rx kittens

Precious

2009-12-03T18:21:00.000-08:00

I think part of the reason I stopped writing so much...at least part...is the fact that my therapist thinks that that's what I should do with my life. I really disagree...mostly because am neither driven to do it nor particularly good at it. I was just reading Dahlia Lithwick's real-time novel...she has a gift for creating a scene in your mind, along with an immediate understanding of what a character is about. It's really impressive for what it is. In any case, I have no skill at that, and I feel like to a certain extent, writing is a craft...one which I watch people do everyday. I'm good at critiquing it and drawing upon other things to expand it. But that's different than doing it.

I watched the movie Precious today. I was in the grocery store and this Asian lady came in selling DVDs. I like to buy DVDs from those ladies...it meets my "multiple reasons for doing things" criterion. I hate having to use the word criterion correctly, but there it is. Buying DVDs from those ladies does three things: one, you get a dvd and you dont' have to spend money or go to a movie theater...two, you get to participate in an illegal market...and three, you get to help a person who's trying to make a living make a living. It's good for everyone involved. I really can't express how little it matters to me that DVDs get pirated...they serve different markets.

Anyway, I figured I had to see it because I had been reading about it and thought it would be difficult not to see it in terms of holiday parties and such. Like I've never seen Brokeback Mountain...or LA Confidential...or...Monsters Inc. It comes up enough to make me just want to see the movie.

I have to say, it wasn't that good. It was a movie, there was incest, blah blah. I mean...I didn't want to feel *nothing*...but everything I felt was cheap and orchestrated. It wasn't that I didn't want to cry, it was that I resented crying. So I didn't cry at all actually. It wasn't very cathartic. Is this because I don't identify with her plight? Is it too repulsive? I'm not sure. I don't think that's the primary issue.

Cosmic love

2009-10-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes
I screamed aloud, as it tore through them, and now it’s left me blind

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day, I’m always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart

And in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat I tried to find the sound
But then it stopped, and I was in the darkness, So darkness I became

I took the stars from our eyes, and then I made a map
And knew that somehow I could find my way back
Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too
So I stayed in the darkness with you

Married sex

2009-10-06T11:48:00.000-07:00

Rather than plunging ahead into the waters of TMI I think I will just dip a little toe in by saying that there are both intangible and tangible benefits to getting engaged and getting married---at least, for me....so far.

The intangible ones are the things most people my age often scornfully question me about...like "why do you need a piece of paper or a rock on a metal band if you really love each other?" I'm not really sure...and maybe some people don't...but it turns out I do. Maybe I'm locked within the confines of a culturally expected institution, or maybe I'm just incredibly insecure. Maybe I fold and unfold the embossed piece of paper everyday, stroking its supple contours and congratulating myself on finally succeeding.

The truth is, something definitely changed between us once we got engaged. We started really listening to each other and trying to do our absolute best in every situation...not just use the other one to test out the boundaries of human patience vs. the human fear of being alone. And, being as marriage was infinitely more terrifying than being engaged, you would assume that there would be a respectively higher pay off. At least, this is the kind of fairness that I demand out of life.

After getting married, there was the initial period of shock and exhaustion in which all we could do was weakly smile at each other and sit tentatively close together as we quietly contemplated what we had just done with our lives. There was a deluge of new material that needed to be sorted and arranged within our brains--not the least of which was grappling with the reality that we had just made a sort of old school blood pact with one another.

Few things in my life are infused with that level of seriousness or finality. Perhaps it's by my own choosing that "nothing in my life means anything," and that most events pass by with a shrug and some blandishments about relativity. It is totally unnerving to take a real step forward in life, be it losing your virginity or getting married or whatever. It feels simultaneously easy and terrifying...like stepping off the train platform.

At the same time, it has somehow opened up a whole silent glimmering world that I didn't know existed...in which C and I are able to interact by micrometers, rather than as if we were pressed against the exigencies of a relationship of questionable longevity. We are able to make small improvements--the kind of thing you don't have the luxury of doing when you're wondering if you even want to bother spending another day with a person.

So there are intangible aspects to putting your relationship into the context of a lifetime. But getting back to the subject of this post, there are also tangible benefits that manifest themselves seemingly over night. One of these is sex; it's just better now that there's this background of commitment and trust. It seems obvious doesn't it? This is one of the things I'm betting on...that if you put rationality, thoughtfulness, and an honest desire to listen and provide for the other person...you will get something good in return. It's not the most scintillating thing I've ever said about sex, but I think it's a less frustrated, more peaceful one.

Thinking through the writing thing.

2009-09-28T19:02:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I probably stopped writing in general is because I have an immature idea of what the line between my private life and my public life is.

To explain a little: I had at one time a tendency to be secretive and overly private with my innermost thoughts. The thinking went that, essentially, since I had no idea whether my life was going to be a smug success story or a painful soul-crushing source of irony...I should do my best to not let people in on what my plans and life choices were. That way at least I would be the only person to know how my life turned out. In the end though, refusing to answer any sort of personal question with the truth turned out to be a ridiculous and cumbersome way to go about forming relationships: eventually, you just end up dating someone who you resent because they know nothing about you.

This kind of behavior was something I had to unlearn, and I chose to unlearn it by overextending my honesty past the limits of my own comfort. Hence the blog. Now that I share my life with someone, I have to make different decisions about what things I reveal and what things I keep to myself. It's just another situation in life where the "all or nothing" approach isn't really practical. Great.

As a result, I am more likely now, again, to stop myself from writing anything that I think might indirectly reveal to much about my new husband (can't get used to that...need substitute terminology....manstuff? other brain?). I feel like I'm violating the privacy of my significant other to acquaint everyone with faults that belong to me. Whereas before, I was trying to take the stance of "fuck that...I don't care what people think...this is the reality of who I am and we all have to accept it," now I am dragging an unwilling participant into that mire with me. It doesn't seem fair really. But then what will I write about? How will I stretch and pin down and expose my convoluted logical paths so that I can carefully examine and unravel them?

I think that it could be as simple as reframing the discussion in a more positive way---ie, keeping some things private is more of a "thoughtful filtering" rather than "purposeful obfuscation of the truth." To not reveal everything doesn't mean I'm compromising my identity or compounding my own hypocrisy. I think exposing my thoughts/behavior to the general public has been a really helpful exercise for me: for example, I am more okay with not being perfect today than I was five years ago and I am fairly comfortable with people rolling their eyes at me.

In all honesty, the "all honesty" boundary has been tested. It is over there, and we've been on either side of it. Not being comfortable with myself seems like less of a problem now that I've taken decisive action to become comfortable. I'm not there yet, but I've sketched out a rough pathway and am just going to stay on it. In any case I think I've figured out how to write again.

Early stages of math anxiety

2009-09-28T12:54:00.000-07:00

So, I've been wanting to start writing again lately, but as I am not consumed with emotional angst and indecision, I mostly just drift off into shopping for used furniture on craigslist or searching for humorous gif images on reddit. Also, I just began studying for the math portion of the GRE yesterday, so now I will have the opportunity to regularly castigate myself for not spending enough time on studying.

What is enough time to study for the GRE though? I have, for most of July and August, studied the vocabulary section intermittently. I am learning new words, like "coven" which was very helpful for me while reading Interview with the Vampire last week. I feel more comfortable writing incredibly rigid and uninspired prose in essay format than I did in June, but I have to admit there is a 50% chance that I will still choke once I get to the essay section. The joke's on me for cheating my way through middle/high school isn't it? Anyway, the vocab section is totally within my grasp when it comes down to it....it's the math part that I'm really questioning at this point.

I know that I was able to perform basic math for a lengthy period of time during my adolescence. I took calculus...I got a 3 on my AP test. Clearly, math is within my grasp. But where is all that math knowledge? Have I really replaced it with an encyclopedic knowledge of inexpensive yet refreshing microbrews? Or is it just buried somewhere along with other seemingly irrelevant and tiresome information such as "The key component of chlorophyll is magnesium," and "Actually, the new kid you have a crush on is pretty convinced you're a lesbian."

I'd like to think that with a reasonable amount of effort, I can make this happen. However there is the fact that after 20 minutes of attempting math problems on Sunday I completely passed out in a little ball on my bed, totally exhausted and unable to focus on the workbook pages in front of me. There was even that line of ink trailing thinner and more erratically down the page. It was like when I went to see the Little Mermaid when I was a kid, and when I got back all I wanted to do was sing and dance to Little Mermaid songs with my stuffed animals, but my mom made me pick up the toys in the basement. And so I cried and cried and eventually fell asleep on the cement floor in a similar little ball...a toy truck filled with spider eggs having pushed me past the limits of my sanity.

I am older now though, and I want to pass this test for my own reasons...not because I'm being told to do it. Surely that extra modicum of free will can assist me in blocking out what has become a progressively more unproductive and irrelevant inner monologue. After all, what is the point of rolling your eyes and scornfully declaring something to be "a gross oversimplification of the meaning of pernicious?" The conversation between myself and the editors of the GRE is not ever going to transpire, so it's time to just man up and help Edward get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible.

Soft open

2009-09-18T13:41:00.000-07:00

So, I stopped posting on this back in May because I could only obsessively think about a couple of things (1) the wedding (2) how much I dislike my job (3) how I don't know what I want to do for a living (4) the fact that my mom hates me.

I thought it was getting sort of unproductive, ie, writing was no longer helping my synthesize my thoughts, but just lodging them deeper and deeper into the same rut that they had been in since ..... well for a while.

I don't exactly know what I'm going to write about now, but I'm pretty sure I would like to start again, if only b/c serious business has moved out of the city again and I feel like I shouldn't be freeloading off her blog without offering up something for her to read.

The things I'm thinking about really haven't changed though. I am currently thinking about (1) Whether or not what I'm doing is cliched for married people (2) If I would rather quit my job and get a new one or go back to school or both. So that at least is a little different. Should I be reformatting this blog? I'm tired of blog formats honestly. Why does everything have to go down the middle in an impotent column, wasting the vast inches of white space on either side?

In any case, I am going to sneakily background post this, and then see where the next few weeks take me.

New ventures

2009-05-20T13:07:00.000-07:00

Colleague (3:42:50 PM): we're getting the payscale speech right now
Keetens (3:42:56 PM): let me break it down for you: no raises, bitch!
C (3:42:59 PM): yeah
C (3:43:19 PM): so what's the incentive to do anything more than the bare minimum?
K (3:43:27 PM): what has it ever been?
K (3:43:41 PM): though honestly, there is a hiring freeze, so they really can't fire you
C (3:44:19 PM): at least i used to aim for a good rating. but i can get an EE or a DNE and it wouldn't matter
K (3:45:04 PM): i've never been employed during a recession before, but i have to say it is truly demotivational all around
C (3:45:38 PM): true. it's the mentality of we can screw you now because you can't go anywhere, forgetting that things will get better and we will be able to go somewhere.
C (3:45:44 PM): it's a good way to lose your best people
K (3:46:35 PM): so we're starting our own video game magazine then after all?
C (3:46:54 PM): video game/dating advice magazine
C (3:47:03 PM): because [[Pakistani friend who has to marry a Pakistani Muslim]] has no idea what she is doing
K (3:47:06 PM): ha. wait---lets just set up Pdate.com
K (3:47:08 PM): and make a bundle
C (3:47:11 PM): done
C (3:47:19 PM): there has to be something like that
K (3:47:37 PM): http://pakistanilounge.com/
C (3:47:47 PM): http://salaamlove.com/
C (3:48:01 PM): yours is better
C (3:48:04 PM): why isn't she on that
K (3:48:31 PM): she probably thinks online dating is [insert youthful put down here]
K (3:48:50 PM): corny?
C (3:48:57 PM): ha. i dunno. she meets guys on subways and stuff. i'd think her dating standards would be low
C (3:49:26 PM): essentially the guy has to be pakistani and a muslim. other than that i don't think there are any requirements.
C (3:49:46 PM): he could be brain damaged and a pooper scooper and that would be fine
K (3:49:49 PM): haha
K (3:49:53 PM): that DOES fit the requirements
C (3:50:11 PM): i'll send to her and see what she says
C is away at 3:58:26 PM.
C returned at 4:02:17 PM.
C (4:04:46 PM): she said you are sweet for finding that
C (4:04:54 PM): see, she's getting desperate
K (4:05:04 PM): ha
K (4:05:24 PM): the process of getting married has made me forget why anyone would ever make that a priority
K (4:05:34 PM): but for her… "moving out of parents house" ....there’s a priority
C (4:05:46 PM): yeah, that would make me cry everyday

An excerpt from Barrel Fever

2009-05-04T07:12:00.000-07:00

I'm currently listening to Barrel Fever on my iPod. It is one of David Sedaris's earlier books I think...or not. I don't know. Some of it is funny and some of it is not--and makes me think the not-funny elements are what his sisters must think of his humor most of the time.

Background: Gil is a friend of his, that he had acquired as a child largely because they were too weird for anyone to be friends with. He and Gil used to drink together often, but one day Gil decided he was an alcoholic, and obviously David Sedaris thought that was pathetic. Tommy is the super of his building, who knocked on Sedaris's door one day to ask for advice on how to stop drinking, as he had started blacking out. When Sedaris wondered why Tommy was asking him, the super said he had noticed Sedaris's trash and knew he was also an alcoholic. Because Sedaris was miffed at being grouped with the super--in all respects--he told him that as a matter of fact he could help Tommy remember what had occurred during that last blackout. Tommy had actually come begging Sedaris to let him give him a blow job for $100. Sedaris told Tommy he had pitied him and just given him the money and begged him to go away, but that he had had to tug his belt buckle out of Tommy's grasp. All of this was a lie, of course. This, in Sedaris's mind, is what describes a legitimate "bottoming out." What follows is a few of David Sedaris's thoughts on his own blackout alcoholism....

While Gil is worthy of attention his story is not. He hasn't even had any blackouts. I've had a few...more than a few, but they always take place in private and they're nothing to write home about...nothing like Tommy's. The closest I've come to the Tommy zone was three weeks ago, when I received a telephone bill listing quite a few late night calls to England. The curious thing is that I do not personally know anyone in England. I thought they'd made a mistake and considered protesting the charges until a few days later, when leaving through a stack of magazines on the living room floor, I came upon a heavily notated page from the TV Guide.

I saw where I had circled and placed seven stars next to that week's three-part PBS mystery presentation. At the bottom of the page were a series of oddly arranged numbers. These matched the numbers on the telephone bill, leading me to assume that I must have actually dialed international information and phoned Scotland Yard at the end of each program to congratulate them on another job well done.

Still though, there's nothing to get worked up about. Exceptional would be to find yourself on a plane headed to England wearing a tweed cap and demanding the stewardess put you in touch with Chief Inspector Tennyson.

