioned Oregon wind-chill) was probably in the 50s. Determined to wear my bikini top, I soldiered on until my friend Sharin actually told me to put my shirt on. Reluctantly, I obeyed.

It’s a little embarrassing when your friends tell you to put your clothes on. I wasn’t even drunk (yet).

All of this could account for my knack at losing articles of clothing as well. Or my early-onset dementia (my father would attribute this to soy products. Thanks for raining on my tofu parade).

It started at the top - two gray, zip-up sweater hoodies, one lost to the streets of LA after a Rasputina concert at the El Rey, the other to a house party in NW Portland. Then, a bra to the insanity that is New York (there’s a longer story here, but I’ll save that for later. Hi mom!) It continued downward: underwear to the Bermuda triangle of exboyfriend’s unkempt bedrooms, socks kicked off in a foreign bed. Two weeks ago, I attended my 10-year high school reunion. Having misplaced both my expensive pair of four-inch stilettos and my cheap pair of back-up flats, I returned home at 9am barefoot and thoroughly amused.

To my credit, I have never lost a pair of pants.

"birds have literally exploded"

I was walking home from Wanted last night (yes, Angelina does show some ass, if you were wondering) and happened upon a lovely little protest going on outside Ten 01. What, perchance, could these people be protesting their hearts away at on a warm Friday night?

Foie Gras.

only in Portland.

(as the brochure I was given reads, "I am forced to conclude that foie gras is produced at a terrible cost to the birds themselves." mmhmm. what about 'duck'? I would say that's produced at a terrible cost to the birds themselves. quack!)

quotes of the week

my mother, on my new-found favorite therapy, Grand Theft Auto IV:

mom: "And what exactly is the point of this?"
me: "I'm a criminal and I have to kill some guy."
mom: "Right."

my father, on my new-found favorite therapy, Grand Theft Auto IV:

"I'm not sure why it's getting so much crap - it's not nearly as bad as what's on TV."

the guy crossing the street next to me last night in the middle of a colossal downpour:

guy: "All my money's gettin' wet!!"
me: "Mine too, man."

i'm not dead (volume 2)

i promise. breaking free from some very unhealthy relationships.

my ex-boyfriends keep stealing my choice of footwear, post-breakup. this has happened to me twice now. the first time, it's amusing. the second, well, it sort of creeps me out.

i have a website up for my photography. it is still under construction.

melainamace.com

life for rent

it occurred to me this week that i have had to share everyone i love with somebody else: best friends, boyfriends, siblings. it's hard to feel at home when nothing feels like it's your own.

it's all about timing.

so, i decide to return to London for the first time in fourteen years and they shut down Big Ben.

of course.

i remember thinking when i was thirteen (as scaffolding obscured my choice shot of Notre Dame) "Europe is great, but it will be a whole lot better when they're done fixing it"

"I never thought this would happen in Brooklyn. ... Kansas maybe, but not here."

a tornado hit Brooklyn today.

good thing i'm going there tomorrow!

(i know. i haven't written an awful lot recently. i'm an asshole. i'll try to rectify.)

Alright. On a scale of one to ten, what would you consider the likelihood you might be assassinated?

my therapist once asked me if i was concerned that an upswing in my emotional well-being might hinder my creativity (read: writing). i replied, no. what a silly notion. besides, crying bleeds the ink. i would be at my least creative, for whatever i would write would be illegible.

i've been wrong before.

you might say i've been creatively thinking up ways to do as little as possible. i am particularly good at this. if i were a little more creative, i could find a way to procure a sustainable income from doing absolutely nothing. i'm sure it's possible.

in short:

i got a degree.

i found a boy.

and i get to travel this summer (granted, to an area with a particularly high terrorist alert right now and a new ban on smoking)

at least the smoking ban won't hinder my intention to drink Guinness.

i'm not dead.

i promise. i could almost be considered, at this moment in my life, *gasp* happy...

(as she says this, Melaina's usual audience of cynics curses and walks away, muttering "you're dead to me...")

soon...i promise.

for now, read this.

"My parents keep asking 'How was school?' It's like saying 'How was that drive-by shooting?' You dont care how it was, you're lucky to get out alive."

i went back to high school today...to teach.

i opened my iTunes to play an mp3 for the kids. a particularly vocal girl squinted at my artist list on the projector.

girl: "30 Seconds to Mars? i've seen them. Jared Leto is so hot."
boy: "Do we have to go over this again?"

i guess some things never change.

tattoos for example.

my mom: "is it still there?" referring to the tattoo on my [very] lower abdomen.
me: "yes, mom. it's still there."

unrelated: i finished the first Harry Potter. i would check the forecast for Hell if you plan on visiting. you might need a sweater.

the irony of a wrong number.

I was listening to my father complain about his life this afternoon (I am, if nothing else, a loving daughter) when I got another call.

"Hi, can I speak to Mike?"

no, I thought, but if you do speak to Mike, I have a few things you could say to him on my behalf.

His opponent, as proud as the rooster who is left unchallenged upon the midden, crowed away in a last long burst of quotation and deduction.

(my word of the day was "midden" if you are reading this, thinking to yourself, my, where the hell did that headline come from. side parenthetical - i much prefer "midden's" sister synonym, "muckheap" but this is all entirely irrelevant)

i'm really just looking for some fantastic Google hits. and i'm totally not drinking wine right now. my iGoogle homepage (genius lovechild!) makes for fantastic fodder, let me tell you...(okay, i'll spare you).

i don't have anything in particular to say. this troubles me. it is the result of a couple of things: 1) i forgot that truly meaningful diatribe i had intended on writing, 2) it occurred to me recently that i blog a whole lot less when in the frame of mind of "oh, isn't this all so trivial?" and 3) i have midterms.

we'll go with midterms, for the sake of excuse.

a few things to mention this week:

it is entirely possible to get a floor-wide notice citing complaints of "olfactory disturbances." it is also possible that this notice is going on my wall for the purpose of amusement.

my brother made an exceedingly generous donation to the Melaina Guinness Drinking/Scottish Castle Hopping fund. (i was planning on beginning this blog with the phrase "i'm having trouble deciding which castle to stay in this summer" just because i could, but deemed it too...bombastic).

it occurred to me recently that i don't know what the hell i'm really doing with my life. and for that moment i was happy.

the same old prejudice prevails. war matters; love does not.

my lovely Chaya sent me this article by Erica Jong. it is worth reading, thus i urge you to.

i have many things to say. alas, i have many things i should be writing that are not my blog. for six more weeks at least, school and work will outweigh frivolity.

unrelated: it is my great wish that the people i know, namely the young men i know, could have the opportunity to have a heart-to-heart with my father. he has Gandalf's beard and more perspective than Brunelleschi.

he is somebody worth knowing.

reaffirming stereotypes

Paul Simms' Four Short Crushes.

now. he. kissed. her.

for a brief moment this afternoon, i found myself wanting a baby.

the moment passed.

an open letter to the United States Government

Dear Federal Government:

I cannot breathe. I miss Pseudoephedrine. Phenylephrine does nothing for my sinuses and doesn't have nearly as many letters. Please solve your meth problem another way.

Thank You.

Something's rubbing against my foot.

I went down to Eugene last night to visit my friend Ben.

me: "Let's watch Open Water. I've heard good things about it."
ben: "Sure. I haven't seen that one yet."

79 minutes later..

me: "Is that the end? that can't be the end..."
ben: "Wow. The next time somebody asks me to recommend a movie that will cheer them up, i'm definitely recommending this."

pause.

me: "Wanna go diving?"

in memoriam

where have all the restaurants gone?

it occurred to me today, whilst driving (happily? reflectively?) down Belmont, that i really miss Sweetwater. i do believe the last time i went there was on my 20th birthday, which was a long while ago. i thought about this and realized that, like many things in my life (tv series, boyfriends, perfect shades of lipstick) the things i love evaporate into thin air to remain only in my head a fond memory.