Since receiving my last phone bill, I have taken to fastening the telephone to its cradle, using some of the threaded packing tape stolen from what used to be my job. In the rare event of an incoming daytime call, I can always grab a knife but luckily the task appears to be too strenuous during my ever increasing personal mystery hours. Another problem solved with simplicity and grace.

Try to do

2009-04-28T13:37:00.001-07:00

I really liked this video about a big squirrel and a baby squirrel, who is learning how to climb a wall.

If i could do anything in the world

2009-04-24T13:31:00.001-07:00

It would be raise baby animals and live with them in the wilderness.

They're BEST FRIENDS! COME ON! WHY AM I SITTING IN THIS OFFICE?

Werks

2009-04-24T13:21:00.000-07:00

k: there are so many of these things floating around i have no idea what's what either anymore, don't worry

M: so let's leave early today and go clear our heads

k: yes, leave early....so, when you do that...you just *leave* the office?
k: i am frightened

M: of what?
M: the sheep?

k: oh no there are sheep out there??
k: no wonder i like it in here.

M: did you not ever see the Bunuel film?
M: Luis Buñuel Portolés (22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish-born filmmaker: El ángel exterminador (1962); The final scene is of sheep entering a church, mirroring the entrance of the parishioners.
M: he's very metaphorical. I'm trying to discover if that was the film where people at a party are mysteriously stuck inside, unable to leave, grow increasingly bored, then restless, then frightened

k: ha. it sounds like it. i am going to apply that metaphor to work in general, as a justification for any anxiety i feel in the near future.

M: yes, i find it helpful to dramatize my situation absurdly

How to achieve higher consciousness

2009-04-17T07:50:00.001-07:00

Hmm well then. This guy explains it all pretty well. Except, how are you to function in our society when you stop trying to repress your sense of consciousness? What role can a person who is fully aware of the world around them play in this world?

Perhaps it is only uncomfortable to be conscious because the leaders of this society would rather everyone be sedated. It seems unfair then, to create a society in which repressed consciousness is valued and drugs are illegal.

This is probably one of the best arguments I've heard for being more conscious though, or embracing consciousness: that the society you're in doesn't want you to cause a problem, and so they don't want you to be awake. Which means you should definitely, definitely be awake, because pretty soon you will either be one of the leaders or happily situated outside the whole dog and pony show once and for all.

OMG....Monty is on the tee vee!

2009-04-16T05:00:00.001-07:00

Well, not actually Monty...but that's got to be some kind of Monty method actor...because he's doing it perfectly.

Time machine cheat sheet

2009-04-10T12:02:00.001-07:00

OMG....this is awesome!

2009-04-10T06:07:00.001-07:00

Post some fucking cats!!1

2009-04-02T12:04:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been having some really intense mood swings, which if you're a glass half full kind of person is better than what I *had* been experiencing: one, consistent mood called depression. I have no idea why I'm feeling this way---one day I'm ecstatic, the next day I'm lying on my bed looking at the wall. I thought it might be my birth control, but I think the much more likely candidate is the fact that I haven't had a drink for the past...five days. You see, on Saturday, I was laying on the couch exhausted after having been outside all day, and it suddenly occurred to me that if I keep drinking at the pace I currently am, I will eventually die from it.

This goes along with having just recently resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to Be Alive for much longer than I had originally planned for. Hence, the flurry of job applications and GED questions and what have you. However, "Drink until you feel better" being the plan I had decided to go with, I really am just sitting here now blinking retardedly in the sunlight trying to figure out what to do with my time.

Since I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, I swing back and forth from one extreme to the other. "This is a great idea!" "That idea is just a continuation of the hundreds of stupid ideas you've had before!" It's exhausting, but obviously not exhausting enough because I am still seized with anxiety around 8pm, wondering how I am going to endure my own tedious state of consciousness.

It's really very complicated. I was going to make a table to illustrate my thoughts, but that seems really complicated. *Seems* as in I tried it and I dont' feel like coding the HTML right now. Hey it's summer--I thought we were lightening up here?

Thought: You're getting married!

Happy self Yay! I love boyfriend he is the greatest! We are perfect for each other and I am really excited! I can’t think of anyone else I’d want to spend my life with!

Depressed self Ha! You are so stupid! Funny how you can actually witness yourself making THE decision you will come regret years from now, and yet YOU CONTINUE TO DO NOTHING ABOUT IT.

Thought: You are applying for a new job!

Happy self How exciting! I can’t wait to take on new challenges in an environment that’s different from this one. It will be nice to be intellectually challenged at least.

Depressed self Too bad no one will ever respond to the resumes you send out. The only way you’re getting out of your current job is when they fire you in January, when the economy completely tanks. So look forward to plenty of alone time then.

Thought: You are going back to school!

Happy self This will be interesting—I always said I’d never go back to school. But I feel more mature and able to handle it now. I think I can really get something out of it and move myself up to a level where I’m no one questions my ability to schedule a phone call.

Depressed self One day in academia and you’ll be CRYING for your boring corporate job. You’re going to have to start over completely, and then you’ll end up just as unhappy as you are now! It’s really ironic that you’re even bothering, although it’s kind of funny to watch you flail about helplessly.

Thought: You are trying to quit drinking so much!

Happy self Hey, I haven’t hung out with my sober self in like 10 years….how are you sober self? You seem very nice and friendly…why would anyone try to stifle you with alcohol? I really don’t get much out of drinking anyway….I have already learned how to interact with others.

Depressed self Not drinking so much TODAY, but next week/month/year you’ll be right back where you started from…because without alcohol the minutes tick away in painful succession and the anxiety continues to BUILD, folding in on itself until you feel completely insane and then its back to the same old shit. Hey good luck though...nice effort.

Thought: Cats are great!

Happy self What an excellent point!

Depressed self Grudgingly accepted.

***

Anyway, I have no idea who is right and who is wrong. I have an inkling that whatever I decide to do turns into the right thing....as I always say to boyfriend, you can't really regret the decisions you've made, because they were necessary to get you where you are today. Greeting cards and people on TV keep telling me that life is a journey...so it makes sense that you just pick what you think is best and it will all work out ok eventually. It seems more fun that way anyway.

I'm trying to think of it like, look at the people around me. They've obviously had lives and jobs and are now working where I work. I could easily dick around for another 10 years and come right back here where I started. No hard feelings, nothing to worry about...just a whole bunch of "Hot air ballooning around the world" to regale my younger colleagues with. I guess I'm just not that enthusiastic about "giving it my best shot."

Mr. Rogers Goodbye

2009-04-01T06:13:00.001-07:00

I just love Mr Rogers....I wonder if anyone will ever be as good as him.

About getting sober and becoming boring

2009-03-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

Cary Tennis over at Salon wrote a very beautiful essay response to a question a girl had about a friend of hers, who after sobering up became very boring. I love Cary Tennis, because he is quietly thoughtful and you can sense what a considerate and caring person he is though his writing. Here is a condensed version:

***

About getting sober and becoming boring. I, too, got sober and became boring.

So let's begin with the tyranny of having to appear interesting. No, let's begin in a bar screaming.

Here is a story about how much fun I was when I was drinking.

Sitting at the bar with my friend, I just found myself really getting into this note, this tone. And, being an enthusiastic person who, in his art, in his music, in his writing, had found that there is always a little more in the tank if you push just a bit, having found that repetition of a riff can sometimes push you into new territory, being in many cases therefore the last guy standing, the last guy jamming, the last guy drinking, the last guy in front of the stage applauding, the last guy writing, the last guy eating, the last guy still outside the club waiting for the fun to start, it was my nature to keep screaming.

So there I was sitting at the bar screaming. I had my eyes closed and could feel the little head bones vibrate.

It must have been very loud, now that I think about it. There were other people in the bar. And there was a bartender. Also, I think if I had died then, you would have found cocaine. Cocaine had this way of increasing one's enthusiasm for the moment. So you have cocaine-induced increased enthusiasm for the moment however dumb, plus you have alcohol-induced decreased sensitivity to the disapproval of others and to the dictates of whatever might be left of your own "conscience," and you have a guy sitting at the bar yelling one long, sustained note of dubious beauty and purity.

So I was 86-ed, summarily and firmly, to my immense surprise and chagrin and shame.

I couldn't go in there for quite a while. But then, I could always go to Murio's. And Murio's was where I had my last drinks, almost 20 years ago, and Murio's was where this very same friend who had been with me in my time of screaming told me, after I had been sober a few weeks, "You were so much more fun when you were drinking."

So today I say to all the fellow brilliant drunks out there, those of us who spent our early years entertaining those not quite so brilliant as us, those with not so much leftover life to burn, with not so much surplus to waste in clubs and bars: Get boring!

I, like your friend, was an impressive drunk. I could take it farther than anyone else and then, precociously, I could come back from it in an instant! I could snap out of it. I could snap out of it until one day and then on a succession of days I discovered that not only could I not snap out of it but I couldn't even crawl out of it on my hands and knees. So I became in that moment willing to be the most boring, cardigan-wearing, Mister Rogers, unhip, wide-eyed, home-by-9 and up by 6, teetotaling, pop-culture-ignorant, regular Joe ignoramus on the planet if only I could go through one day without losing my mind and shaming myself and killing myself with this compulsion to drink and take drugs and get thrown out of places.

I will be boring like your friend. I will be boring because I contain infinity. I must contain infinity because if I do not it will destroy me.

So here is what you have to do with people like me who used to be a ton of laughs and then got sober and boring. You have to hang around us and dig us and look for the glimmer. The glimmer is there. It's just reeled in.

We learn to reel it in because when you're on display like she was, you're spending it all for nothing. You're performing for free for a tiny audience. Nobody's giving you grants for your sculpture. You're flinging ideas into the ether to the applause of maybe three. You're famous to your friends but your friends aren't commissioning any works or giving you an advance. So you reel it in.

I crave your attention but I can't do the old strip-tease for free. I have to be the boring one in the crowd of loud laughter or go down screaming to an early grave. I'll live with that. I'm in it for the long haul now. Survival is my trump card. Survival breaks scissors, cuts paper, covers rock. My premature death lacks a certain je ne sais quoi, however amusing it might sound over Jameson and darts.

So this is it from me to you on this day: We get sober and become boring because our brilliance deserves to live. Our brilliance deserves to be cared for. Because however brilliant we are at 22, not many of us are Picassos. Not many of us know what the heck we're doing right off the bat. We take time to condition our gift. We take decades. We take decades to learn not only the business of surviving as artists but the business of our own hearts. We are so often wrong about ourselves in the early years. Especially those of us who are really smart and really talented and perhaps even known as precocious: We take decades to figure out what is our gift, and then to find the perfect gig for our perfect gift is a rare find indeed, and much sought after by others with comparable gifts and perhaps certain strategic advantages we had not reckoned on such as irresistible personal charm and great family wealth and a slaying kind of loveliness. So we play the odds and we struggle. We keep at it, my friend. We trudge along. We get boring and we get therapy and we keep trudging along. We learn about money because if you're a brilliant weirdo in this world you'd better find a patron or build a business and stick close to those who respect your talent. And you'd better give it everything you've got, which sometimes means making it an early evening and getting up at dawn the next day to give it another shot because as good as you are there are thousands of people who could take your place and would if given the chance.

So I applaud your friend. I applaud her first of all because she's survived. I applaud her because she's husbanding her resources. She's caring for herself. She's living to fight another day.

And to you, my precocious, amusing and perplexed lucky friend, I say cherish her. Stick with her. Listen for the glimmer.

Alright

2009-03-18T09:04:00.000-07:00

So, I'm kind of freaking out about my life plan right now. I think more so than usual because I had a complete lapse over the weekend and failed to take care of myself. I am also relatively certain that when I drink excessively, I plummet into the panicky state of depression I was in yesterday. It seems fair to see a correlation there at least.

I guess I just feel like I'm stalled in one place, doing nothing, taking on no new challenges. Most people would be happy that their jobs demanded so little of them, but clearly....I am unhappy with both extremes--working all the time and having no work at all. Which is part of being in this field....it's cyclical.

Then I start thinking "oh if you're unhappy, why is that? maybe it's because everything you thought was good in your life you'll eventually look back on and realize was a gigantic mistake/failure" Which makes me really anxious and makes me feel like i have these brief moments of sanity interspersed with oblivious craziness....and that 90% of my life is me being stupid and not understanding these obvious problems, and then the 10% mental breakdowns are what's REALLY true. But I hate the 10% times....I would almost rather be oblivious and make mistakes than be always right, but always miserable. So then I get more confused and depressed.

Anyway...I am making the executive decision that an MBA is the wrong way to go. The market is saturated with jerkoff MBAs right now, and honestly I can't stomach the idea of paying $90,000 just to be put in contact with people who I will have to lick and follow around like a little dog in a down jacket for the rest of my life. I think that what I should do instead is get an MA in social/org psychology like I wanted....which will cost less and eventually take me to the same place, plus be independently interesting for me. IN ADDITION.....Papagayo was telling me that if I get a job at Columbia like he has, I can go to school for free. So what I need to do is apply for a new job, take on more interesting responsibilities at my current job, talk to my HR department now and see if I can start taking classes independently this summer.

Overall...I am just terrified that I'm not thinking clearly and that everyone around me is smirking at all the hilariously obvious mistakes I'm making. And then I remember what I always tell little brother, which is "yeah, but you know you're paranoid....so you should probably remember that when you start thinking these things."

Chop suey!

2009-03-15T20:38:00.001-07:00

I have been feeling perversely guilty in not having posted lately. I haven't been feeling very in touch with myself. Thinking constantly about what you're supposed to be doing with your life is actually very alienating, as you realize more and more every day that you have no idea what you want to do...it obviously hasn't really factored in much to your decision making thus far. Boyfriend recently posited why this would be for me. He was thinking, something like: "I just want to lead a normal life....I don't want to save the world or cure disease...I just want someone to be nice to me once in awhile." I am open to boyfriend's ideas, and if I'm being open, I'd say that's probably pretty true.

I, a couple weeks ago I got in an unintentional fight with my mom. She called the day before boyfriend and I were supposed to meet her so that she could better understand who this person was who I said I was getting married to. She said she just wanted to let me know the kind of questions she was going to be asking him, including 'how are you going to support my daughter' and 'you are eventually going to resent her for controlling your entire life.' Note the second isn't a question. . . I did, and that's what kind of escalated the call.

When I was a teenager, I would always rush to my journal whenever something particularly bad happened. Because I knew that even though I couldn't deal with it now, one day, I would read it and I would say "How sad that that happened then, and how wrong it was." It's funny, I haven't reread those journals lately, even though I drag them everywhere with me, it's more just knowing I have them and can refer to them. I feel like it's a "what to do" packet, should I ever become crazy and need someone to bring me back down to earth.

That was OK though...It helped me realize a lot of things about my relationship with my mom...courtesy of my therapist and my friends. Honestly, I wish I could continue writing about it, but as I sober up I can't imagine why anyone would be interested in hearing about how I arrived here.

This week has been unsuccessful so far in having any Fridays

2009-03-05T13:14:00.001-08:00

I think I need a vacation, because nothing on the internet is interesting to me anymore. To be fair, however, I really love the scissors they've provided me with at my job.

You should listen to this song in the meantime, because it's great.

Boyfriend told me the other day that girls always say they hate the way their arms look, and that if they just did push ups they wouldn't have to worry anymore. So I was like "Hmm, I guess I'll take that advice," and 3 days of psyching up later I attempted to do 10 pushups. Of course, 1 single pushup is far beyond me, so I had to resort to girl pushups, which are really humiliating and probably the reason girls don't do pushups in the first place. I did them, but now my back hurts SO MUCH it's almost absurd. Have my muscles atrophied so much over the winter?

I have to get on a conference call in 2 minutes, where some powerful people are most likely going to try to intimidate me into doing something laborious and inefficient, so that they can continue to fail to deliver on their end. The challenge for me will be attempting to address the situation in a more diplomatic way. I have only eaten a salad today and the dressing said "LITE" so you can see how it's all up in the air.

Wedding dress, achieved

2009-02-27T20:04:00.000-08:00

So I did a couple things on Friday. I went to work, and I wore a shirt that I hate yet cannot throw away, and I seriously contemplated changing makeup brands. But, I also went to the wedding dress store and bought a dress. I did something else too, but I forget.

I have been thinking a lot about how to take the next step in my life. Should I start a career, and stop self loathing through a glorified desk job? Am I ready to thrust myself into the world like that? Is it that time? It's hard to know the answer to these questions, since I've been in a holding pattern since 2004 when I got my first job out of college. It was like all frantic clinging to the job I had...but now, it seems like I've really gotten all I can out of it. At least...enough.

This is a very common theme for me right now, as I am often plunged into the suffocating hysteria of uncertainty lately. First my whole thing with my mom, the getting married and spending the rest of your life with someone thing, now we've got the what am i going to do for a living thing going on too. It is a lot to attempt to process in one and a half weeks of panicky, obsessive thinking.

Maybe the reason I was successful in picking out a wedding dress today was that, for Chrissakes, I can at least address and solve that problem in my life. I didn't *really* exceed my budget...so I think mission was accomplished.

This bridal store was the first one I ever went to, and I was pleasantly surprised to be honest. I had expected more of like in the little mermaid, when arial passes through the entry to the cave and all the shriveled former mer-people grab her arms and try to keep her from going in...but it's gross and scary and so you don't know they're trying to help?

Kind of like that, but with like veils and stuff they chase you around with. I've found since that it -can- be like that. And it's just as embarrassing as I thought it would be.

I think really the problem is that I can tell that the saleslady wants me to agree with her that X dress is really the best one, really the one which will make me feel special. It's just really hard to conjure up that much enthusiasm, combined with enough diplomatic demurrals. I don't want to disappoint them--after all, their eyes are shining and their little faces are looking up at me.

Anyway, I just went into the store on the spur of the moment. It was pretty easy. I think it looks nice. It has nice details that I like, and it doesn't make me look like I've been traveling through time or that I'm pretending that this will be the first time I'm ever having sex.

Sorry, I am boring and have nothing to talk about

2009-02-20T13:10:00.001-08:00

So here is an awesome cat picture

This pointless exchange made it worth coming to work today

2009-02-09T13:36:00.000-08:00

Copy editor: Here's the file again. There's a question for you, btw.
PS: I am going to suggest to (superboss) that we start a new publication to be called The American Squirrel. In times like these, the thoughts of our nation turn to squirrels.

Editor 1: In fact, I just received word from (academic group) noting the relationship between the crisis and the squirrel effect. See attached.

Copy editor: I have decided to confer upon you the Golden Squirrel award. May you prove worthy of it!

Copy editor: I forgot to tell you that the Golden Squirrel is a token of yr election to the Order of the Golden Squirrel, whose members pledge to succor squirrels in distress and to defend the interests of squirrels everywhere,

Editor 1: When's the OGS inauguration and gala? My kids are getting excited by this, btw. Talking to them about supply chain management at daddy's work isn't nearly as meaningful as assuming the persona of the Rodent Avenger (or more accurately, his sidekick).

Copy editor: I admire your sticking by your squirrely-friendly principles (SFPs) during the downturn. As a veteran of several recessions, I'm finding I want to keep all my options open for putting meat on the table -- so I'd have to decline the oath.

Graphics person: You can count me in, guys. If the recession warrants, I'll learn how to identify morels in the woods but leave the bushy-tailed ones in peace. My husband is very pro-squirrel. We'll launch the premier chapter of MSNN (Morels not Squirrels--the New Normal) and welcome all donations.

Obama

2009-01-28T13:21:00.000-08:00

I keep reading stories like this about Barack Obama and his wife, and everytime I am filled with inner glee. The good part starts at about 6.30 I think....Barack goes over to Beyonce, and his wife says "Hey, did you tell her you know Single Ladies?" Apparently he listens to and learns some of the dance moves from Beyonce's songs to impress his daughters.

Hearts!!!

edit: I realize the embedded video doesn't work in IE, but thats why you should get firefox.

http://www.vibe.com/news/news_headlines/2009/01/barack_greet_celebs/

This weekend my cat died

2009-01-26T10:25:00.000-08:00

Shaun lived down the street from us when we lived in the house on the beach. It was just after my mom and dad had gotten divorced, and we were getting kicked out of the house we rented from the hospital where he had worked. I went to the house and orchestrated a situation in which my dad got semi violent with me, and then took him to court with my mom and took the house away from him. It was all very seedy but necessary. Shaun happened to have been kicked out of his own house down the street because he was no longer a kitten. His bad.

This is pretty much what our backyard looked like, except we stopped cutting our lawn and there was just a cat-sized path from the stairs to the house, which Shaun would use to pay us visits. Shaun was largely okay with being an outside cat, since as a small ground mammal enthusiast, this gave him more time to systematically seek out and destroy their cozy dwellings. There were acres of densely forested land in the area plus a beach full of delicious sea meats for his snacking pleasure. Once it got cold, my mom opened up our cellar and put one of our down comforters by the water heater for him to sleep. When Shaun wasn't planning his next sightless meal he was undoubtedly stroking his white chin with a mitten, trying to figure out a way to stealthily get his wet, sandy, tick-covered orange body onto your lap without you noticing.

Shaun's choice of foods: volicious

I found it impossible to leave Shaun behind when we finally moved away from that house, a year later. He would sit outside the french doors with a single paw pressed against the pane of glass staring at our Christmas tree or something ridiculously symbolic like that. Our gray tabby was really opposed to including him in our cat family, but we took a vote and decided "No one cared." What proceeded were several years of unimpeded gluttony on Shaun's part. My mom has no backbone when it comes to discouraging a cat from ripping open a bag of dry food and rolling around in it.

Hence, in 2003 Shaun came to live with me, where I put him on the infamous "Two paw diet"---an effort to reduce his fat just enough so that his fur suit no longer strained at the buttons. The basic philosophy is that no cat needs to eat more than two paws worth of food at a sitting. This diet was not appreciated by Shaun.

I was going through a bad time in my life then--just graduated from college, no job and no money...living in a studio apartment with my then boyfriend. It was hard...we drank a lot of beer. Shaun laid on his back in the sun, cooling his fat stomach, or stood in the kitchen screaming at us for food.

I don't think that I fully understood my role as caretaker in his universe at this point in my life. I wasn't the best pet owner then...I was too narcissistic and easily annoyed at slight inconveniences. One incident in August sums it up for me:

I remember coming into our apartment one hot and sweaty afternoon, after I had dragged myself home from a temp job as a secretary. My stockings were chafing me and a frustratingly pointless reminder of how humiliating and slavish my future in the office world was bound to be. Upon opening the door, Shaun proceeded to assault me with his piercing screeching. Throwing down my shoes and cursing the hundreds of sharp glass-like litter crystals on our kitchen floor, I became infuriated, marched over to where he sat, indignant, and proceeded to dump an entire cup of water on his fuzzy head.

I felt sort of bad, but determined that he was asking for it.

In the following weeks, he suddenly started losing weight at a fast clip. At first I was pleased...he had been obscenely overweight, and he was able to move around and wash again. Then he started losing fur from his tail. My boyfriend took him to the vet, and we found out he had diabetes.

Finding this out caused me an enormous amount of guilt and sadness. Although the diabetes wasn't my fault, my neglect of Shaun as an emotional creature was...I couldn't deny that I had failed as a caretaker.

This remains a huge sign post in my life, whenever I become angry and frustrated, of what kind of person I DON'T want to be. The guilt and regret I felt, after having lashed out at an animal that was sick, instead of taking the time to listen to it and understand what it was trying to tell me, has made me a much better and more tolerant human being.

So, although I spent this weekend heaving with sobs and clutching his limp body to my chin...I know that I always tried my hardest to be a fair and loving owner for Shaun. I valued his life every day and did my best to make sure that he had the medication and love that he needed, despite its inconveniences to me. I think that made his death--to the extent that it possibly could be--a little easier...knowing that throughout his life I was dedicated to doing everything I could think of to ensure that I was giving him the kind of guardianship that I could respect.

In sum...I never expected Shaun to creep into my heart as deeply as he did...but then I've never met a 15 pound animal who could climb into my lap without me even noticing. I'm just glad I got in some final face pets.

Those are my shoes

2009-01-22T06:29:00.001-08:00

I hate the winter

2009-01-20T11:07:00.000-08:00

So, because I had been working so much over Christmas, and then I got sick, and then that plane landed in the Hudson I decided to take last Friday off and try to have a good time. I decided to go see The Reader, which is a movie with Kate Winslet and some german teenager they found laying on the side of a dirt road. It is of course about the Holocaust, because 95% of the movies and books produced in this world are, and it is about how there is no way that you will ever be able to effectively communicate with another human being in this world, even though you really want to...and then sometimes you will find them repulsive and stop wanting to...but then you'll try to pick it up again and find out that the situation is just never going to be the perfect, idealized interaction that you want it to be.

After that, I was pretty much depressed for the rest of the long weekend. I am still sort of terrified actually. Knowing that my current peace of mind could all be swept away in a moment makes me feel like this peace of mind is just an illusion. I was once again completely uncertain that I want to marry boyfriend, sure that I have never felt connected to another human being in my entire life, and completely unable to cope with the prospect of my life changing or becoming unstable in anyway...yet overwhelmed by the uselessness of my current life.

I talked to my therapist and magically felt better! I don't even remember what she said, or why crying in front of her was so cathartic. Maybe because it is embarrassing, and crying in front of boyfriend is not so much.

In other news, I'm pretty sure I get like this just before my birthday every year. Which is strange to me since I don't particularly hate my birthday. I think I just hate winter...its so isolating, I can't stand it. Maybe this blog should be retitled "Things that I hate" or "Things that I'm blaming my anxiety on today." "Things that I cleaned up by rubbing Monty vigorously across the floor."

cough hack... plop

2009-01-09T14:11:00.001-08:00

I have been sick for the past week after working through the holiday, taking only Christmas off, and staying up late gambling with boyfriend's family the rest of the time. Last night I decided to take half a sleeping pill so that I would be able to fall asleep early and perhaps wake up healed. It went well until about three thirty, when I awoke with one long gasp and sat straight up in bed, and proceeded to cough until I nearly threw up for the next 30 minutes. It was exactly like that scene in Kill Bill where Uma Thurman wakes up out of the coma.

Sorry, the interwebs have no pictures of that.

In any case, it felt like my body was waking up from being dead for the past six hours. That's all I've got right now.

You can't take drugs in the morning on Christmas. You have to think of another solution.

2008-12-25T18:37:00.000-08:00

So.....Christmas. That's always fun. This year I was trying to meet boyfriend halfway by being enthusiastic about spending Christmas with his family...although really, I was trying to be enthusiastic about Christmas occurring in my life at all. If I had never had a Christmas before, I would have surmised from my experience with his family that it is mildly awkward yet a very nice gesture and attempt at vocalizing your emotions for people who you love. However, I have had many Christmases, and mine are always "Horrible summary of horrible year," or "This is how much worse it could be" in terms of takeaway.

I realize that this could be perceived as melodramatic, but I think that your perception of things is based on how sensitive you are to what's actually going on. Of course, "what's actually going on" is a completely subjective experience you're having...but for the purposes of this, lets say that is directly proportional to the amount of intelligence divided by insanity that you bring to your life. I would say, 80/20. So you're 80 percent accurate of your assessment of any situation, and you move ahead with that assumption. Then let's say you're 50 percent more sensitive to any given situation's inner dynamics than person X.

Using this equation, my assessment that Christmases in my family are horrible and painful is at least 65 percent accurate. Based on cross referenced input from other people, I can reasonably assume that my perception of what's going on is probably accurate, from my perspective, at about 80 percent or so. Of course, this is all subjective, but as an individual, I can only offer a fully developed understanding of my own view. I think that's all of our responsibilities...if we could just develop a fully conceived and well articulated view of our own positions, we would be able to communicate fully.

Anyway....my therapist says that I overintellectualize my emotions when I'm feeling threatened or hurt. So, that's obvious.

My brother lost his CDL license falling off the wagon one night 2 weeks ago. My older brother is in rehab. My mother is a perpetual child. In other news, in response to my question today, "Is older brother less crazy now that he's been in rehab for 3 months?"...little brother said, "Listen K...you have to think of addiction like a knot. The knot takes more than three months to untie. Right now, older brother has loosened the knot slightly, but everything is still tangled and unexplainable inside him...he has to spend more time thinking and talking with people about what he's feeling, or else he will remain crazy and detached from the rest of us. If he was to quit now, there would still be 9 months worth of knot to untie...how can you function in the world like that? You can't. And that's why people get addicted again. He has to stay there until the whole thing is untied, and he can look at it and use all those emotions again. They're no good now all tied up."

Little brother is 50 percent more insightful and more intelligent than I am, but he is also 50 percent less socially functional. Genetics are funny that way.

Last Saturday I made Swedish Meatballs

2008-12-23T07:21:00.000-08:00

Here is a brief photo haiku of the cats' experience:

Hot wings, baby....do you have any?

2008-12-05T13:06:00.000-08:00

Songs that I'm listening to today:

Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love

Britney Spears - Amnesia

Ashlee Simpson - Outta my head

Lady Gaga - Poker face

TI - Whatever you like

Katy Perry - You're so gay

Britney Spears - Shattered Glass

This is in sharp contrast to what I listened to every other day this week:

Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass

I hate titling things, working on a new header

2008-12-05T10:50:00.000-08:00

Sporty is helping make me a new header, because his employers have done something very very wrong and he is paying them back by photoshopping kittens into pill bottles. Justice is served!!!

me: btw, i'm sorry i hurt your feelings by not spending thanksgiving wtih you and your family. i didn't know it meant that to you.
Boyfriend: thanks
it means something different to me than you
but that's because of our past
and we've got to come to some compromise of what our future is going to be
me: whar mean?
Boyfriend: we're each going to have to tone down our assumptions about what the holidays will be like
me: so i have to tone down the idea that i will hate it?
Boyfriend: and i have to tone down the assumption that its' great and you'll love it
me: ha
that's our relationship right there.