Manna Bakery (Ashland, OR) circa 1980s. best. bakery. ever. they made all my birthday cakes from age 2-16(?) i can't remember what year it closed, but next to Jim Henson's death and the deaths of my first two cats, Sophie and Nikki, it might be the worst heartbreak of my youth. if you ever had a Manna bakery cake, you would understand.

Beasy's Back Room (Ashland, OR) circa 1980s/1990s. best barbecue/southwestern food the NW ever procured. but it was their green olive laden salad that i loved (which i believe you can still get at Beasy's on the Creek today, but it's just not the same)

Bluebird(?) Cafe (Santa Monica, CA) circa 2004. best. cupcakes. ever. I used to work a few blocks away and would go there for lunch nearly every day. when i visited last August, it was a vacant store front (although, i just googled this one and it seems it may have moved to Culver City. it looks like the same place, so if you live in LA, check it out for me)

(a side cupcake note here: Magnolia Bakery in NYC? don't believe the hype)

and they say chivalry is dead...

i opened a door for a guy at Starbucks today and he was so thrilled that he paid for my coffee. ah gender roles in reverse.

a few things:

guest lecturing a class at your own school is a bit surreal. i totally sympathize with all my professors now. i felt like Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Anyone...?

Alec Wilkinson wrote a long article on the origins of Parkour and David Belle in this week's New Yorker. mmm...David Belle.

interestingly, there was a four-page ad for visitoregon.com centered on Ashland's Oregon Shakespeare Festival in the middle of the article. given the fact that i'm studying narrowcasting in my capstone course, i began to wonder if every New Yorker contained this ad or just the ones sent to Oregonians. i received a credit card offer this week that was a Leo (that's the lion, not the DiCaprio) signature card. it freaked me out.

anybody want to launch a computer virus on Acxiom?

books of blood...for kids!

did you know that Clive Barker writes children's novels? i sure didn't.

I'll write you just to let you know that I'm alright

a couple of quotes for the week:

"i'm glad you're back on the hooch!" -- Chaya on my falling off the wagon. and when i fall, i fall hard. story of my life.

"yes, could you magically fill the gaping hole where the Broken Halo should be?" --me to the clerk at Fred Meyer when he asked me if he could help.

"what people can't tell from your blog and your myspace profile is how annoying you are in real life" -- my brother on how fraudulent digital avatars are.

but one Mace telling another they're annoying kind of defeats the purpose. it's what we do.

if you're an exboyfriend and i drunk text you, it was the Drop Top speaking. my apologies.

There's something about Sunday night that really makes you want to kill yourself.

i have, however, found a moderate solution to what i like to call the Sunday Night Dread: manage it so that you somehow have Monday off. all the time. it prolongs the inevitable, but i've found that procrastinating the start of my week sure does make my life easier.

except for the fact that i have work due in the morning, i could actually completely ignore the fact that it is Sunday. well that coupled with the sudden epiphany that today was easter. i only realized this in the candy aisle at Fred Meyer an hour ago.

i have now consumed the contents of a large bag of Hershey's Candy Coated Chocolate Eggs in celebration.

happy ressurection! i feel ill.

I am not your friend. I'm not your lover.

(I wrote this last week and forgot to post it. or, I had planned on posting it while on the ground in Vegas, but on account of my having to run the entire length of McCarren Airport, which included a security checkpoint and a tram, I didn't have time. I will also note that I very nearly died on this flight. Which is mostly true, but i'm prone to histrionics)

I am writing from a plane somewhere over the midwest.

On planes, I am weary. I take account of my life. If I had one last call, who would I choose? It would have been a boy, if you’d have asked me sooner. I now know I’d have been wasting my time.

If my plane’s going down, you’d better fucking answer. Voicemail before imminent death is the ultimate heartbreak. Remember this when you ignore my calls.

I’m afraid to breathe on airplanes. Even after a whole box of Airborne.

I take account of my life. But mostly, I take account of what I’ve left undone. And I don’t mean words unsaid or sunsets in Paris. It is the unmade bed, the pile of clothes.

If I should go down on a plane, there’d be dishes in my sink, dirty laundry.

I find sudden relief that any porn I [might]own is on my hard drive and will go down with me. That would be an awful last thing to worry about.

Hi mom.

I am much too small in this world, yet not small enough to be to you just object and thing, dark and smart.

sometimes a place is not what you remembered
a dark mass of lost streets
empty subway platforms
full of stangers
still seaching for
my lost
shaker of salt.

is it wrong to steal a cat?

"when we put together three things...

...it would be a miracle if the object of being attractive to men had not become the polar star of feminine education and formation of character."

if you put together these three things:

Red Bull
the spontaneous appearance of a term paper ghost-writer
ridding Melaina's body of the reservoir of snot it is harbouring

you would get one joyful girl.

at the moment John Stuart Mill is the polar star of headaches.

help.

I mean, come on Francesca. You didn't think that you could just strut around in your little towel and turn Cole's head, did you?

I stopped going to high school midway through my junior year. There were a lot of reasons for this: fucked up serotonin levels, insecurity, stat/trig. My favorite reason, however, is Sunset Beach.

Yes, I stopped going to high school for a daytime soap.

I remembered all this, just now, lying sick (ok, propped up with pillows sick) in bed, glancing at a muted infomercial (juicers! I love juicers!).

Being sick isn’t what it used to be.

Sick days used to entail a cool, discerning parental hand across the forehead and permission to pull the blankets up snug and roll over blissfully. The best sick days were the ones when my mom would come home from work with magazines, crosswords and Betty and Veronica. She brought me my first issue of Seventeen magazine when I was eleven. Milla Jovovich was on the cover. This was before feminist theory ruined glossy fashion publications for me. Back then, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen (save perhaps Mia Sara in Legend).

I made the mistake of staying home sick the day Sunset Beach premiered. A show I hadn’t missed the first twenty years of! Sweet! Pre-Tivo, I began to weigh my options. Clive Robertson or math? I’m a sucker for British accents. Good thing I feign illness well. Move over Ferris Bueller.

I once rang up Dax Griffin while working retail in Los Angeles. I had the urge to hit the guy for cheating on Meg, but thought better of it. Instead, I silently cursed him for ruining my education.

what day is this?

I live a very solitary life. This is nothing new. With the exception of, perhaps, Chaya, Professor Klotz, and my therapist, Linda (whom I see bimonthly), I don’t interact with anybody on a regular basis.

I keep in touch with people online. I know most of my local Starbucks employees. I am even familiar with the baristas over at Sip & Kranz (my alternate coffee run. They serve Stumptown Coffee, which is really so much better).

I am social, but it is certainly the exception.

I finished Into the Forest by Jean Hegland last week. It deals with a post-apocalyptic world where technology has failed, oil is gone and the country has gone to hell. The characters weigh what is actually relevant when the modern world collapses – they realize how trivial the days of the week are. It made me think about how I measure time, how I measure my life.

I measure my days in empty coffee cups and empty cans of Red Bull. If the bagels are gone, a week has passed. If the pile of clothes on the floor by my closet is getting out of hand, that means it’s laundry day - a week-and-a-half. If my box of Emergen-C is empty, thirty-six days. If there’s a pile of books on my window sill that need to be shelved, the quarter is almost over. If there’s a packet of graduation info in my mailbox, all those years I thought I wouldn’t get through have, in fact, passed.

The day is only an interruption of my night. Maybe this is why people only seem to call me after 12:30am.

Somebody asked me today if anything exciting had happened in my week and I thought, yes. I ordered something online with the quickest (free) UPS ground delivery I have ever encountered. I arrived home this afternoon with a perfect square little box at my door and I was simply delighted. Even though I was sopping wet with rain.

As my graying, plump college writing professor used to say, it would behoove you to buy an umbrella.

the secret

"throughout history, all the great minds, all the great leaders, all the great achievers, had something in common..." as they flash pictures of Edison, Lincoln, and Einstein across the screen.

they were men. (oh...that wasn't the point you were trying to make? my bad)

(i love you mom, but...) why does the trailer to this thing look like the DaVinci Code?

"On the DVD, Rhonda Byrne, creator, explains that she got inspired to create The Secret after reading the 1910 classic The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles."

umm...