Super fun town

2008-12-02T18:41:00.000-08:00

Lately I have been working 12 hours a day so I haven't been able to construct sentences that don't relate to "adding value." I am also very surly around the holidays so I haven't felt like doing much of anything really. Which actually leads into my next point. The other day, I discovered that I had been very slightly wronged by someone. It didn't bother me at the time, particularly, but as the days have gone by the feeling has grown exponentially. I think about it in the back of my mind, and my thoughts are always slowly unraveling this feeling I'm having...which of course is nourished by this kind of special attention.

At this point, I realize that I am over stressed and not in my right mind. But the fact is, I spend a significant portion of my time--when I am hurt by someone--thinking of how I could perfectly rectify the situation. In a sort of eye for an eye style. And this particular person, I have come to realize that I have been wanting to hurt for some time now. I mean, I must have wanted to. Because the many ways of causing this person to suffer come to my mind so fast and easy that they must have been on the fringes the whole time. And I am uncomfortable saying, they fill me with complete delight.

Not complete, I suppose. Because I do have some reservations and think that I'm acting sort of weird. Obviously, or else I wouldn't have to discuss it right now. I think I really enjoy fixating on a moment where someone has done something that is factually, irrefutably wrong...and where I get to hurt them without retribution. Because it's the right thing to do. There are lots of times when I hurt others...but I am mostly doing that out of fear or some other self protective reaction. The times like this, it feels pure, like I can finally release all these resentments that have been building up and that I have been silencing for so long.

I spend so much time thinking about the ways in which I should optimally deal with all the situations around me. This is just a particularly satisfying way to spend that time. It also represents a major change...like coming out of the shadows almost. All these things you've been thinking, but gritting your teeth and smiling through. My father always kept a mental list of all the things you did that hurt him, and when he eventually cut off all contact from you, it was practically like he brought out the list and showed you that the proof was all there and that logically, he was in the right.

I realize this is similar, although I am not him and don't experience things exactly the same way. You can draw parallels between almost anything. For instance, my mom lets all the tiny wrongs go until one day she feels justified in exploding with vitriolic, desperate accusations like shrapnel. But actually, even as I write that I know that I have no respect for that kind of loss of control. Although I do understand what a relief it must be.

And perhaps that's what this is. A relief from so many years of holding back. But what will shortly transpire as a result of my mounting, twisted revenge fantasies? Who knows? It's not even like I care about the original issue. It's just a good opportunity. Maybe I will work through these emotions and they will never see the light of day. Or, maybe I will unleash all of my latent bitterness and anger on a person who doesn't really deserve it.

The last time I acted this way I was practically intoxicated by the hilarious cruelty of it all. But shortly thereafter, my conscience kicked in and made me feel like a bad person. Really, this must all lead into my therapist's claim that I have the intelligence to deal with life but not the emotional maturity.

The Marmoset Song

2008-11-24T10:21:00.001-08:00

Nothing going on

2008-11-18T11:18:00.000-08:00

Copyeditor: reading the editor in chief's email again i'm inclined to stop work on this article if there's something useful for me to do this pm.
Copyeditor: something else.
Keetens: my lotus notes is frozen, so i can't reread. but if you were to stop work on it, there is nothing important ready. you would have to work on something easy/short.
Keetens: which is fine.
Copyeditor: yr notes is frozen? let us pause for a moment of silent hatred for this program.
Keetens: gratefully observed.

"What is it about the ocean that makes people vote better?"

2008-11-05T13:31:00.000-08:00

So, on the days leading up to this "HISTORIC" (you're ruining the moment with your story-mongering, Media!) election, all I felt was vacillating waves of panic and fear. The confirmation that I live in a country full of selfish, malicious empty-vessels was horrifying to me. I want to believe in democracy. Otherwise...it's sterilization and dictatorship for all of you people.

It turned out that while the election was taking place I had the good luck to be amongst some of the most thoughtful, intelligent...passionate and comforting people that I know. Thankfully I listen when Sporty talks. Otherwise, I would have witnessed the election curled up on my couch, fending off the land manatees and guzzling whiskey alone...compulsively eating slice after slice of hard salami. Instead, I was with people who I would happily have taken with me to go smash some tail lights with---had the occasion called for it.

Last night I couldn't believe it, and today I can't even read the commentary. Everytime I load an article up on my computer, I have only got to read a sentence of his speech and then I'm fighting back tears. How can a person be so inspiring, and so full of integrity? As our web coder said to me today, this period is like the beginning of a relationship, and it is our gift for the next two months to enjoy it. No sense picking the man apart just yet. Not until he forgets to pick up kitty litter for the third time this month.

The title of this blog comes from something my favorite Falmouthian said to me as we were lamenting the victory of Prop 8---the singularly most bigoted and ignorant piece of legislature to pass in my time. I think. Supposedly they'll overturn it on some minute detail...but it still begs the question (as does fact that McCain got any votes at all)...who are these 54% of people who think that they get to tell other people that they can't have rights?

"Once we saw him juggling the hermit crabs in his tank"

2008-10-31T10:41:00.000-07:00

The octopus is officially my favorite animal:

Otto at the Sea Star Aquarium in Coburg, Germany
The culprit of the smashed glass and broken lamp is two foot seven inch Otto.

Staff believe that the octopus called Otto had been annoyed by the bright light shining into his aquarium and had discovered he could extinguish it by climbing onto the rim of his tank and squirting a jet of water in its direction.

The short-circuit had baffled electricians as well as staff at the Sea Star Aquarium in Coburg, Germany, who decided to take shifts sleeping on the floor to find out what caused the mysterious blackouts.

A spokesman said: "It was a serious matter because it shorted the electricity supply to the whole aquarium that threatened the lives of the other animals when water pumps ceased to work.

"It was on the third night that we found out that the octopus Otto was responsible for the chaos.

"We knew that he was bored as the aquarium is closed for winter, and at two feet, seven inches Otto had discovered he was big enough to swing onto the edge of his tank and shoot out a the 2000 Watt spot light above him with a carefully directed jet of water."

Director Elfriede Kummer who witnessed the act said: "We've put the light a bit higher now so he shouldn't be able to reach it. But Otto is constantly craving for attention and always comes up with new stunts so we have realised we will have to keep more careful eye on him - and also perhaps give him a few more toys to play with.

"Once we saw him juggling the hermit crabs in his tank, another time he threw stones against the glass damaging it. And from time to time he completely re-arranges his tank to make it suit his own taste better - much to the distress of his fellow tank inhabitants."

Halloween

2008-10-30T12:21:00.000-07:00

Today when I was in the Duane Reade buying Lee press-on AirBrush nails for my Niecy Nash costume, the girl at the register saw my Obama pin and was like "Yo, this shit is crazy. I mean...everybody voting for him. Like, no offense, but even white people be voting for him." I was like "Word. It's crazy."

In other news, I am from Long Island and I secretly love both airbrushing AND press-on nails!!! I only wish I had known they offer Louis Vuitton. Here's something I've always wondered: How do porn stars put their hands in their vaginas when they've got those huge talons strapped on to each finger? I am about to find out.

Best Obama comment so far

2008-10-24T06:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday night I was in the liquor store buying my weekly allotment of vodka. Liquor stores in my neighborhood are very much about business. None of us are there because we like to enjoy a bottle of wine with dinner. To be honest, most people are there for the lottery tickets.

I was standing in line behind a large black guy in his late twenties, probably, and another black guy, middle-aged, kind of shifty, half-toothless, half singing and dancing while he waits. The first guy gets his $6 pint of cheap cognac, and is headed through the store and out the door when he pauses and turns around, and says "You voting for Obama girl?" (I have an Obama pin on my jacket).

Before I can answer, the middle-aged guy turns around in front of me, slaps the plexiglass counter with his open wallet, and says "Sheeeeeet man, of course she votin' for Obama! I can tell this girl like the black men!"

wedding

2008-10-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

This weekend, boyfriend and I went to Dallas for the wedding of two friends of mine. In case you were wondering, this is what Dallas looks like.

I was at first afraid that we would be surrounded by loud women in sweatshirts with big hair, but it turned out only the wedding coordinators were like that. Everyone else was very nice and normal---in the bride and groom's families. The guests...lets say they provided the entertainment.

The rehearsal dinner was only slightly marred by one guest who made short work of 12 glasses of wine--all while leaning on the bar, chatting with the bartender. Isn't it the bartender's responsibility to put the kibosh on stuff like that? However, later on in the evening, it looked like the bartender might have been matching him drink for drink. In any case, the drunken guest closed the evening at 930, directing a couple of f-word laced diatribes at the bride's father and uncle, before he was summarily removed to vomit on the patio table and relieve himself in a nearby bush. He was put to bed by a person who I trust completely in these matters.

This incident in no way prevented the remainder of the groom's friends from getting blackout drunk over the course of the rest of the evening. I am no stranger to alcohol, but the desperate, attention-seeking behavior of the entire party was almost surreal. Despite the fact that one individual ended up passed out in an alley, sans phone and wallet later that evening...the debauchery didn't cease until the best man had broken both his elbow and his jaw in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

The hardest part for me though was being a bridesmaid. When first asked by my friend, I was excited...but as time wore on, I realize I'm completely illsuited for it. I don't care whether her hair is straight or her cousin's ex wife is invited. Being surrounded by a full compliment of girls who felt otherwise was incredibly painful to say the least. I had no idea that part of being dressed in almost the same outfit with a bunch of girls who are all competing to be The Prettiest Ever Today would result in an undercurrent of tension and hysteria. The one thousand OMG YOU LOOK SO BEAUTIFULs I heard throughout the course of the afternoon were made all the more insincere and insufferable by the subtly snarky and insulting commentary whispered or eye rolled while backs were turned. Luckily, there was champagne.

In fact it was 2 champagnes in that I finally understood why my friend had asked me to be a bridesmaid...or what function I could serve for her...and that was making sarcastic comments to balance out the hyper insanity of the other girls. At one point, they actually had to be stopped from following her into the bathroom and helping her hold up her sash while she peed. Her rightfully sane response: "I've been doing this for 28 years...I. have. got. it."

I don't know why that kind of shit irritates me so much...I guess I just don't like controlling behavior and I feel like these girls were trying to be my mom. Some people are perfectly willing to let someone else take over, but for me it's like...don't touch my hair...no you cant' do my makeup...please stop talking to me about what your wedding was like. I'm not going to tell you you don't look fat again...so stop staring at me like I'm a chicken sandwich.

In any case, it was at least nice to sit back and have other people entertain you. And staying at a hotel away from my computer was exactly what I needed to be doing last weekend. Boyfriend and exboyfriend got along really well, so I think all three of us were happy about that. It helped that we were three sane people momentarily united in a sea of the slightly to severely insane.

Sick and depressed

2008-10-10T11:40:00.000-07:00

i am very sick today and operating at very low levels. perhaps this is why for the first time i seriously considered that getting married to boyfriend is a stupid decision that i will eventually regret.

i think this thought stems from three causes. one, the above-mentioned sickness. two, my therapist doesn't think that it is going to work out. and three, i internally, as a result of low self esteem, do not feel loved and cannot process the idea that someone else loves me.

the last one is the only one i can really deal with on my own. or the one i have a responsibility to work through on my own. the problem, essentially, is that love for me is very intense and for awhile it just flows out and i'm happy to feel it. then, months down the line, it starts to feel like i'm the only one who feels like that anymore. so i pull back from the relationship...even though those feelings are still coming to me from the other person. gradually, my inability to feel love from others makes me bitter and jealous, and i completely vacate the relationship...emotionally speaking...and just observe the person angrily from the sidelines of my fake, sarcastic attempts at intimacy.

after i come to grips with the situation, i will carry on with my life as if the other person isn't there. i don't want to do this in my current relationship, but i can already feel the pressure. i don't feel listened to or understood...and this is how it goes by the end of every work week. Maybe it just has to do with crappy communication during the day? maybe it has to do with crappy communication in general.

I hate being constantly open to being wounded, and i hate that everything people do unintentionally wounds me so often. I know that if I am going to become healthy, i have to deal with this. But I feel like I'm dealing with this alone. Sometimes I feel like boyfriend is completely bewildered in the face of my fears and insecurities...why is that always the case? Like "pat pat....nervous smiling....proffering of gifts." yeah thanks for nothing. Why does everyone always make me feel like my emotions are crazy and that I shouldn't be having them?

My therapist says I need to stop expanding personal problems I have with some people to "everyone." I am not even sure these problems really exist, or if they are all in my head. But I see her point.

allergy season...hello!

2008-10-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

i wish i could think of something to write about but i spend all of my time feeling like i'm goign to sneeze, reading about the financial crisis and researching john mccain's political career...none of which i particularly feel like elucidating.

i recently made the self discovery that i have to make a decision to do something with my life. here are the things that are true:

1. i am very competitive, and i have to have a job that people in some capacity respect. i went to my particular college so people couldn't say i was stupid ever again. i like my job to function in the same way.

2. i think corporate executives are a bunch of self interested egomaniacs obsessed with money and power to the point where they are completely bereft of any character except for bombastic posturing.

3. i have to make a reasonable amount of money, since my family and my boyfriend are not so hot in that department. not that i would take their money anyway, since that would erode my sense of self worth.

4. i have to find what i'm doing meaningful in some way, or else i become whiny and self-sabotaging.

my therapist thinks that its time for me to commit to something...and she's not talking plants or baton twirling or anything. apparently it is time that i took a risk and started a career that is challenging and rewarding.

i am not naturally inclined to think anything that is challenging would be rewarding...but lets just say i agree with her. it looks like my only options include higher education.

and not "law school" or "business school" either. i'm talking academia. the land of small petty victories and accepted social inadequacy.

not that i know what i'll do once i'm there. i have toyed with the idea of practicing psychology...but the other day, i was listening to some girl complain about how she hadn't realized that being a lawyer was going to take up so much of her free time...and i couldn't help but think, "if you were a psychologist, you would have to listen to stupid people's stupid problems all day and all night." also, i hate doing those pointless farces they call case studies.

but that is my exact attitude about everything. so maybe its time to make a decision after all.

new design

2008-10-07T15:12:00.000-07:00

so i had some time to kill today and decided to reconfigure this site. honestly, blogger's html templates are stifling. left side widget columns make me feel all dizzy. however, my desire to reformat my blog does not extend into complicated html rework right now...so i have merely tinkered with someone's design.

i sent my mom flowers today because it is her birthday on monday. i am familiar enough with lifetime dramas to know that we will probably be speaking again at some point in my life. so to not send her something on her birthday would be to give her something that she could complain about for the next 40 years of her life. although honestly, wouldn't that be the greatest gift of all?

neurosis

2008-09-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

I have this problem where if I'm not around my significant other, I immediately start thinking about all the ways in which they don't love me...and how these little slights I felt over the previous evening are indicative of such larger things that I will in time come to understand and curse myself for not nipping in the bud.