"past secret teachers include Aristotle, W. Clement Stone, Plato, Isaac Newton, Martin Luther King, Carl Jung, Victor Hugo, Henry Ford, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Robert Collier, Winston Churchill, Andrew Carnegie, Joseph Campbell, Alexander Graham Bell, Ludvig Van Beethoven, Charles Fillmore, Wallace D. Wattles, Thomas Troward, and Charles F. Haanel."

mmm hmm.

men.

snail mail

"There's lots more interesting things going on than a postcard arriving 92 years late." really? i find that sort of fascinating. but only because i once received a stack of bank statements at my Brooklyn apartmant last year that were not only addressed to my old Los Angeles address, but were from a bank account i had already closed and were about three years late as well.

WWI was a while ago, i hear.

more interesting, though, was the ad link to coulditbebipolar.com in the middle of the article.

i wonder if ohmyfuckinggoditisbipolar.com is taken.

it's all over now, baby blue.

I know – I haven’t been writing much. There are reasons. They don’t really matter. If you could see my apartment right now, you would see that there is a lot that I’ve been neglecting. There’s some guacamole in my fridge I don’t remember making. I think it’s guacamole; I can’t be sure.

My life could use some upkeep, it’s true.

School, I’ve found, has become something that I do between naps. And by nap I mean coma. I actually schedule my life this way – as actors may ask of their character, what’s my motivation? What gets you up in the morning? For me, it is the knowledge that I can be back in bed by 2:15pm, sleep for an hour-and-a-half catch the streetcar, make it back to campus for my 4:40 and be back in bed by 6:45 if I hit my timing right. I could probably write this all off as being “depressed” or “heartbroken” possibly “lazy.” But I’d probably be lying. I’m sort of always like this. Bouldering? Oh, I’d love to, but it interferes with my sleep schedule.

This could be kind of a problem.

When I say I have insomnia, that isn’t really accurate. I sleep more than most people, just at odd times of the day and in weird increments. I’ve tried to right this. Oh, I’ve tried.

I feel as if I’ve slept through much of my college career. But I’ve never actually dozed off in class – I saw a girl actually do this once. I’ve seen a number of people fall asleep on the subway, actually fall off their seats. A narcoleptic’s life must be fairly miserable. If not fairly amusing to others. I suppose I should be grateful.

My doctor seems convinced that once I’ve found stability in my life, in my schedule, that proper sleep will simply follow. I nodded, but I think she missed the dubious expression on my face. I should probably have mentioned that it’s been an issue since I was a little girl. I used to turn over on each side a certain number of times, rub my feet together twice, re-cross, rub twice more, repeat. Inhale, exhale. Every night. If I wasn’t out within half an hour, I’d creep towards the pitch black hallway and peer down it. Blackness, but for the glowing red light of the stereo down the hall. It took me what seemed like hours to work up the courage to cross the three feet to my parents’ room. I’d hover over my mother’s side of the bed, waiting.

I think I used to scare the crap out of her. It’s a good thing she didn’t take Ambien; she’d have probably whacked me with her pillow till its feathers filled the air.

"I am a drinker with writing problems."

i decided to quit drinking. (with the exception of NyQuil. NyQuil, i have decided, doesn't count) i do have a reason for this decision, but i realized that the only truly socially acceptable reasons for quitting drinking are 1)being an alcoholic, and 2)being pregnant.

in quitting drinking, i am now a pregnant alcoholic.

it's been one of those weeks.

pictures of you

tearing up pictures is harder than you think. literally.

Kodak Xtralife paper is pretty cruel on the brokenhearted.

of waking life

i was on the streetcar this afternoon. a man walked past me in the aisle to take the seat in front of me. he leaned over forward and tapped first the back of the seat and then the bottom with the palm of his hand, as if to make sure it was really there.

i kind of know how he feels.

literature whoring

my father said to me, over Christmas break, "I'll be really glad when you're done with your English degree so you can actually read the books i give you."

my version of multi-tasking:

100 pages of Marilynne Robinson's Gilead
100 pages of Shirley Ann Grau's Keepers of the House
100 pages of George Eliot's Mill on the Floss
50 pages of Morgan Spurlock's Don't Eat This Book

rinse. repeat.

(that's only what this weekend looks like. when i say i can't hang out, i'm probably not even lying)

the plight of an English major. i have the same professor for two of my classes. she looked at me the other day and said, "oh, you poor dear."

i'm going to go watch 40 minutes of television just to compensate.

i'm a golden god.

people keep telling me that i look really well. and i don't know what to say to that. ironic - especially - coming from your doctor.

i don't feel well. in truth, i'm not sure i can even recall a time i did feel well. i feel as if i'm a walking lie, all glowing optimism with a dark, cynical core.

maybe they see something i don't.

unrelated: i went to a tupperware party last night. there's nothing like licking blueberry flavored lube off your hand and fondling pink dildos to brighten your day.

black death in a gel-cap

in my never-ending search for an effective sleep aid, i purchased some herbal remedy at Fred Meyer that is the exact shade of black one should probably never ingest. if i should actually die before tomorrow, well, i suppose you could think of me as having gone out happy, having finally found something that could knock me out in 60 minutes or less.

if i'm checking my myspace messages at 3am however, i'm not leaving my doctor's office on friday without some fucking ambien.

related: every time i shop at the Fred Meyer on Burnside, i have an inordinate amount of young re-stocking men jump to my aid. maybe it's that lost i'm-the-most-inept-grocery-shopper look in my eye. (you mean soy milk and salami don't go together?) perhaps the winded post-yoga look of exhaustion on my face. more likely the yoga pants. either way, i think i could really go for an eighteen-year-old boy. i think that would solve everything. and by everything i mean what to do in between novels.

i got my feet off the ground in my crow position tonight. i had a bad day; this felt like a triumph. a three-second triumph, but i guess that's how guys feel.

This is not an official Rolling Stone article.

i rarely watch reality television. correction: when i do watch reality television, i rarely admit to it. however, MTV has come up with yet another brilliant concept for sucking away my life, in thirty-minute increments that should be devoted to Victorian literature or work. this time, the culprit's name is I'm From Rolling Stone. having put myself through three soul-crushing, non-bank-account-filling internships myself (some i thoroughly enjoyed; others, i care not to mention), i thought, hey, i'm curious how they're going to make coffee fetching, photocopying and the ever entertaining transcription of interviews into something as scintillating and dramatic as The Real World. i mean, there's nothing more exciting than watching somebody write. trust me - there's a reason i'm a recluse.

it's all in the casting.

one of the interns interviewed Brooklyn band We Are Scientists; it was so awkward and uncomfortable to watch, i actually had to fast forward though the scene.

Tad Friend gave a succinct review of the show in this week's New Yorker.

“Or sometimes the seed splits into a genetic mutation, and you get a two-headed calf, or twins.”

Paul Rudnick's First Love.

iCingular

ah, the iPhone.

that's funny...i use my iPod to ignore the world around me, not stay connected to it.

i fucking hope it doesn't come in pink.

"Forgiveness is like throwing a party for someone who was born two hundred years ago. You do it for your own sake and not much for anyone else."

i'm having trouble forgiving somebody. this is something i normally save for my therapist, but my next scheduled crisis management is not for another week-and-a-half. my back-up plan for situations like these is to 1) call my father ("i should be talking to my therapist, but you know, you'll do") and 2) google it.

there's no greater therapy than the internet. it's cured me almost entirely of my need for social interaction. and my fear of porn stores.

some of my personal favorite google hits for forgiveness:

this quote from Page Six. "LINDSAY Lohan has learned the art of forgiveness from her new stripper friends - despite her having once called them whores and worse"

the reading room subject list at forgivenessweb.com, which includes such hot topics as addictions/12 steps, how to forgive, the Holocaust, quotations, sermons, murder, poems and of course, the unforgivable.

it's Steve's fault.

as a professional writer, i am frustrated daily with the overuse of idioms and cliche descriptive phrases (i actually have a list of these i alternate. i believe i am not allowed to use the phrase "[they] rose to fame". which is fine by me)

i was reading this MSNBC article on Steve Jobs (which is, admittedly sort of boring) and a couple of blatantly irritating phrases jumped out at me:

"[Steve Jobs'] storybook resuscitation of Apple Computer Inc"
"his rock star status"
"the Apple view of the world"
"one of [the world's] greatest innovators"

storybook resuscitation? this writer is obviously a mac person.

“I could really get behind a relationship with a woman who had only six months to live.”

My father handed me a copy of Pam Houston’s Waltzing the Cat last week and instructed me to read the first story. For once, I complied. The above quote brought a noise out of my mouth that could only be described as a guffaw.

It made me laugh because it’s true. It made me laugh because it so accurately captures the men of my generation. It made me laugh heartily, and then, uncomfortably.

Somehow, I managed to spend New Year’s Eve at a party almost entirely comprised of married people. Somebody asked me what my resolution was; I stated quite earnestly that I was giving up men, to which they replied, “can you do that?”

It’s easier than coffee.

This is usually the time of year where people reflect on the last year of their life. Frankly, I’m tired of reflecting. I’m much more interested in moving forward for once. I’m an old pro at self-reflection. Moving forward is something I’ve struggled to learn.

My final thoughts on 2006 are this:

For whatever reason, it was the popular year to go. Something about that year-end retrospective really pulled people towards the grave this week. Like the release of holiday movies, if you’re not in before the new year, you won’t make Oscar contention. End of December? Total shoe-in for that top retrospective spot.

I’d like to thank the Academy for noticing my timely departure…

"Cell phone video image shows Hussein on gallows."

this is perhaps my favorite CNN caption ever.

god bless camera phones.

the transformation of Transformers

my brother and i were watching the Transformers trailer today...to which my brother complained, "unh, Bumblebee!?!" ever a Mace. (perhaps he was more articulate, but you get the idea).

how does Bumblebee go from a VW bug to [what looks like] a Chevy Camaro? (not that i have anything against the new Camaro: see my ode to the 2009 Camaro) i can see the producers over at Dreamworks now; “so, the VW bug is a bit 80’s and, well, German. How about something a little more American, like a Chevy! Chevys have such an American name. Chevys are ‘Like a rock.’ I like the sound of that!”
“But rocks don’t transform, sir. At least not very quickly.”
“We can fix that. What’s our budget?”

i say this a lot it seems: “oh, Michael Bay.”

*sigh*

little jesus dragons!

virgin birth IS possible!

good, 'cause i'm so over men.

Now, that was an Optimist! In the end, he was just as dead, but he hadn’t brought everybody else down! What a great guy!

funniest. thing. ever.

Ask the Optimist! by George Saunders

Progression, I swear (New York round).

what i've learned this week.

moderate binge drinking is the best cure for a head cold. immoderate water and Naked juice drinking does not really cure a hangover however.

it is entirely possible to drink all night for free. you just have to 1) know a bartender, 2) crash a pretentious private party with an open bar, or 3) be female. if all of these things apply to you, you're in trouble.

you can beat box on a flute. to Herbie Hancock no less. which actually sounds pretty sweet.

New York is a small town. don't let that population of eight million thing sway you. if you think you won't run into people you know, you're wrong.

the motion-sensored artistic light installment in Union Square is a close second to being on drugs.

i'm pretty sure a grande carmel macchiato costs more in New York than anywhere else.

it is entirely possible to subsist on pizza and nothing else. it is entirely possible that i did this for the year and a half that i lived in NY.

sure doesn't feel like a vacation...

New York is the worst place to be sick. There's just something about the city that screams "you should not be at home sick in bed." better yet, sick in somebody else's bed. always awesome.

this has, of course, not stopped me from going out, high on sudafed (they should really tell you on the box: this drug may cause tangential thoughts and sentences. normal people may look at you questioningly). i've been drinking a lot more tea than alcohol, though. unfortunately, my partner in tea is on the other side of the country. and when i say tea, i really do mean tea.

Progression, I swear (Round Four).

what i learned this week:

bringing up religion, abortion or the death penalty will at best beget discussion of the topic, and at worst, an all-out argument. or a war or something. unless of course you are with me, and the topic is the death penalty. which i apparently don't care about one way or the other. (in discussing this with Glenn the other night i believe my response was, "in 16th century England, they used to behead people and display the head on a stake on the London Bridge for a month. at least we've progressed.")

who says i'm not an optimist.

saying that you "don't respect people's [religious] beliefs" may come off as callous. but then, people sort of misconstrue the meaning of that statement.

that one person i know who voted for Bush over Gore in 2000 is completely misguided. and, you know, a few million other Americans as well.

the outpouring of a santa claus convention can really back up traffic.

two-year-olds can push a stuffed animal down a flight of stairs for hours and be thoroughly entertained. two-year-olds are also better at pronouncing my name than most adults i encounter.

there really is a north pole.

let's just hope that children don't read CNN.com.

we fear change

some technical things (announcements, if you will).

i'll be revamping this site in the weeks to come (on account of my finally having some time to fuck around with code and shit) this will likely involve site feed, possibly adsense and i don't know. a different font maybe. i know. try to contain your excitement. i'll try to implement some clever weekly bit. which may or may not last (if you've been paying attention, you know that i've already sort of done this. albeit a bit slapdash).

my blog won't get you drunk or give you an orgasm (well, i kind of fucking hope it doesn't, for that would imply your life is more pathetic than mine) but regardless, something to look forward to. like Lost and that trip to Hawaii you can't afford.

shockingly, i have to go to a party now.

Progression, I swear (Round three).

what i learned this week:

if you write a really good term paper, your professor might accuse you of plagiarism.

high school drama never really ends. in fact, it may actually occur after high school.

i really need an xbox360 (i'll note here that this may not be construed as "work safe". i'll also note that even digital avatars have tan lines. who knew?)

it is entirely possible to purchase every meal at starbucks.

it is entirely possible that i drink too many energy drinks which do not actually provide energy (she types, glancing over at the collection of empty Rockstar cans on her night table. squinting, she notices the words "energy supplement," suddenly realizing her problem)

i wish you'd open up to me. i need some ammunition.

i do apologize. i'm in the middle of writing a play. there has, unfortunately, been more drama in my life lately than on the page. and i'm coming up on finals.

note to self: next time, in fighting via email, ask antagonist to write in pentameter with an a/b rhyming scheme. kill two birds with one stone.

also: out of narcissism, i googled myself. which i haven't done in a while. i apparently made the President's List at my school over the summer term (i'm guessing for bullshitting my way into a 4.0; don't worry. it will never happen again) i'm right under somebody named Sassafras.

the things we learn about ourselves on the internet.

related: my therapist actually referred to somebody i was talking about this week as "sounding narcissistic". i think this one's a keeper. unfortunately, she wasn't referring to me.

in the meantime: Borat: the memo

i wanna go home. i miss my cook.

detritus.

i always had this feeling as a teenager that i didn't belong in my hometown. there's nothing like a trip home as an adult to remind you exactly who you aren't.

i had to go to a baby shower today. which was preceded by my having to go shopping for baby accoutrements this morning, marginally hung over and sleep deprived. my mom accompanied me, for it seems she thinks this is something i am inept at. which could be true. the last time i was in the baby aisle, i was eighteen and searching for drug paraphernalia and raver toys.

my brother brought a mac into my parents' house for the first time. i'm surprised my father didn't throw him out.

boys never really grow up. if anybody ever tells you otherwise, they are lying.

blocking out the world

things:

i had to write a 16th century style dramatic scene for a class last week. when my father read it, he told me his first thought was, "did she plagiarize this..?"

i'll take that as a compliment.

also, Sasha Frere-Jones reviewed the Deftones' new album in this week's New Yorker.