I realize that all of this is due to my narcissistic personality and relationship perfectionism, but I can't let it go somehow, because I can't stand being caught off guard. No one even does anything to me ever. I just assume that not being completely enthusiastic about every single thing that I do makes me feel horribly insecure.

Here is pretty much how it goes.
Situation: Let's say I have sex every single day.

What I ask myself is, "Why aren't we having sex 3 or 4 times a day? Shouldn't we be having sex every minute? If we aren't it's because he doesn't really want to have sex the one time and is forcing himself to out of pity. Why is he suddenly unattracted to me? Am I ugly? Should I have a different body? Is he bored of my clothes? Do I do unattractive things around the house? Is this relationship dying? Am I failing to communicate all this and it's actually my fault? I'm sick of everything being my fault. Maybe I'm over reacting. I'm depressed."

That paragraph is pretty much how I deal with everything internally. This is why I can't smoke pot, because doing that just exacerbates the insane neurotic loops in my head.

I think I'm desperately searching for someone to tell me that my thoughts are reasonable and that I'm allowed to have them. Maybe that's where the "missing good parents" comes into play. I don't want to be crazy, but I'm not sure when I'm being crazy and when I've got a legitimate concern. Part of the problem is that I am overly sensitive and melodramatic. And I feel like the last thing people want to deal with is other people's whiny neurotic problems.

nicholas kristof on geese

2008-09-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

nicholas kristof is a beautifully sane human being whose writing i have admired for some time. lately, he has been gradually working his way into my Top 5 list of people i get to have sex with even while i'm in a committed relationship. can we talk about how weird it is to be transitioning between adolescence and adulthood?

Our cattle, sheep, chickens and goats certainly had individual personalities, but not such interesting ones that it bothered me that they might end up in a stew. Pigs were more troubling because of their unforgettable characters and obvious intelligence. To this day, when tucking into a pork chop, I always feel as if it is my intellectual equal.

Then there were the geese, the most admirable creatures I’ve ever met. We raised Chinese white geese, a common breed, and they have distinctive personalities. They mate for life and adhere to family values that would shame most of those who dine on them.

While one of our geese was sitting on her eggs, her gander would go out foraging for food — and if he found some delicacy, he would rush back to give it to his mate. Sometimes I would offer males a dish of corn to fatten them up — but it was impossible, for they would take it all home to their true loves.

Once a month or so, we would slaughter the geese. When I was 10 years old, my job was to lock the geese in the barn and then rush and grab one. Then I would take it out and hold it by its wings on the chopping block while my Dad or someone else swung the ax.

The 150 geese knew that something dreadful was happening and would cower in a far corner of the barn, and run away in terror as I approached. Then I would grab one and carry it away as it screeched and struggled in my arms.

Very often, one goose would bravely step away from the panicked flock and walk tremulously toward me. It would be the mate of the one I had caught, male or female, and it would step right up to me, protesting pitifully. It would be frightened out of its wits, but still determined to stand with and comfort its lover.

election stuff

2008-09-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

California (1:34:45 PM): so, on these edits back from [interviewee]

Keetens (1:35:11 PM): i don't really see how we can not accept them wholesale if we want to get this out today

California (1:35:36 PM): looking thru them
California (1:35:57 PM): i like that he changed "still a long way to go"
California (1:35:58 PM): to
California (1:36:07 PM): "still a good distance to go"
California (1:36:08 PM): lol

Keetens (1:36:50 PM): i actually liked the tone of his interview before all these puffed up edits
Keetens (1:36:58 PM): for once, i wasn't reading some fluffy piece of crap

California (1:38:29 PM): they often start out this way, with a little life
California (1:38:36 PM): then the comms folks get involved
California (1:38:45 PM): and turn everything into pastry
California (1:39:33 PM): (I see a few days have gone by, and the free-marketers are regaining their composure)

Keetens (1:40:06 PM): i love how this is affecting the election

California (1:40:47 PM): thank god
California (1:41:03 PM): i'm sure the administration was PRAYING this meltdown would occur on Obama's watch
California (1:41:30 PM): like, 80 years later, people still blame Hoover for the Crash of 1929
California (1:41:47 PM): even tho Hoover was pretty smart, and the seeds were all sown by Coolidge in the years before

Keetens (1:42:43 PM): they always are!
Keetens (1:43:07 PM): i saw this great chris matthews clip this morning, where he berates the republican party for always lauding truman, but refusing to take on any responsibility

California (1:43:42 PM): i've been laughing at that for years...
California (1:43:55 PM): they position themselves as the Party of Ownership & Responsibility
California (1:44:03 PM): and yet they won't own up to any mistakes,
California (1:44:08 PM): and don't pay for their excesses,
California (1:44:12 PM): their wars and tax cuts
California (1:44:42 PM): (microcosm in my own family: conservative sis & bro take loads of cash from my retired folks, while liberals [wife] and me never need a dime)

Keetens (1:46:08 PM): i just think its GENIUS that they pinned the religious moralism to being a republican, thereby hopelessly conflating the fact that the only people who benefit are people who make over 250,000 AND guaranteeing that those people can feel upstanding and morally untouchable for exploiting the weaker members of our society.

California (1:46:49 PM): Alain de Botton writes about that in "Status Anxiety" ...
California (1:47:07 PM): the change in past 30+ years from equating poverty with moral high standing,
California (1:47:16 PM): to wealth with moral superiority
California (1:47:36 PM): it used to be the consolation of the middle class that at least they were probably more respectable than the rich
California (1:48:01 PM): but the sell of the past few decades is that if you're not "thriving" there's something maybe wrong with yuo

Keetens (1:49:28 PM): its just so amazing that i feel like all this stuff is completely obvious, but you feel like no one else can see the inside of the machine

California (1:50:05 PM): the world looks totally different, depending on where you get your news
California (1:50:20 PM): limit yourself to Fox TV and AM talk radio
California (1:50:31 PM): and the world looks mighty different

Keetens (1:50:40 PM): if you lack basic critical thinking skills
Keetens (1:51:07 PM): REWRITE: if you need the security of closed thought systems and if you place a high value on authority

California (1:52:56 PM): even the tone of AM radio confirms that authority thing...
California (1:53:23 PM): who the fuck wants to be yelled at?

Keetens (1:54:10 PM): you should watch this TED presentation when you get a chance. the graphs are the really interesting part. this psychologist tries to get at the differing values underpinning conservatives and liberals.

wedding stuff

2008-09-18T09:16:00.000-07:00

so i'm trying to get through this wedding planning as cheaply and comfortably as possible, but man it is really difficult. i kind of just want to make these decisions with boyfriend, since we have an understanding of the other's expectations and don't take any of these things personally.

its really not like that with other people. i feel like i'm constantly being berated by girls all around me whose mouths drop open in horror when they hear i'm not picking a theme, i don't care about wedding cake, i think the garter ceremony is creepy and awkward. a girl i know sent me 19 pictures of rose bouquets the other day and asked me to pick which style i like best. they are all the same!

the hardest part though is that boyfriend's mom wants to plan every detail with me, which is kind of getting on my nerves. we aren't getting married for a year and she's all "what kind of centerpieces do you want?" "i have an idea." i'm like "yeah but your idea is going to be super complicated and expensive, and then you're going to try to convince me that its worth it and it will make it look so nice and then i am going to end up footing the bill for some insane tropical monstrosity with like an ice sculpture in it."

you know what i mean? i hate spending money in general, unless its on alcohol or sabra hummus , and i sure as hell don't want to drop 4K on some insane pink topiary with cascading ribbons. all this wedding shit is so fucking overdone and ridiculous anyway. i'm going to punch myself in the face if someone tries to force me to read one more useless article debating pillar candles vs tea lights or flower petals vs arrangements. i'm filled with bile and at least half of it is due to the fact that every article closes with a guarantee that i'm going to have "the most perfect wedding ever!!!" i think the wedding industry bought the rights to the exclamation point because i have frankly never seen it used to describe so many completely boring things. "Tips on guest lists!" "Understanding passed appetizers versus cocktail hour!" "What do your wedding colors say about you?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

it's like this is some kind of sick test.

Golden retriever Puppy falliing asleep

2008-09-15T12:38:00.001-07:00

Ehhhhh

2008-09-09T12:59:00.001-07:00

So, I hate sarah palin. I think she is an insult to the female gender. I think having the first representative of women in the executive branch be a simpering, dogmatic, cocktail and cookies wielding bimbo just underlies the extent to which men are uncomfortable with women as individuals, and not objects. I refuse to be represented by someone who I think may be tarnishing the position even more than George Bush Jr did. And thats saying a lot.

Salon has this college-essay article on her, which I found to be reductive in the comparisons it was trying to make. However, one point did hit on something I find very offensive about the republican party in general:

Palin has a right to her religious beliefs, as do fundamentalist Muslims who agree with her on so many issues of social policy. None of them has a right, however, to impose their beliefs on others by capturing and deploying the executive power of the state. The most noxious belief that Palin shares with Muslim fundamentalists is her conviction that faith is not a private affair of individuals but rather a moral imperative that believers should import into statecraft wherever they have the opportunity to do so. That is the point of her pledge to shape the judiciary. Such a theocratic impulse is incompatible with the Founding Fathers' commitment to tolerance and democracy, which is why they forbade the government to "establish" or officially support any particular religion or denomination.

The washington post is doing a full scale look into her background, at the same time. Now, that's pretty interesting.

Bear bot

2008-09-08T13:12:00.000-07:00

I dont' feel like elaborating on my last post, because I'm expunging it from my memory bank. As I always say to myself, if I want delusional maniacs to make me feel bad about myself, I can just pick up the phone and call someone in my immediate family. I feel like people outside of my family who try it, have no idea what competition they're up against.

Anyway, I have been illegally downloading songs via an HTML program I wrote. You know how you can sometimes play a Quicktime file but not save the target? This gets around that problem. I have substituted asterisks whenever you shoudl really use a < or > because blogger doesn't like those. The file is easy:

Open a file with notebook.

Type in:
*html*
*body*
WHATEVER YOU WANT TO NAME THE FILE
*p*
*a href="LINK LOCATION">NAME OF FILE*/a*
*br*
*a href="LINK LOCATION"*/a*
*/body*
*/html*

Now save the file as whatever you want to call it, .html

Now when you execute the file, it will open in your browser, and you can save link as an mp3 file.

Here is one I like in particular....by Goldfrapp, but not sounding like Goldfrapp.

Serious drama

2008-09-05T12:37:00.001-07:00

So boyfriend is friends with this marine, who was until last week dating boyfriend's sister. As a result of the breakup, he has thrown himself into a completely 100% seriously frightening ptsd state. It is scary.

Here is a quick summary: he bought a gun, he calls 10 times in the middle of the night to see if we have a battery, and then now, he apparently realizes that boyfriend isn't going to be there for him to "go out with." so he got into a huge fight with me and accused me of being addicted to pills...which is totally delusional. obviously, i am the last person to lie about that. finally, he said if boyfriend didn't come through on some deal they made, he would send incriminating pictures of him to his family.

Crazy right? I would post the emails, but they are too scary and too much of boyfriend's business to really be fair. Regardless...there's little problems, and then there are I am going to call the police problems.

This calls for kittens mewing.

:(

2008-08-28T07:07:00.001-07:00

Pepper Onion Spinach Feta Quiche

2008-08-28T06:01:00.000-07:00

I made this quiche yesterday, modified from this recipe at epicurious. This is of course not a real picture of it...since I'm not on the ball like Muffin or CultWifeNumeroUno. But oddly enough, I also decorated mine with some sea grass I had lying around.

I am not into vegetable shortening because I ate some that was spoiled not long ago and I can't seem to get back on the horse. Anyway, it was beautiful when it came out of the oven and really required minimal effort on my part. I have thought of substituting silken tofu for the milk etc, but that really freaks people out. Nothing like substituting tofu to really clear a room.

Pepper Onion Spinach Feta Quiche

1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup white flour
4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
1 1/2 tablespoons ice water
1/3 cup sliced red bell pepper
2 cloves garlic
1 small onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups packed fresh spinach leaves
2 large eggs
1/3 cup heavy cream or milk
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese

Preparation
Preheat oven to 425°F.

In a bowl with a pastry blender or in a small food processor blend together flour, butter, shortening, and a pinch salt until mixture resembles meal. Add water and toss until incorporated, adding additional water if necessary to form a dough. Pat dough onto bottom and one half inch up sides of a 7 1/2-inch tart pan with removable fluted rim or a 9-inch pie plate and bake shell in bottom third of oven until set and pale golden, about 7 minutes.

While shell is baking, in a large skillet sauté onion, garlic, and bell pepper in oil over moderately high heat, stirring, 1 minute. Add spinach and sauté, stirring, until wilted and tender, about 1 minute. Remove skillet from heat and season spinach mixture with salt and pepper. In a small bowl whisk together eggs and cream.

Sprinkle feta over bottom of shell and arrange spinach mixture on top. Pour cream mixture over spinach and bake quiche on a baking sheet in middle of oven 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350°F. and bake until set, about 10 minutes.

Wednesday depression

2008-08-27T12:56:00.000-07:00

I met this girl/woman person I work with on the street today, and of course she was friendly and charming as ever...along with her extra something called "self assurance that I'm ridiculously thin and rich and beautiful." As I was chatting with her about various work I heard might be dropped on her in the near future, all I could think is, "But why does this person even care what I'm saying? She is so beautiful and I am just an awkward, pale, overgrown child. She just got back from a 3 week trip to India...the second this year. She owns her own apartment in Park Slope." I mean...what are you supposed to do with that? And seriously, why am I stuck in this weird place where my face looks both like that of a child and a 40 year old woman? Neither is helping me. Sometimes its hard to keep trying, when you know all you end up with is results like this.

Crab vs cat

2008-08-25T10:29:00.000-07:00

I am not feeling particularly share-y lately. However, I do have an excellent photo montage of Monty battling a Maryland blue crab that I put on the floor of our kitchen. He spent most of his time sticking his face DIRECTLY in the middle of the crab's claws or taking little bites of the crab's butt. He eventually discovered that by licking the crab's eyeball, he could taste a little of the crabby goodness.

Surprisingly, the only one who sustained any injuries was boyfriend...who was ruthlessly pinched when making the initial Crab Grab. The pictures aren't the best I've ever taken, but I mean...it was the heat of battle.