"With his black hair and small beard, [Chino]Moreno, who is thirty-three, looks like someone who's stranded between boyhood and adulthood."

yes, i would say that's fairly accurate.

so...can I go back to not writing?

the weather gods, it seems, are in tune with my emotions. there's been a veritable deluge in the northwest the last few weeks. Washington is a lake; Oregon, more of a puddle. my father bought a $500 (yellow)gore-tex rain-jacket, which i had no comment on. i will say this: for $500, it had better not just deflect rain, but send it straight back up into the clouds and break that motherfucking cloud into timid vapor.

anyway. my point...

i was explaining to a friend tonight that Portland has rid me of 6 years of urban irritants (read: traffic on the 10 freeway, Los Angeleans, terrorist threats, the NY marathon running down my street, that lovely perma-urine aroma of the NYC subway, drunken Poles at 4am...) and then it occurred to me: maybe this was not a good thing.

sure, i'm less likely to punch somebody out. i'm less likely to have a crowd-induced panic attack.

here it seems i have nobody to hate, no daily irritants to focus all my hatred on. suddenly i'm left with trees and rain and peace and quiet. and self-loathing came out of hibernation.

oh man i need a parade to ruin my Sunday morning.

moping and working is surprisingly taxing

i'm on...um...what we'll call a personal hiatus. try to contain your enthusiasm.

iJapanish

maybe i took too much NyQuil; suddenly my iTunes store is in Japanese...

iEgoism

Ok. We’ve all seen the slew of Macintosh ads featuring Justin Long and John Hodgeman. We try to fast forward through them on our Tivos, but, well, shit happens. And I love John Hodgeman. Alas, he has gone over to the dark side. I digress…

In opening up this week’s New Yorker, the pages immediately flipped open to a Mac ad, cleverly made of paper stiffer than the rest of the magazine complete with a little fold-out brochure. This annoyed me for two reasons. One: it makes the magazine a trifle hard to fold over and stick in my bag, and Two: I fucking hate Mac advertising.

“PCs are for the stuff we have to do, like pie charts and spreadsheets. Macs are for the stuff we want to do, like photos, music and movies.”

(I’ll let the grammatical context of this ad slide for now, though I believe they’re missing a few key verbs)

I have a PC. I don’t believe I have ever made a pie chart or a spreadsheet. I might have made a spreadsheet at work once or twice, and to be honest, I think it was on a Mac.

I recently had to write a discussion response for my Persuasion and Compliance Gaining class (don’t ask; it fills a requirement), in which I detailed a marketing campaign that used contrast or social comparison in an effort to persuade consumers. I used Macintosh’s marketing campaign as an example of this. They have taken the idea of the Mac versus PC “persona” to a literal level; they don’t even show their product in the advertisement anymore, it is simply two actors attempting to embody a brand of computer, from an Apple-biased standpoint. The initial Long/Hodgeman commercial revolves around the concept that Macs are, stated simply, “better.” This, of course, is entirely subjective to whoever is buying the product; it depends on what you are looking for. In Mac’s case, it often depends on how you want to look .

In some ways, it is an effective campaign, at least to reinforce Apple’s already loyal Mac customers. But one has to wonder, does insulting the competition really sway them to change brand loyalty? Listing off possible faults in PCs may not necessarily be the best way at winning over that demographic of computer users. Whether or not it is ethical is also subject to opinion. I personally don’t like this type of advertising; companies who ascribe this sort of egoistic approach to advertising generally turn me off (I can’t say that makes me more inclined to, say, Microsoft, or Dell, but I can’t think offhand of a similar marketing campaign on their part, but then I try not to watch commercials and believe that advertising is the bane of American society. Well, that and religion. But that’s a whole other blog entry).

You are not your computer. If you were, you'd be better at binary.

Most of the demons are asleep now...They look so innocent, it’s hard to believe that just a few hours ago they were raping and torturing us.

i'm in the middle of midterms. hence my lacking text.

related: Jack Handey's My First Day in Hell

Baby...did you forget to take your meds?

what constitutes "good writing" is entirely subjective. if you ask me, i write devastatingly good letters to exboyfriends and particularly awful research papers that lack discernible theses. my grades would suggest otherwise; every time i am certain i've turned in the most god-awful piece of crap term paper, i get an A on it (oh happy day!)and from a difficult professor at that.

conversely, every time i am certain that i have missed at least half of the questions on a science or math exam, i am indeed correct. without exaggeration.

this is why i have tremendous respect for doctors. and think that they're crazy.

unrelated, the new Placebo album is really good. *NOTE* since i have have gotten an inordinate amount of google hits for this header, let me help you out. The song is called Meds by Placebo. it's on their new album. aptly titled, Meds. go figure.

and i am inept at grocery shopping. among other things.

(and perhaps i'm just going blind, but did the new iTunes interface make all the icons smaller? is that what they call an improvement?)

Progression, I swear (Round two).

I’ve had interesting things to say; they now elude me. It’s the drugs. I’m sorry. It’s like being stuck in bullet mode in Word. Man I hate that. Where was I…oh yes.

What I learned this week:

It is difficult to run gracefully with coffee. The only thing I miss about Dunkin Donuts coffee: lids with a convenient sippy-cup tab. (If there’s a name for this, it is lost on me. if you don't have a clue what i'm talking about, you probably live in the NW)

Drunken pumpkin carving is awesome. Just be sure to buy plenty of band-aids.

House of Leaves, though terribly interesting, is not the most portable of novels. Thanks Mike.

The Dresden Dolls are the best band ever. Have you ever heard an analytical cover of Bon Jovi’s Livin on a Prayer? The lyrics are a bit contradicting.

Lance and Matt aren’t gay. "I think people see pictures and they think we're these overgrown frat guys," says Armstrong. "We all have buds, we all take guy trips.” Do we? Do we all take guy trips?

Tom Tykwer is my hero.

Jimmy Dean is destroying America one Pancake & Sausage on a stick at a time. Curiously, only in the Southeast.

Progression, I swear (Round one).

In an attempt to instill some semblance of routine and actual, oh I don’t know, effort in my life, I have decided to begin a weekly “themed” piece concerning things that I have learned each week. Why? Because it’s a proven fact (the proof of which I shall subsequently google in an attempt to back up. I’m nothing if not credible) that people love lists. Of things. Grocery lists, for example; I bet you’ve never seen a grocery paragraph. A grocery haiku? I think not.

Donald Trump isn’t gay. And has really bad taste. We knew this.

George Eads in my hero. Yet somehow, he inspired very few adjectives when I was writing his bio earlier this week.

Broken Halo gets me drunk.

That shape in the foreground of Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors is a distorted skull. And I totally have a crush on my 16th century English drama professor.

Eighth graders are now apparently required to take molecular biology (and posting death threats against Bush on your Myspace profile is a bad idea).

Babies are the new Glock (side note: the Glock E-Tool is not, as it might sound, a web browser).

NyQuil’s website has a sleep aptitude test, which I flunked, even though I drink NyQuil every night in order to fall asleep (I’m the reason they card for it in Oregon). Ironic, no? “You are a "walking zombie" and unproductive.” Yup. That’s me.

it's hard out here for a hooker.

you wouldn't think it would be hard to find white ruffled panties...

"This is not the comedy we intended to do when the week began..."

In navigating my brother’s social circle this weekend, (which as it turns out puts both a damper on my “game” as well as his; let me state here for the record how generous I was in sharing my female friends with him in high school. Moving on…) I was asked the ever popular small-talk question of, “What do you do?” Though I am often inclined to offer up the self-aggrandizing, “Oh I do nothing” reply, I instead responded with the truth, that I write freelance biographies for an entertainment website. To which my friend replied, “You can get paid for that?”

Yes. If the United States Postal Service doesn't misplace your paycheck for over a month, you can.

Spartans!

Frank Miller's 300.

I read the comic when I was working in the story department at Regency four years ago. It's about freakin time.

ADDENDUM: i received a couple of comments regarding the music in this trailer; if you're awesome, you know that it's Nine Inch Nails (Just Like You Imagined. off The Fragile. great album) if you didn't know that, well now you do.

i am personally susceptible to any marketing campaign/trailer/movie that incorporates NIN into their soundtrack. see Man on Fire (which might be the only case of cleverly woven in Linda Rondstadt i've ever witnessed as well).

Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Then one day Holly swallowed all the pills in the house.

Portland State University recently conducted a survey of how kids, aged 8-18, perceive mental illness.

"Results show that youth expect that a child with depression or ADHD is more likely than a classmate with asthma to be socially shunned...Youth on the surveys indicated that if they thought they had depression, they would most likely talk to a friend, talk to their parents and pray."

pray?

ah, die Freude des Films.

due to my proclivity towards transferring colleges every year and some other technicalities, i somehow ended up taking an "understanding movies" class this semester. the professor of which looks eerily similar to my film history professor from five years ago. and, as i glanced down at the syllabus for the class, i realized that my life has either 1) come full circle, or 2) been sucked into some strange time-warp wherein i will forever be subjected to discussions of mise-en-scene, motif, allusion and allegory.

i got to watch (with weeping joy, for the third time) the clever-if-not-bizarre double-billing of Night Mail and Nuit et Brouillard (which translates to, in English, the most depressing movie ever).

if one frame of Birth of a Nation sneaks its way onto the syllabus, i'm staging a walk-out.

note to self...

don't take methadone...

even apples are fattening

um. New York is trying to ban trans fat from all restaurants. (i can't wait to see the thrilled look on my Nutrition professor's face tomorrow) everything has just fallen apart since my departure. if they ban pizza, i'm never moving back.

(and don't ask me what the hell i'm doing up at 8am; i really don't want to talk about it.)

capitalizing on JRR Tolkien

i don't know if this will be any good, but i love me some evil John Malkovich.

people like us

I sleep mostly with a pen and a notebook. I am, indeed, a notebook slut (but that'’s between you and me). When I can'’t sleep I watch infomercials on mute and write middling little villanelles built upon one person, a line and complete obscurity. It's like math with words, and the only math I'll do willingly. Like most things in my life, this one's a work-in-progress.

We cast our thoughts so we may understand
Drop words like crumbs so that we may be found
We try, as much as people like us can

What two upon meeting achieve unplanned
There is no you or I, save vowel sounds
We cast our thoughts so we may understand

Affecting silence when all this began
Too taken, ill at ease with the profound
We try, as much as people like us can

Where once you stood, when you were just one man
We build upon, where accord can abound
We cast our thoughts so we may understand

To see what comes before us over land
Is acute, coaction gaining ground
We try, as much as people like us can

We walk our path, supply what we demand
It's life my dear, existing to confound
We cast our thoughts so we may understand
We try, as much as people like us can.

once you take your pants off d’accord isn’t really O.K. anymore.

i'm working on something really meaningful, i promise.

in the meantime, here's some David Sedaris. because you probably don't read the New Yorker. even though you should.

"I'm on a little Vicodin and some Percocet and a steroid called Nortisone, the side effect of which is mania. I swear it said so right on the bottle."

If you missed Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, I feel really sorry for you.

ADDENDUM:

so...as a rule, i try not to write about people i know. or employers. or former employers. or former co-workers. but this is too easy.

one of my former co-interns (now apparently an editorial assistant) at Nerve wrote this scathing review of Studio 60.

now, go read the New Yorker review.

that's all i have to say.

"it's really so much better if you take it up the ass."

In case you can’t tell from my lack of posting, I’m on vacation. Sort of.

Far be it for me to barrage you with the banalities of my moderate hibernation, but frankly, I’m bored. And I haven’t actually left my apartment today. Why, you may ask? Because, like Paris Hilton releasing an album, I had no good reason to.

A few things.

The already anorexic iPod Nano has lost weight. Why? Because thin is in, sweetie dahling. It now comes in a plethora of Easter-egg colors no self-respecting techno-gadget ever should.

In an effort to leave my apartment, I joined an athletic club. Because, really, who’s going to stare at my ass at home? Seriously though, athletic clubs bother me. I weigh less than 120 pounds, I’m fairly good at hiding any cellulite I may have and I own all the right curve-hugging-i-look-hot-when-i-sweat work-out clothes, but there’s just a vibe about chain fitness establishments that makes me feel like I’m thirteen years old and the last girl picked for dodgeball. It’s as if they bottle that vain you're-not-pretty-or-tan-enough vibe that Los Angeles emanates and filter it through the air conditioning vents.

Also:

Back on the topic of men’s magazines, I found a heartening copy of FHM in my mailbox last week bearing a mostly naked Janet Jackson on the cover next to the eminent pull-quote “I’ve never worn so little.” I always wonder how it is in an interview that women work in the phrase “I really like to garden naked. I enjoy being dirty,” when they’re promoting a movie or album. I’ll state here for the record that it is now my lifelong goal to get the pull-quote “The only thing I love more than Camus is some good old-fashioned anal” published on the cover of a men’s magazine, next to a picture of me in a thong with my breasts covered only by a cleverly placed inanimate object.

I lost my memory in Hollywood. I've had a million visions, bad and good.

Los Angeles.

Where do I begin.

My father once said to me as I drove him to LAX at 7:30am, my most unheard of hour, “you might never forgive me for saying this, but you fit in here.” It wasn’t until this last week, three years later, that I became truly offended.

A few highlights.

I got a parking ticket within 24 hours of my arrival. I witnessed a car crash while sitting at the intersection of Wilshire and Sepulveda. And a white pick-up truck with the peripheral vision of Polyphemus nearly sideswiped me on Sunset Boulevard; so bland was my nondescript Chevy Cobalt rental that it rendered me invisible to other drivers.

I marveled at the shiny new abundance of American Apparels. I gasped at the moderate attempts to bring “class” to Hollywood Boulevard (read: the pretty pink façades of Geisha House and Hillview Hollywood.) And while strolling past memory lane (read: Whitley Ave. at Hollywood), encountered this fantastic sight (courtesy of Virginia's camera phone).



In case you can’t make it out, this is my old street blocked off by an exciting assortment of emergency response vehicles.

Some things never change.

I have to make money. I have a car. I have a Camaro. I mean that costs money, you know?

I don’t read women’s magazines. (I have a really awful addiction to People.com, but that’s a whole other topic.) I read The New Yorker, I drool over Maxim or FHM, and I peruse, with moderate interest, GQ and Esquire, the latter because it pops up in my mailbox every month (oh, free subscriptions from Nerve). I used to read Rolling Stone, but that one didn’t forward. I hear there are a few months worth piling up in the west village for me, but I doubt I’ll ever see them.

My point? Men’s magazines are better. Period. I could go into a whole diatribe on the sexist implications of the magazine publishing industry (read: Hearst and Conde Nast. Note: should I ever become employed by either of these companies, directly or indirectly, this line will be omitted. Ah, editing.) But I digress…

I would rather know How to Have Sex with Mary Louise Parker (p. 225, Esquire) than learn 101 Sex Tricks to Try Before You Die (Cosmopolitan. I would tell you the page, if I read the damn magazine. But I don’t. See above.)

Related: I would like to take a minute to talk about cars. Yes, cars. One car in particular; the 2009 Chevy Camaro concept car.



Now, I know what you’re thinking. “It’s a Camaro.” But it’s the coolest thing I’ve seen since Tybalt’s royal blue Executioner from Romeo & Juliet, which, in addition to Claire Danes, I’ve had a hard-on for since 1996.

As Esquire writer Ezra Dyer describes the Camaro, “The front end, in particular, is not just angry looking but utterly filled with contempt for the world.”

Yes, indeed. This is the car for me.

hi! i'm the bluebird of death!

Two things…wait…three.

One.