How to make your own ninja mask

2008-08-21T06:53:00.000-07:00

That's it. China is out.

2008-08-20T11:01:00.003-07:00

I am officially sanctioning my unbridled hatred of China as of 1400 hours today.

I am completely speechless after reading a report by Swiss Animal Protection. The cruelty is unbelievable...I nearly threw up in my chair. To think that a human being would be so sadistic as to skin something while it's still living...and we're okay with it as long as we're saving a couple dollars.

Once pulled out from its cage, the raccoon dog curls up into a ball in mid-air. A few middle-aged women carrying wooden clubs gather round. A woman in the headscarf swings the animal upwards. It forms an arc in the air and is then slammed heavily to the ground, throwing up a cloud of dust. The raccoon dog tries to stand up, its paws scrabbling in the grit. The wooden club in the woman’s hand swings down onto its forehead. The woman picks up the animal and walks towards the other side of road, throwing it onto a pile of other raccoon dogs. A stream of blood trickles from its muzzle, but its eyes are open and it continues to repeatedly blink, move its paws, raise its head and collapse to the ground. Beside it lies another raccoon dog. Its four limbs have been hacked off but still it continues to yelp. Ten or more minutes later Qin Lao approaches the raccoon dog with a knife. His job is to skin the animals.

The raccoon dog is suspended upside down from a hook on the overhead bar of a motor-tricycle and the area around the hind legs and anus is scored with the knife. There is a ripping sound as the skin is torn completely from the hind legs and the
animal struggles to turn away, crying out. The skin is ripped up to the abdomen.

Qin Lao’s body is bent with effort like a bow at full stretch, but the fur remains stubbornly attached to the flesh. A middleaged woman jogs over to help, and their backs arched with the strain. The whole fur is finally ripped from the raccoon dog’s body. The animal is thrown onto the back of the truck, steam rising from its blood-red body. It tries to stand up again, lifting its head and glancing down at its own body. Without blinking it tries once more to turn its head and then falls still.

There are videos, but I couldn't get through them.
http://www.animal-protection.net/

repeat

2008-08-01T10:13:00.001-07:00

Ugh, my older brother just called me and forced me to talk to him for like 45 minutes. He was all "I love you and I'm here for you" And I was essentially like "Why are you pretending we have a relationship when we both know that thats a complete lie?" I just fundamentally hate my older brother....how can he not be aware of that? He thinks that I'm delusional and that I was the one who hurt him....but that's just to justify his own behavior. I said some pretty fucked up things to him on the phone...but I didn't say them to be mean, I just said them because that's how I really feel. We don't have a relationship, because I stopped interacting with him years ago. I will never trust him, and because I don't trust him I would never ask for his help for anything. It seems pretty straightforward to me.

He's all "we had such great childhood memories." Should that mean something to me? It really doesn't. All I know is that he threatened my life everyday that I was in the house from when I was 15 to...pretty much now. So...should I just forget that now that he's feeling better?

I can't understand why they expect me to want to talk to them. Am I crazy and grudge-holding? They all say that I am a bad person because I can't forgive them for the things they did. But little brother has totally done fucked up shit and I forgive him. Its hard knowing that everyone in your family thinks that you are crazy and knowing that they're going to talk about you for the rest of your life as if you're a bad person.

This kitten looks like my high school boyfriend.

This is boyfriends response to my questions:

That stinks babe.

Well, your therapist is right, you can never completely separate from your family.
But you can accept them as a part of your past, without being beholden to them in the present and future.

The reason you forgive your little brother is because he admits to having made mistakes.

The reason your mom and older brother view you as grudge holding, is twofold.

One, you do have a problem with them.

Two they do treat you as delusional, and are antagonistic.

In simplest terms, you are taking a “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me” attitude.

When you ask your brother questions, even if it’s to poke holes in his feeble attempts at a relationship, it still invites his input. The same with your mom, although on a more complex level.

With [older brother], you are entitled to simply reference two or three horrific events, and deem them as reason for your non-relationship. Sexual assault and cocaine fueled attempts on your life, like that story when he attacked you with a crowbar, or threw you down the stairs, are just a few that I know, and more than enough to sever ties.

Maybe if he could admit that those things happened, you could consider talking to him.

With your mom, it’s subtler. She doesn’t want to admit that your childhood was tough/difficult/painful, because that reflects poorly on her. And that does not fit with her presentation of herself, as this persecuted, cancer-surviving, educated woman who cares about kids. Plus, by losing you, your mom is forced to align herself with her enemy’s enemy… namely your older brother. By both being ostracized by you, they are forced to share a common goal. And since you’re not talking with them, they get to slander you, in order to reinforce their own denials of treating you badly.

I am glad you maintain a relationship with your younger brother, you are truly forgiving of the things he’s done, but it’s directly related to his ability to admit to you that he’s made mistakes.

If they truly think you are a bad person for not forgiving them for the things they’ve done, then ask them what they need forgiveness for. It’s then up to you, to contemplate that, and even if you do forgive them, you are not obligated to maintain a relationship.

I love you, your brother loves you, my parents and friends love you.

Monty, Peligro and Shaun really love you.

He is the best.

Boyfriend is cute, II

2008-07-31T11:56:00.000-07:00

So, I have been compulsively freaking out about not having the appropriate clothing storage unit, as I do whenever I move. Boyfriend and I settled on something we both think is OK, and I've been refreshing craigslist for 2 days solid trying to get one.

Finally, someone responded who is going to deliver the thing to our apt tonight. HOWEVER, I had rescheduled the dinner I canceled last Friday to tonight. Damn!

But I explained the situation to boyfriend, and he said "Don't worry. I'll take care of it." And I have to say...those words were like, magical to hear. All that crap about how your wife would want to have sex with you more if you mowed the lawn once a week without bitching about it....ALL TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Boyfriend is cute

2008-07-31T07:56:00.000-07:00

Boyfriend: So, I was wondering, you know that girl who I was dating right before you, and who I stopped seeing and who was all sad about it?

K: Yeah...

Boyfriend: Do you think it would be good to like, write her an email and tell her that I didn't just break up with her for no reason, that I really love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and so that's why I stopped seeing her?

K: You want to call up your exgirlfriend/whatever and explain to her how great breaking up with her worked out for you, because comparatively, your new relationship is so much better? Because you think this will be good news for her?

Boyfriend: Yeah.

K: You are an idiot sometimes.

Moving day through the eyes of the cats

2008-07-30T07:24:00.000-07:00

So, last Friday, when I was standing around frozen, clutching a container of fish food and a bag of 300 tea lights to my chest, the cats realized that I was in need of some support. This is a photo essay of our move. Cats are the only ones who like moving...because they're all "Holy shit boxes!"

Plus, bonus first hand footage of Monty and Shaun's love affair with each other!

I took a bunch of pictures of Shaun, but they all pretty much looked like this...because he laid on my bed for 7 hours.

When he finally got down, I took it apart and leaned it against the wall. Monty hung on the side for awhile and finally settled on top of the mattress.

Most of the time though, Monty remained in his apartment...since he pretty much only likes to lay on hard things...further complicating the zen master/complete moron dichotomy.

This is Monty and Shaun's new roommate...Peligro. He hyperventilated for 3 hours when he arrived at the new pad. This is him drunk.

This is the scene of a devastating failure to secure a window fan on our part.

And here is the coup de grace...Monty licking Shaun's face and then sensing the large tabby smackdown and fleeing for the hills.

End of the same, start of the new

2008-07-28T08:40:00.000-07:00

So, this weekend started out pretty terribly. I was going to go out to eat with one of my favorite people...but I had to cancel because my mom wanted to come and pick up all the jewelry and fur coats she had left at my house weeks before...as a precaution after my little brother brought home a really unsavory character. Although she had originally said afternoon, she didn't end up showing up til 730, with my brother. When I realized this was likely to happen I cancelled my plans, since one of her main grievances with me is that I always schedule her in between other things that I'd "rather" be doing.

Basically, I am not in the mood to humor her anymore, and I'm not going to simply inventory nasty things she says and move on. This has resulted in our complete inability to have a conversation. The scene at the restaurant, which she wanted to go to, Friday night was pretty typical. Her saying that I had no idea what real poverty was....me saying that she was the one who engineered it that way, so didn't she obviously see some value in me not knowing, and really, wouldn't she then be to blame. Those sorts of things.

It ended in her saying something about me being too cold and heartless to stick by my family, and me saying something about not seeing a reason to stick by a family full of violence and incest, and her completely freaking out and throwing a glass of water in my face...which is something she regularly does to my brothers. I just kind of sat there, and then I got my bag and left, with her yelling behind me and my brother just kind of sitting there.

The worst happened a couple minutes later when she and he came back for her stuff. I thought it was just him, but unfortunately, she waltzes in and starts screaming all the usual stuff about how i'm a selfish cunt who's going to die alone...but I think the thing that really put it over the line this time was her new one, which consisted of "The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was letting you live and not having an abortion."

I just told her to get out of my house, again and again. I apologized to my little brother. He just kind of shrugged and left.

My therapist thinks its important for me to have a relationship with her. But I think maybe this week she will agree with me that it is really for the best that I don't.

In other news, I moved into my new apartment, with boyfriend. On the hottest day ever. The cats are trying to get along, but boyfriend's cat is puny compared to my giant land manatees. I think he's confused by that, or maybe he's afraid he's shrinking. I found the camera I thought I lost last year when I moved...and subsequently I took pictures of the entire moving process, which is 99% pictures of my cats hindering the process. Now if only I could find my USB cord...

Octopus

2008-07-24T06:16:00.000-07:00

last night i had a dream that you could take these octopuses, that were vivid reds or blues, and meld with them and perform amazing athletic feats...like ballet and acrobatics. and it was really amazing and i felt compelled to do it forever. but then this person came in who had previously given me a dirty look that day, and snatched them away and said that i was killing them by doing that. and when i looked at my octopus, it was all shriveled, and it reached out with its tentacle and hooked it around my finger weakly.

the person said that i needed to put it into a salt water bath or it would die. and so i mixed some warm water with salt and when i thought i had gotten it right i put the octopus in it. immediately it sort of swelled with water and looked more healthy. it continued to transform, until you could see all these other beautiful colors, like yellows and greens. and that was the real secret of the octopuses...that if you take the best care of them, they turn into these beautiful living flowers...which are their true selves. and only a few people are lucky enough to see them.

idiots

2008-07-18T19:43:00.001-07:00

Part of what makes me retarded/human/endearing/worthwhile/hypocritical is the fact that everyday that passes I find a new/old reason to love my exboyfriend a little more. I was watching Juno tonight, and the theme was the Moldy Peaches. Obvs that was really timely for our relationship...but I guess it mirrors the weird inevitability yet pointlessness of it all.

I'm an idiot, because there are so many things that I truly love about my exboyfriend...and yet it didn't work out. But I know that doesn't make me an idiot. I've just never had such a meaningful relationship that failed. It makes me feel like I'm a complete failure...and that that was just a precursor to the rest of my life as a tragic yet laughable figure.

But...I know at the end of the day, that's all melodrama. And I'm sure he knows that his feelings are all melodrama. Cause 7 years later, even if we're not together, I don't see what anyone could see in anyone else.

And now for something that's actually uplifting

2008-07-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

I'm going to Maine this weekend!

Besides the delicious foods that I should probably start stretching my stomach out now to accommodate, I have been promised a seal watching tour. Although every day is technically a seal watching tour at my house already, I am excited.

Because the people of Maine are lazy, most of the links on their tourism web sites are old or broken. Actually, I heard that people in Maine just hate tourists, so maybe they just don't fix their web sites for that reason.

I was looking at pictures of Pine Groslings, or whatever, and I was reminded of how much I used to like the Painted Bunting when I was a child. I thought it was the prettiest bird in the entire world.

Looking back, it's kind of garish...but this was during my "everything pink matches and I should wear it all at once" phase.

Apparently the males peck each other to death on a frequent basis.

Let's be real though, what I'm really excited about are all the puffins I'm going to see!!!

Apparently, all the puffins in Maine currently were brought there from Newfoundland, because in the 1800s people killed, ate, and wore them all. When puffins fish, they skewer the fish they catch against tiny spines on the roof of their mouth, and then catch more fish. But by far, the best fact about puffins is: "The Atlantic Puffin is typically silent at sea, except for soft purring sounds it sometimes makes in flight."

Oh my god, how cute is that!

Stand by for panda immersion

2008-07-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

So my little brother just called me to tell me to leave my mom alone for a little while. I told him that wouldn't be a problem, since I talked to her earlier that day and she told me various things, which ended up in me saying "Either agree to try to reach a compromise with me, or tell me you don't want to be bothered forming a relationship." To which she replied that she has no interest in forming a relationship.

I said "Thanks a lot."

Little brother said some gay shit that he probably learned in rehab like "Relax. You're not going to feel this angry in a while. It's going to fade and you're going to talk to mom again." I said some shit, but I think it pretty much sounded like this:

"Well, I am never going to talk to her again, because there's no way that this anger is going to fade, since it hasn't fucking faded for the past 20 years. I'm so tired of her "I've had cancer" "I left home at 16" "I have to get surgery and you don't anticipate what kind and set aside weeks for me to procrastinate while you beg me to go for my own dear health" manipulative bullshit. I'm so tired of being her fucking dumping ground. Oh, she was so upset she almost got into an accident. Who fucking cares? I hope she gets into an accident and fucking dies already so she can quit threatening me with it. You're all fucking crazy anyway--I'm sorry M but you know it's true. S is fucking crazy and Mom is fucking crazy and you've got lots of problems...you know you do. And honestly hanging around Mom isn't going to do you any fucking good. But you know what, I'm glad I don't have to talk to Mom and S anymore, because you're the only person I ever really wanted to talk to anyway."

So, yeah, we've regressed completely into adolescence now. Now I'm part of the problem just like they always wanted me to be.

Withering parental relationships.

2008-07-08T07:19:00.000-07:00

So I met with my therapist and my MOM yesterday. That was fun. And by fun, I mean, predictably not fun.

Basically I suppose it was good because instead of saying nothing to my mom, which is my normal strategy, I said everything I actually think. Which I don't ever do. She was thoughtful enough to show up with her normal overbearing, unhelpful, nasty attitude, so at least we didn't have to do any pretending there. The crux of my issue with my mom is, she says mean things to me, so I close off from her. This annoys her, and so to get me to open up to her, she provokes me by saying more mean things. This elicits less and less of a reaction from me, because I don't want to give her the satisfaction, and so we are unable to have a relationship.