I’ve discovered a wonderful new diet. I like to call it the CSI diet. (granted, there are other things contributing to my lack of appetite lately, which are not blog-worthy fodder. But I swear, the pounds will just fall off you. I know, because I’m a trained nutritionist. I’m also a trained assassin. But don’t tell anybody)

1 Quiznos smoked turkey sandwich

1 glass grapefruit juice (this may be substituted with a good bottle of Guinness or a nice Oregon hefeweizen. None of that Budweiser bullshit though [sorry Brian])

60 minutes CSI (which, if necessary [read: Monday night] may be substituted with 60 minutes CSI Miami, but may NOT be substituted with 60 minutes CSI NY. We all love NY, but we all don't love CSI NY [sorry Gary Sinise])

Place self in front of television with sandwich and choice of beverage. Turn TV on. Choose CSI episode from plethora of Tivoed episodes (note: Spike airs CSI all freaking day apparently; if you have a season pass, make sure you have some space. If you’re lame and don’t have cable, insert Netflix CSI DVD. If you’re lame and don’t have Netflix, you might want to take a long look in the mirror and ask yourself why you’re not in therapy) Play episode. Raise sandwich to mouth. Take bite of sandwich. Watch Grissom poke and prod mutilated dead body and make quirky comment about his entomological fascination. Look questioningly at sandwich. Look back at dead body on TV screen. Put sandwich down. Take swig of drink and suddenly realize you really aren’t all that hungry.

Ok, to be honest, CSI doesn’t actually make me all that queasy. But it occurred to me tonight, as I ate my umpteenth meal while watching the damn show, that it might not be the best dinner companion.

Two.

I love strippers. I especially love strippers on my birthday. There’s something a little odd, however, about the combination of family and strippers. I was lucky enough to spend my birthday, the first in years, with my parents and my brother (as well as a number of friends). It was a lovely get-together, during which my father (who children believe resembles Santa Claus but I believe bears a more striking resemblance to Obi-Wan Kenobi) jokingly referred to my mother as his “bitch.” In a really endearing manner, mind you. I hugged my mother lovingly and proceeded to drag my brother and some friends to Magic Gardens, which is the Coyote Ugly of strip clubs. Here I say “drag”; my brother lives a block away from the place. Which makes it sound like he lives in a really classy neighborhood. Anyway, strippers and family, it’s that dichotomy of naughty and heart-warming, much like the cracked out eye-contact one of the strippers kept giving me all night.

A few points:

In Oregon, they take it all off. And serve alcohol. You wish you lived here.

Going to a strip club with your older brother is weird. Fun, but weird. Probably weirder for him, though, as I was the one up by the stage.

Magic Gardens does not, however, have a pole. it's really much better with a pole. [insert joke here]

Three.

wait...i forgot what three was. alas.

i was saying...

transformers.

oh, Michael Bay.

loneliness is worse

I spend about eighty percent of my time alone. Most of that time is spent with my HP Pavilion dv 1000. The rest is spent on introspection and trying to fall asleep. I have no idea how this compares to other people’s lives; when you’re lonely, you are the only one.

According to cnn.com though, loneliness has become an epidemic.

This is no huge comfort.

my heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

by the age of 26 (before, actually) John Keats composed a body of work that made him one of the greatest romantic poets. ever.

i've accomplished a bit less, you might say.

still crazy after all these years

Yesterday was my parents’ 35th anniversary. They, reportedly, got married so my father could share my mother’s medical benefits. I had the pleasure of crashing their quiet dinner-for-two last night. They wore matching outfits. They still hold hands. They probably still make out, but I don’t really need to know about that.

I don’t know how they’ve managed it, but I know it’s possible.

it rains a lot in Seattle

so, i was perusing the headlines over at CNN.com today and i found this gem of journalistic prowess: "Seattle stunned by 'bizarre' killings"

"Law enforcement officials said they couldn't recall a similar string of multiple homicides in the Seattle area."

they're kidding right? Ted Bundy...the Green River Killer...Seattle practically spawns serial killers. all that rain and such. we northwesterners are crazy bastards. tevas and shorts in December? i rest my case.

if you google "Seattle serial killers", this is the first page that pops up. and it scrolls.

it was precisely because i lived in Seattle (circa 1998-2000) that i developed some wicked fascination with the subject; i once checked out a stack of books at the Federal Way library which included such titles as Hunting Humans, The A-Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers, Helter Skelter: the True Story of the Manson Murders, and the requisite A Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy, the Shocking Inside Story. the librarian gave me a look i have never seen on another human being's face since.

i've probably been flagged by the FBI.

if people didn't kill people regularly in Seattle and the greater northwest region, Ann Rule would have nothing to write about.

fucking moron flavored morons...

day four of Sonata [my ass]. it's 3:25am. shit's bunk, i tell you.

quote of the day: "I have to go. I have to do a whole day's worth of work in 12 minutes so as not to raise anybody’s expectations." -my father-

i have so much to live up to.

unrelated: i've developed a new affinity for Cool Heat pain relieving cream. seriously. is smells exactly like Pepsodent. it's like an Altoid for your whole fucking body!

Sonata my ass

related: The Ambien Cookbook.

diddy speaks (interlude)

so, being the insomniac that i am, i was channel surfing just now (this i alternate with net surfing, eating chocolate pudding and playing online trivial pursuit. did you know that there's a man-made "reef" off the coast of Delaware made out of old NYC subway cars? neither did i; i guessed New Jersey) and i came across the usual slew of infomercials, inclusive of the requisite Proactiv commercial. p. diddy is now one of their celebrity endorsers.

it's hard out here for a pimp[le].

(i'm so sorry. i watch far too much Daily Show)

ironically, what i've never seen an infomercial for at 3am is an ad for an over-the-counter sleeping aid.

i obviously don't watch enough television.

106

a few [more] things.

es ist sehr heiß. das ist nicht so gut.

i realized on my way home just now that New York really screwed up up my sense of temperature (among other things); i was thinking to myself, "my, it's sort of nice out" followed by "ok, perhaps it's a bit warm..." according to weather.com, it is 106 degrees in the Pearl district at present. and here i was thinking maybe 90ish. seriously. way off. i will, however, take an Oregon 106 degrees with 22% humidity over a New York 80 degrees with 90% humidity any day.

also, i was perusing the quicktime trailer site the other day (i'm really out of of the Hollywood loop these days. a tragedy, i know) and i came across this. now, i'm thinking, did we 80's children just not know how good we had it? if they're resurrecting 80's cartoons, the shit they have today must just completely suck. personally, i'm waiting for GI Joe: The Movie (i shit you not, my friend. i have a script for this kicking around in my collection of unproduced scripts somewhere. i think there was a Thundercats one as well. oh Cheetarah).

the Baroness was hot. crazy, but hot.

also, my mom priority-mailed me sleeping/anxiety pills. my mom is better than your mom.

...Miss Mace, if you're nasty.

the dude at Videorama just told me that i have a good stripper name.

this explains everything.

it's not the same without Psycho Safeway

a few things.

i saw The Appleseed Cast at the fez ballroom the other night. i highly recommend.

killing time at Powell's beforehand, i found myself in the health/self-help section. there's an entire section on death and dying. go there. just read the titles. it's in the red room along with travel and linguistics.

in an attempt to figure myself out, i flipped through You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy, a self-help book for people with ADD. it was 450 pages. it lost my interest.

also, i really never needed to see John McCain from this angle (on the cover of Esquire). i've found better things in my mailbox. bills, for example.

apply to be my boyfriend.

i'm so completely biting my friend Jason's style here, but fuck it. it made me laugh, so i made my own.

Disclaimer: this is intended to be a humorous send-up of my pathetically redundant and unsuccessful attempts at dating men. it was not written with any lingering animosity. Ok, it was written with a little animosity.

Regardless.

a few simple questions...