Sample conversations:

Mom: "Well, you know K has a big drinking problem."
Me: "Um how can you even say that? You have a huge drinking problem too!"
Mom: "Well I'm talking about the 24 hour binge drinking."
Me: "Can't you even get your kids problems straight? [Little brother] is the one who would drink for 24 hour periods of time!"
Mom: "Yeah well he hasn't drank since he got out of rehab. You still drink every night though."
Me, rolling eyes because little brother drank a bottle of robitussen last night: "Doesn't you starting drinking at 11am every day constitute at least an equal problem? I don't really feel like either of us is in the position to be judgmental here."
Mom, as an aside to therapist: "I used to go out with a business man who drank 2 martinis for lunch everyday."

Therapist: "When was the last big argument you had, besides the one a couple weeks ago."
Me: "When I moved in with my boyfriend when I lived in Chicago."
Therapist: "And what happened?"
Me, turning to Mom: "You screamed all these horrible things at me in front of him! And it was the same shit--you can't stand that I'm not cold and disconnected in general, I'm just that way with you."
Mom: "No, that was about money. I was paying for that apartment."
Me: "No you weren't! You hadn't paid for anything of mine since I got out of college! You were just mad I didn't have enough money to pay for everything for you and take you everywhere."
Mom: "Well, I don't remember it that way."

I have to say, I was not at my shining best. It was EXACTLY as pathetic and irritating as it was to argue with your parents when you were a teenager. You know you're saying childish, whiny things but you can't help it because they have all the power in the relationship. So everything you say is said sarcastically and with as much venom as possible. I was like 2 seconds away from imitating her responses back to her in a nasty, sing-songy voice for the entire 2 hour session.

My therapist thinks that I have to fix this relationship, probably because it is just going to come up again in my life. She also doesn't think that it's healthy for me not to express my anger to people I'm angry with. I guess I see things like "saying purposely hurtful things to your children" as an enormous betrayal of trust and a display of an unfixable character flaw. Since I'm always ferreting around to find the cracks in people's personalities, when I find big ones like that I retreat as quickly as possible. It just doesn't seem rational to hang around someone who has such major potential to wound you.

I'm not really sure how to fix my relationship with my mom, especially since I apparently have neither the skill nor the will to do so. I don't know how to undo 20 years of serious emotional damage in a matter of weeks. But at this point, she is such a bitch that I really don't care whether her life is made worse by knowing that I have a problem with pretty much everything that comes out of her mouth. I mean...the only thing is, that's how she acts towards me. So...isn't this just bringing myself down to her level?

I did make an interesting discovery however. I think one of the reasons why my dad not being in my life anymore doesn't bother me OR him is because we both have the same theory on relationships: ie, if you're being a dick, why would i keep calling you? Its the sociopath in us.

I really don't have the answers for this one. Here is a picture of Monty sleeping, instead...he has the answer for everything and the answer is always Fud.

My direct report is funny

2008-06-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

My direct report is 27, and his girlfriend is 22 now I think. He is from Kentucky.

K: omg, this weekend, boyfriend's abuelita decided that i was good enough for "el nino premioso" or whatever and started trying to give me all this baby furniture
K: i think my throat closed up
DR: ha! wow, you better watch out
DR: i can still be footloose and fancy free!
K: you better watch out. once your girlfriend turns 15, you will be going through the same shit'
DR: ha, it's cool, she only just had first communion this weekend, so i've got plenty of time

Beijing Day #4

2008-06-30T07:06:00.000-07:00

Ni hao again, friends!

G is so awesome, he arranged his friend to drive me to the Great Wall today. G came with, too. He said that he hadn't been to the wall in like 20 years. We went to the Badaling section of the wall--the really touristy one, pretty close to Beijing--like 70 km, but the one best preserved. I had to be in the lobby at 6am. Crazy early, but I wasn't complaining. We got to the wall at like 7:45 or something like that because we were stopped on the expressway because of an accident for like 40 minutes. The publisher didn't go walking the Wall with us because G told me he was tired because the friend has a mountain climbing group and they went mountain climbing on Saturday and they got lost and he got home late. I wanted to give the friend some gas money for driving me out there because he doesn't know me and it was really generous of him, but G said that in Chinese culture, that is considered rude.

Unfortunately, the weather sucked ass. The Wall at that point was split into 2 ways, a really hard, steep way and an easier way. For some reason, I decided that I was supergirl and chose the steep way. Whooh! That was hard--it really was crazy steep, I had to hold on to the rail going down and go really slow at a bunch of places. I don't know how those soldiers did it back then and G said that they were barefoot, too. Even though I couldn't see far, the Wall was spectacular. I don't remember how many meters we walked but because it was hard, it felt like a long time. It was crazy how winding it is, curving here and there, up and down. Going there early was awesome. There was no one there compared to when we left (as you will see in another photo--it's completely packed). One of the Wall workers commented to G that I was the first "laowai" at the Wall that day because we got there so early. Laowai means foreigner. (Technically, lao means "old" and wai means "outside." but put together they mean foreigner.) And while I was waiting for G at one point, I noticed that people were staring at me and a lot of "double takes" were happening when I walked by. And people even took my photo and were not being subtle about it. (G said, it's mostly because of my tattoo--they are not very common in China at all.) A group of kids came up to me and asked to take photos with me. It was bizarre. I told them that I wasn't famous, but they all took a photo with me. AAWK-WARD...

We were done about noon. G suggested that I go to the Summer Palace, so they dropped me off there. This is where the royal court came to escape. It's gorgeous and peaceful. It was very romantic too. Lots of weeping willows, lots of couples just walking or sitting around by the lake together. I walked around the lake, walked up some hills to some temples, crossed some bridges, walked along a stream. There was serene background music playing at a lot of the places. I spent like 3.5 hours there. My feet hurt really bad and I was limping a little and I was exhausted and a little lonely so I left. Two guys asked to take photos with me there, too. So weird.

Beijing Day 1

2008-06-27T04:15:00.001-07:00

I'm not in Beijing, but one of my really good friends is...and she's writing me and some other people these awesome email updates about it. She is freaking hilarious. G, M, and Y are people we work with:

Ni hao friends!
I only have an hour before I meet G. So here goes...

I arrived safetly in Beijing about a half hour late. International business class was pretty awesome. The legroom was incredible and the chair had so many controls, I don't even think that I used all of them. The flight was pretty uneventful and it felt like it went by quicker than I expected. Spotting my driver at the airport was a little tough. There were so many people holding signs and I couldn't look at them all. Finally I saw someone with a [[work name]] and I felt like I was part of a secret society. The driver didn't speak any english except for the word "hotel." I got to the Marriott and settled in. It's a pretty quiet hotel. My room is pretty nice and the hotel staff is really friendly and helpful. The view from my window is the expressway and lots of honking cars, so not the greatest. There is a TV tower that has color-changing lights at night. The sky is really grey right now, and you can't really see very far. When I asked about the sky, Y said that it was more the rain clouds than the pollution, so hopefully the sky gets a little clearer.

G, M, and Y met me in the lobby. We went to HouHai, which means "Rear Sea" and G made a joke that it's not a sea it's a small lake. It's a bar, club, restaurant, market area that goes all around this lake. It's a hang out place, mostly younger people, and it's open until like 4am. G was happy that I wanted to try authentic Chinese food becasue when other people have visited him, they wanted to go to upscale, more westernized restaurants. We went to a Chinese BB-que restarurant and I just them to order for me and I told them I would try new things. We had beef slices in a gravy sauce, Lotus stems, pickled turnips slices, some cold beef cuts, bbque mutton (which M said wasn't really bbque), tripe, and duck web feet with a spicey mustard sauce. I tried it all, it was very good...well...except for the duck web feet, which were chewy, gummy, and kind of gross, but the spicey sauce helped. M and Y were surprised that I could use chopsticks pretty well. We talked about how authentic chinese food is nothing like what we have in America (no general tsao's chicken?! what?--hah). I used my chinese phrases that I was learning on them and M said that that I pronounced them pretty well and people here would understand what I was trying to say. Although, I read in a book that even if you only say one thing in Chinese, you will be complimented and told that you speak Chinese very well. So...I don't feel THAT confident with my pronunciation. I've only pretty much just said hello and thank you a lot.

We then walked around the "rear lake" and checked out the bars and markets. The bars were very westernized with bands, and acoustic guitar singer/songwriters in them singing English and Chinese songs. The markets were pretty cool, they sold posters, paper cuts, clothing, jewelry, and other various knick-knacks. There was a vendor that only sold matchboxes--sets and sets of them with comics, cartoons, hot ladies, etc. I think that I will buy some because they were cool. I saw some cute panda t-shirts. The posters were mostly political. I took a photo of one where a red Chinese fist is crushing the US and Russia. I thought it was pretty awesome. There were also Mao quote books. I guess back in the day you had to say a Mao quote before you stated an opinion (at least that is I what I gathered from what G and M said). Then we watched some people dancing on the sidewalk, like cha cha and other partner dances. It's a big thing here--there are groups that just go and dance outside for fun.

And then we went home.
Anyway, I will try to write more later and take more photos. I was a little tired yesterday.

Miss you all!
Yi huir jian! (see you later)

President Bush likes to save the planet

2008-06-19T10:02:00.001-07:00

I'm reading a lot about energy efficiency today for work, and in my lengthy and sprawling research path today I came upon this:

Executive Order
Energy Efficient Standby Power Devices

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, in order to further encourage energy conservation by the Federal Government, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Energy Efficient Standby Power Devices. Each agency, when it purchases commercially available, off-the-shelf products that use external standby power devices, or that contain an internal standby power function, shall purchase products that use no more than one watt in their standby power consuming mode. If such products are not available, agencies shall purchase products with the lowest standby power wattage while in their standby power consuming mode.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,

July 31, 2001.

Does that count as evidence that President Bush acknowledges global warming? (For those of you who haven't been reading about solar power and energy investment opportunities all morning, standby power is what your computer uses when its plugged into the wall...most things, like hairdryers and shit, use about 1watt per hour. Lightbulbs use .1. Air conditioners, though....use like 35000 or something.

In any case...does this count as a good thing he did? Maybe he just didn't know what he was signing.

Why don't you go talk to your therapist about it

2008-06-13T13:08:00.000-07:00

My mom just called me and told me numerous things, which I think I'll break down into a numbered list to help me to remember them all.

1. I am cold and selfish
2. She would never treat anyone as badly as I treat her
3. Everyone else is more important to me than her
4. I am never around and never spend time with her
5. I'm not upset enough about her problems
6. I'm not upset enough about my little brother's problems
7. She thought I would change, but apparently I'm still a selfish bitch
8. She will never trust me because I have no heart
9. Congratulations, I am just like my father

All of these factors have caused her to resolve never to see me again. I would add my own list of factors:

1. You are evil and you scare me
2. There are other ways to get people to stay with you than to make them feel like no one else in the world will ever love them
3. A lifetime of opportunistic cruelty has made me emotionally dead to you, for my own sanity
4. I have already adjusted to life without a father, so this next step shouldn't be too hard
5. I am going to help little brother get away from you

This is my cat Shaun, he thinks I'm awesome (he also enjoys bacon)

Family

2008-06-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

So Thursday morning I was on the phone with my mom, who had called during Muffin, Hot Ticket and I's Wednesday night drinking party. Apparently my little brother totally snapped and started acting like his alter ego. He said all these mean things to her, which normally elicits no reaction from me, because I think she's kind of insane.

However, Thursday, for some reason, it was as if I was actually listening to her as a person experiencing pain, and not as someone whose words and comments I was reading into. I usually feel no empathy at all for my mom whatsoever. I wonder if the therapy is working.

In other news, however, last night my older brother started texting me the following, which I assumed was in response to the fact that my mom is kicking him out of her house and today is the court hearing:

9.49 pm: Tell mom she is mean
reply: its pointless; she'll never get it
10:00: U hate me anyway
reply: i don't hate you. i just think you're crazy to want to stay there
10.01: U wont help any way. U hate me2

10.01 this morning: Phone call which I disregard
10:10: I want 2 move. Call the house.

11:42: I call the house. Some highlights:

Brother: What are you doing?
reply: uh, working. its 1130 on monday morning.
b: OK HOW are you doing?
reply: fine. what do you want?
b: it's not fair for my mom to go to the courthouse and tell lies about me
reply: well you should have moved out any of the 100 times before this happened
b: I didn't want to move out because I'm worried about [little brother] hurting mom
reply: no you're not. don't even pretend like thats why you don't move out
b: well I partially am. And it's not fair for mom to go down and lie about me and pretend that she's so perfect. She's an alcoholic, what can she say?
reply: Uh, you don't get to judge *her* b. Maybe when you don't live in her basement and rely on her for everything you can start judging her.
b: you think I want to live here? I don't!
reply: So then move out.
b: It's not fair that she's being so mean. I dont' do anything wrong. I always clean up around the house. I just don't have the money.
reply: Oh yeah, what about all the suboxone she found under your bed? Is that the reason you don't have the money?
b: That's so I never do heroin or vicodin or anything again. It doesn't even get you high.
reply: Yeah, you know what I think? I think you just take suboxone when you can't get anything else, to deal with the withdrawal.
b: Fuck you, you can think anything you want. I know what's in my heart.
reply: Whatever. I guess if you're not spending your money on drugs then you must just not be getting paid any money at all for working. Right? Cause otherwise where does the money go?
b: Fuck you. I have a job and I'm proud of my life.
reply: Oh yeah? 28 years old, doesn't have a real job and lives in his mother's basement doing cut rate painkillers. Is that what success looks like?

At this point he hangs up.

11.51: Im getting a promotion and a rasie. We discussed it and people like me. It is only my family that hates me.
reply: so move out and stop talking to your family then. simple.
11.58: I will have a place in 2 weeks. Salary and tips will be at least 1000 to 2000 a week. And I don't expect any of u at my wedding or to ever call me or say hi
reply: whatever you have to do.

Pie Crust

2008-05-28T11:41:00.000-07:00

I am currently working with this recipe for pie crust. So far...it has been a success. I even succeeded in rolling the dough around the rolling pin and then unrolling over the dish--without breaking shit.

I'm really just putting this up here so I don't lose it.

Ingredients for one double-crust 9 inch or 10 inch pie:
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 3/4 cup (a stick and a half) unsalted butter, chilled, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
• 1/2 cup of all-vegetable shortening (8 Tbsp)
• 6-8 Tablespoons ice water
1 Mix flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Scatter butter pieces over flour mixture. Toss to coat the butter with a little of the flour. Cut butter into the flour mixture with 5 one second pulses. Add shortening (a tablespoonful at a time, not one big hunk of shortening) and cut into mixture with about 4 more one second pulses. The mixture should resemble coarse cornmeal, with butter bits no bigger than peas. Turn mixture into a mixing bowl.

2 Sprinkle 6 tablespoons of ice water over flour mixture. Using the blade of a rubber spatula, press down on the dough, using a folding motion, until the dough sticks together. Add up to 2 more tablespoons of ice water if the dough will not come together. Do not over-knead the dough! Divide the dough into 2 balls and flatten each into 4 inch wide disks. Dust the disks lightly with flour, wrap each in plastic, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or up to 2 days before rolling out.