1. Do you live in the 503 area code?
2. Are you Jewish?
3. Are you a Republican?
4. Are you an actor?
5. Are you in a band?
6. In the last five years have you been subject to a traumatic, life-changing event (e.g. cancer, a terrorist attack, a mullet)? Did you seek therapy for it? Did you wait four years before seeking therapy?
7. How do you feel about the word “girlfriend”?
8. Do you believe in “God”?
9. How do you feel about plaid? As an interior decorating pattern? As a fabric one wears?
10. Have you read any of the following: Love in the Time of Cholera, The Bell Jar, or the Eyre Affair? Without my suggesting that you read it?
11. Do you have residual feelings for an ex-girlfriend? a female friend?
12. I say “I’m naked, come over” you say…?
13. Do you own a cell phone? Do you answer your cell phone?
14. Is your name Mike or some variant of (e.g. Michael, Mikey)?
15. If I call you a "cad", would you have to look it up? (hint: I’m not talking about Computer Aided Design)
16. Do you snore?
17. Do you smell nice (where nice = Tommy Hilfiger, Cool Water, Polo Sport or Polo Blue)?
18. Would it bother you if I smelled nice as well (where nice = Tommy Hilfiger, Cool Water, Polo Sport or Polo Blue)?
19. Would you throw me up against a wall and make-out with me? At your parents’ house?
20. Explain the difference between “your” and “you’re". It shouldn’t be difficult.
21. Do you drink beer? Do you drink good beer?
22. Can you dance? If you can’t, do you have enough sense not to?
23. Do you watch ESPN? Do you work for ESPN?
24. Do you have an inordinate amount of body hair? Could you ever be described as “furry”?
25. We book a tropical vacation together (this involves me in a bikini, or less, for the duration of a week. There’s also a private hot-tub involved). Would you cancel our trip for any reason?
26. Do you have a dog? Do you plan on getting one?
27. Are you allergic to cats?
28. Have you ever voted for Bush?
29. Do you know who George Eliot is?
30. Would you ever list The DaVinci Code as one of your favorite books?
31. Define “belligerent” without looking it up.
32. How do you feel about Lindsay Lohan?
33. Would you ever wear white sneakers?
34. Do your pants go all the way down to your shoes (meaning, do they cover your ankles and break nicely over your shoe)?
35. Does the sentence, “There’s many things that I can do,” bother you in any way? If so, why?
36. Have you ever said, “That was fun!” after having sex?
37. If I ask your best friend about you, will he respond something like this: "Don't get me wrong...I love [Your Name Here] like a brother, but he's completely fucked up about women."
38. Are you a Red Sox fan?

i'm sure i'll add to these...

every line is about who i don't want to write about anymore.

it's a holiday, i think. but i've nothing to celebrate.

i think somebody told me last week that i'd been glowing, of late. i've gotten a number of comments such as this in the last two months, that i seem really happy.

that's pretty fucking gone.

due to this weekend's sudden drama and also a consequence of my NyQuil and Codeine-induced coma of the last two days (to counteract the effects of my bleeding like a wounded artery and the fact that i was not really feeling very good in the first place), i am confined to my apartment working today. which is awesome.

i feel like throwing up. only i've been so depressed, i just realized i've hardly eaten in days. and i actually had nightmares last night, the kind where you physically jerk upright in a sweat; i actually thought somebody was standing over me.

yeah.

i need a hug.

It's such a lie that you should do what's in your heart. If we all did what was in our hearts, the world would come to a halt.

I made a joke once, a few years ago to a friend, I believe after one of my ex-boyfriends informed me most asininely that he was getting married (to the girl he dated before me, whom he got back together with within weeks of our splitting) that I was the girl you date to figure out who you’re really in love with.

The humor in it has since depreciated.

What sort of pains me, when I think about it, is that my first thought whenever a guy picks another girl over me, is “Am I not pretty enough?” Which is, of course, supremely superficial and likely unfounded. And then I marvel at the fact that I’ve been raised in a society which has programmed me to think that my beauty and my body are the entirety of my self-worth. That I’ll spend countless waking hours comparing myself to all the Beckys, Leias, Emilys, and Megans out there, wondering what it is that I’m lacking. Like the racehorse nobody bets on, you begin to wonder if it’s your limp they aren’t betting on, or just the fact that some breeder named you Unlovable.

Another point: Men don’t grovel.

I was discussing this with Chaya last night over the ever-popular even-the-nice-guys-treat-you-like-shit martini. It is an entirely fictionalized idea, likely put into effect by Hollywood, that men ever see the error of their ways and come groveling back to you, admitting that you were really the one. You’ll never get a phone call in the middle of the night, or a letter, or a boy on your doorstep sopping wet with rain, professing his love and need for you to forgive him. It’s never happened to me once.

Men don't do this. Men are cowards. Or, likely, he just didn’t care for you in the first place.

I know this from experience.

capital N, small y, BIG fucking Q.

i got carded for NyQuil today.

oh Oregon, you are so bureaucratic.

i can't sleep. there are birds chirping.

so, it occurred to me, just now at 5:22am lying awake for no good reason, that my recent return to chronic insomnia might very well be due to a lack of urban noise infiltrating my bedroom.

oh, where are my traffic noises and drunken Poles?

here, there are birds chirping (incessantly) and, in the distance, a train at Union Station. then, intermittent silence.

it's so relaxing, pleasing to the ear.

it's just not the same.

the page is blank, my pen is down; i'm working it out.

So, I spent the weekend in Seattle, a place to which I had not returned in four years.

Point one: Laser Tool is awesome. I don’t care what my friends think.

Me: “dude, Laser Tool tonight. You in?”

Dave: “what are you, thirteen?”

Dave Hawkins: Thrill Kill. (love you!)

Loud as hell, and come on kids, the Seattle Center needs the money. Go in your jammies, stoned. I don’t care.

Point two: the Broadway Market is now a QFC, which is weird. Definately a sign of the times (pointing towards the fact that Broadway just isn’t the punk, raver, indie-kid drag it once was). If you like to juxtapose your Urban Outfitters i-needed-an-overpriced-Ramones-shirt shopping with your grocery shopping, then you’re in luck. Otherwise, just fucking weird.

Point three: late teenage drama makes for fun reminiscing. As do Kickwear pants, bad hair-do’s, and former drug-usage. Those were the days.

Also, a shout-out to Jason’s cat Miss Nixie (sp?), who provided ample cuddles and purrs and whose hair has indelibly attached itself to all my clothing.

surly and disinterested

A few things.

I have a wicked crush on Jason Jones ( a product, strangely, of Hamilton, Ontario, producer of my favorite Canadian, one Jennifer Sgro. [Whom, my thoughts are with, and I miss terribly]).

(Parenthetical within a parenthetical [I could footnote it, but I found Jasper Fforde’s use of footnoting in Lost in a Good Book disconcerting. Hilarious, but disconcerting. ])

Where were we? Ah! Yes! Mr. Jones.

Point one: prior to cutting it up on The Daily Show, he had recurring roles on As the World Turns and Queer as Folk. Which makes him more hilarious.

Point two: he is a classically trained cellist.

Damn you Samantha Bee.

Unrelated: I finally have my own apartment again. And, for whatever reason, I cannot seem to leave it this week. One could write it off as an “I work from home” thing. One might also call it a “lazy” thing. Maybe I’m moping. Or hibernating. Or celebrating.

We’re not sure yet.

I did have to venture out of the building this afternoon; I ran out of Red Bull.

Related: my parents just happen to rent the apartment directly above me. Which is, you know, um, something. I heard a loud thud at 7am the other morning. So instead of silently cursing the upstairs neighbor, I can silently curse my father. Which I do a lot.

Tragically, a potted orchid was knocked off a table. My mother’s potted orchid, to be exact. Snicker.

Answers. It's the difference.

More interesting things have happened this week. (but why would I write about them here?)

best. picture. ever.

why i love Christopher Walken.

these follies are within you and shine through you like the water in an urinal

I saw The Two Gentlemen of Verona on the Elizabethan stage in Ashland the other night. Imagine my surprise when, in Act IV, the Mantua outlaws bounded upon stage in full goth gear, blue mohawks and all (all this in a replica of the original Globe Theatre). They have a sense of humor, those Oregon Shakespeare Festivalians.

So.

My body is adjusting back to pacific standard time. I’m not sure if I feel at home exactly; Oregon was home, but now I associate it more with being on vacation, so I’m not sure what it is I feel here. Displacement, perhaps.

It feels a little empty, sleeping alone. Very empty.

I am suddenly aware that I have gotten very little affection, affirmation and support from any of the guys I’ve dated in the last five years.

“Ask me how it feels to vie.”

Of all the guys I’ve been with, not one had ever looked me in the eye and said I was worth the effort.

Sad, but true.

(thank you, B)