3 After the dough has chilled in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, you can take it out to roll. If it is too stiff, you may need to let it sit for 10 minutes at room temperature before rolling. Sprinkle a little flour on a flat work surface and the top half of one of the disks of dough. (We use a Tupperware pastry sheet that has the pie circles already marked.) Using a rolling pin, apply light pressure while rolling outwards from the center. Every once in a while you may need to use a metal spatula or a pastry scraper to gently lift under the dough to make sure it is not sticking to the rolling surface. You have a big enough piece of dough when you place the pie tin or pie dish upside down on the dough and the dough extends by at least 2 inches all around.

4 When the dough has reached the right size, gently fold it in half and then in half again. Lift up the dough and place the folded point of the dough in the exact center of your pie dish. Gently unfold. Lift the edge of the dough with one hand while easing the pastry along the bottom of the dish with the other hand. Do not stretch the dough.

5a If you are only making a single crust pie, use a pair of kitchen scissors to trim the dough to within 1/2 inch of the lip of the dish. Tuck the overhang underneath itself along the edge of the pie dish. Use the tines of a fork to crimple the edge of the pie crust.

5b If you are making a double crust pie, roll out the second disk of dough. Use a pastry scraper to help gently roll the dough around the rolling pin. Unroll the dough from the rolling pin over the fruit-filled pie, centering the dough correctly on the pie. Use a kitchen scissors to trim the overhang to an inch over.
Fold the edge of the top piece of dough over and under the edge of the bottom piece of dough, pressing together.
Finish the double crust by pressing against the edges of the pie with your finger tips or with a fork.

6 Use a sharp knife to cut vents into the top of the pie crust, so the steam has a place to escape while the pie is cooking. Optional Before scoring, you may want to paint the top of your crust with an egg wash (this will make a nice finish).

Egg Wash
A lovely coating for a pie can be achieved with a simple egg wash.
• 1 Tbsp heavy cream, half and half, or milk
• 1 large egg yolk
Beat egg yolk with cream and brush on the surface of the pie with a pastry brush.

Conference calls

2008-05-28T09:01:00.000-07:00

My coworker and I tried to cling to our sanity during a conference call today. For some reason, it makes me feel like dying...and I'd like to get to teh bottom of that. I suppose its people participating in a closed social network, of which you are just an observer.

K: is it just me, or is AW being kind of a jerk lately?
Coworker: ha, yeah, i know
Coworker: it's funny, i really don't think he likes this interviewee he's working with
K: maybe its hard for him, because he sort of gets all the shit work and has to smile and do it all
K: although it does get him recognition, it still kind of feels like he's the Boys Club puppy
Coworker: ha, yeah, he's in like editorial limbo, not quite in clubhouse, though
Coworker: he'll run the show soon enough, i'll bet
K: its true.
K: Ultraboss has said "on point" 11 times so far. i'm keeping a list
Coworker: i wonder if his chest hair is visible today ...
Coworker: i imagine he's wearing another open oxford shirt
K: gross
K: "SWN...Sounds like some web site you wouldn't like to be caught on!"?? AWK
Coworker 1: ha
K: we are live blogging this conference call
K: 12!
Coworker: wait, is this twitter?
K: ha
K: i think we can leverage this in our 2009 strategy: the new and fun ways gen Y is using AIM ni the workplace
Coworker: we should have made a presentation last week
Coworker: 13!
K: its actually kind of nice because now i become maniacally happy whenever i get to hear it

Total instances of "on point": 16 in 52 minutes.

Not so much, today

2008-05-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

Ugh I drank too much yesterday. Apparently drinking wine really tires me out and gives me a vicious hang over. I feel like a shriveled lemon today. It sucks that when you're hungover it's practically impossible to do any actual work. All I've been able to do today is yell at someone for not giving my new assistant some program she needs. Other than that....it's been mostly little trips to the Handicapped Bathroom in an undisclosed location on my office floor. No one knows about this except me and uh anyone who's handicapped who visits the office. It is so awesome I can't even begin to tell you, unless you also work in an office where your sanity breaks are interrupted by other people barging into your safe space.

I hate being hungover. I drank a bottle of wine yesterday at a barbeque and held a 2 month old for awhile. I was surprised to find that it's really pretty easy. They are responsive and pretty good at communicating their needs. "Hold me this way" "Don't touch my butt" "Touch my butt"....that stuff all comes through pretty clearly. I mean, I don't want to have one, but I'm pretty sure if that ever happens I won't totally freak out. In contrast, a girl I know who acts like a child found it supremely uncomfortable holding the little guy. Boyfriend says that's because she doesn't know how to stop crying for attention herself and give it something that really needs to be taken care of. Snap!

Drug addiction

2008-05-27T06:30:00.000-07:00

Check out this interesting drug addiction chart. Amazing how low ecstasy is on the scale of dangerous & addictive things. I personally found it to be very very very addicting. I wish there was an extremely addictive but not dangerous outlier...maybe like, coffee? In the extremely dangerous yet not addictive category, perhaps rubbing alcohol? Or huffing chemicals?

Yay!

2008-05-22T07:48:00.000-07:00

Hot ticket: OMG MARIO!!!!!~!\
Keetens: nice tilda
Hot ticket: plenty more where that came from

Hilary is not such a bad person...but is her name one L or two?

2008-05-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

I was reading this article in the Washington Post today, which pretty much summarizes my torn feelings over this year's elections. I mean, of course I want a woman in the White House. But I don't want a remnant of some dynastic political empire stagnating my country with policies that shirk responsibility for world events. So I'm not voting for Hil. Is she worse than any other entrenched political bigwig in Washington? Of course not. But she IS a woman, and so lets bring on the scathing dismissals and personal attacks on appearance. After all, that's all women can be valuable as--things to look at right? And if you're failing that, what good are you?

Marie Cocco in her article "Misogyny I won't miss":

I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven't publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

Would the silence prevail if Obama's likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they'd compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama's sex organs play?

There are many reasons Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for "change." But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.

Hillary Clinton might not be the ideal candidate for me, but I've at least considered her political background and stance on the issues...which is more than I can say for the media. I think she's a truly incredible woman, who is either phenomenally resilient to the pressures of political life or possessed with a mad desire for limitless power. Either way...its probably both anyway...she will always go down as one of the most influential women of our time. And wouldn't you rather support her getting that nomination rather than fucking Oprah?

Note: I have a dream once a week that involves newborn kittens that need to be fed with syringes. It's starting to get creepy.

Winston says "Thanks but no thanks"

2008-05-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

I had this really productive conversation today with my immediate work group about how to work with different silos in the organization -- ie, how to align around common goals and communicate a shared vision.

Does that sound jargony? I am trying to figure out if I'm a hypocrite because of this email I just received from my SuperBoss about this big meeting we have next week in which we will do exactly those things. Upon reading his email, I became disgusted and my eyes glazed over and I could barely stand the idea of being forced to endure 2 straight days of this crap. It's like "hip downtown joint" and "keep lifting our game" and shit. Sometimes I feel like I can't grasp the words which I need to express the disdain I'm feeling. It's like it's all "BACK SLAP!" "SHOULDER PUNCH!" "FAKE BASKETBALL SHOT!" I guess what I'm annoyed at is the overblown boy's-clubby camaraderie that it is meant to drum up, which just makes me feel skeptical and grossed out. And since I'm a manager, I know I'm going to at least partially be forced to join in and put the Aloha Casual Friday work shirt smile on.

I think part of what I dislike about my new SuperBoss is that he's all "Hey you're a kid! Look at you with your little job! Tell me what's going on on MTV!" He's like this terribly embarrassing dad who you don't love. I realize that he is just completely unable to relate to anyone who doesn't like the Yankees and didn't bang drunk sorority girls at UCONN (high five! someone get me a Heineken!) but I mean, tone it down a notch and stop grabbing everyone by the shoulders and shaking them.

Really though, the best analogy for it is like what it would be like to talk to a politician all day. They totally disgust you in the same way, with their fakey fakey Southern accent and the way they think that by feeding you a line they have successfully sucked you in with their vortex of charisma. Meanwhile, they're just so obviously a loud, lecherous, gold-ring wearing overweight man from Southern Ohio.

The thing is though, I think it's sometimes surprising how much you find you *don't* want to shatter their fantasy land. There's nothing sadder than a deflated bag of hot air. It's all limp and scuffed and lying on the floor. I wonder if, one day my SuperBoss got some really bad news, if the look of sadness on his face and his inability to shout scripted jokes down the hallway would be disconcerting to me.

ALSO: Did the old editor of The Superficial quit? That shit eats a dick now. Also: Why does Britney always look a toothless old lady when she opens her mouth like that?

Getting married

2008-05-12T12:29:00.000-07:00

This is going to sound very weird that I'm thinking about this at all, but boyfriend and I were talking about weddings the other day, and I have to say the whole wedding thing just totally grosses me out. Things like "get your close friends and family members to participate in your special day by having them light the unity candle"....I mean....that the lamest shit I've ever heard. "Unity candle?" Mmm...barf. Is there any way to get married without turning it into some fucking spiritual crystal-holding session?

I have always said that to a certain extent I don't care what happens at my wedding except I want there to be kittens there. And the more I read about fucking $15,000 in spring rolls I'll be buying and how flower arrangements are going to drive a huge wedge between me and the boyf, the more this is a solid rule for me. The last thing I want is 5 plus hours of people staring at me and making awkward little speeches while I stand there biting my fingernails and grimacing. If there are kittens, I can just play with them on the floor like some slightly retarded nephew of the bride, and then everyone ELSE can bite their fingernails and exchange knowing, pitying glances.

I wouldn't say I'm a particularly sentimental person, but I do cry every time I watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, so it's not like I'm some frigid German housewife with her arms crossed. If my college graduation is any indication, I am just uncomfortable in ceremonies which have no significance for me. It's like when you light a cigarette while you're tripping on acid and you're like "Why do I do this stupid thing? Why do I even wear these pants?!" Societal constructs are baffling to someone who spent most of their life glancing suspiciously from the fringes of normal social activities.

I mean....what is a wedding? I don't believe in any religion. I'm kind of uncomfortable around my family...what with my mom trying to take credit for all of my accomplishments/certainty that my relationships are all doomed to fail, not to mention my brothers' consistent drunken scene-causing behavior which always accompanies any major family event. I also feel like a douche making fucking placecards and dancing to "Wheel in the sky." OK, that's not true, I love Wheel in the Sky. I would rather just have the rehearsal dinner.

Maybe that's what I should do. Have a ceremony, followed by a small dinner with the two families, and the day before have a rehearsal dinner type thing, where the people who I actually like are there, who actually understand my relationship, and who aren't going to get red lipstick all over my cheek while thinking in their heads "She's not really that pretty, is she?" Then the whole day of the ceremony I'll feel OK about keeping a smile plastered on my face and saying things like "Thank you for lending me the slip that you sewed out of pieces of flour sacks during the depression. It's beautiful and no, it did not chafe especially and I bet it was the flour."

I heard that you should have sex right before the ceremony because you'll look better and you'll still be in that post-sex haze while saying your vows. That's better advice than getting drunk beforehand, anyway.

Oh god, is that an ANKLE?

2008-05-09T07:15:00.000-07:00

I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, about how women who show too much skin in the workplace are basically blacklisted from making a real contribution for the rest of their working careers.

I never knew that I would grow up to be such a viciously liberal feminist, but jesus christ. Men reporters reporting on how their male colleagues can't control themselves in the presence of women who expose nominal amounts of flesh? Remember that huge to-do when Hillary Clinton exposed a tiny bit of clavicle? For the love of god, take a xanax and chill out, it's just a fucking shoulder for christ sake.

It seems to me that men will do ANYTHING to strip women of power. It is as if feeling attracted to women makes them powerless, and so they do as much as possible to gain that back. Beautiful women are relegated to the bimbo cumshot bin, smart women are scorned for possessing a body to begin with. What is this virgin whore bullshit the entire hideous paranoid male establishment continues to hide behind? Just because you never got over seeing a pair of breasts doesn't mean I should have to suffer for your gross immaturity.

Take this example:

It's not just a matter of image; sometimes, there can be real trouble. Lisa Goldstein, an attorney and founder of consulting firm Rainmaker Trainers in Philadelphia, says that during a client dinner with spouses, a head of a law firm was propositioned by her male client and his wife. The client "suggested that they swing together," says Ms. Goldstein, who was informally consulted on how to recover the professional-client relationship. The lawyer felt that her revealing evening dress had set the wrong tone, sending "signals that were misinterpreted," says Ms. Goldstein.

So now intelligent women are responsible for the lewd inappropriateness of middle-aged men in crisis? Doesn't this seem like "only raped because you asked for it?" I just don't understand how I am being forced to adhere to some completely arbitrary set of rules just because most men can't think with anything other than their dicks. I mean, take some estrogen pills or something. Or start grunting and beating your chest like a fucking animal. If you can't be a part of a civilized society without clubbing someone over the head, then maybe you should reevaluate whether you should be a part of it to begin with.

Email I just got from tickets@amtrak.com

2008-05-02T10:09:00.001-07:00

Thank you for choosing Amtrak. Please save or print this page for your records.

Reservation Number: 035VV6

THIS IS NOT A TICKET
--------------------
This confirmation notice is not a ticket. You must obtain a ticket before boarding.

TICKETING INFORMATION
---------------------

THIS IS NOT A TICKET.

Happy mothers day.

2008-05-02T09:02:00.000-07:00

God, I HATE loaning money to my mom.

I'm so fucking sick of having to make up for all the thousands of dollars she pours down the fucking drain to support my brothers. "Oh, I just need you to loan me 500 dollars until I get my next paycheck." God, you're 53 years old....make a fucking budget. I mean really. Is that too much to ask? Why would I be more likely to have 500 dollars I can just write a check out for? What the fuck is the point of continually giving her money like this anyway....its not like I'll ever see it again, or she'll stop asking me for more. "Can you call my credit card company and pay the amount I charged over my limit?"

I think more than any other behavior it disgusts and annoys me. And if I were to say anything, she'd say "Oh, like I didn't give you thousands of dollars when you were growing up." Like that is the same thing at all! We're not equals...she is supposed to be the one not fucking up all the time. But her idea of us not being equals isn't her taking care of me, its her controlling my life and telling me I'm selfish and fat.

I am so tired of compensating for her shortcomings, and then glossing over them because she couldn't handle hearing what I really think about her. I don't expect her to be fucking perfect...I just want her to stop dragging me through her complete disaster of a life. Is that so much to ask?

Oh scuse me, i has to take dis call

2008-05-02T06:05:00.000-07:00

My range of emotions in the last 11 minutes were as follows:

"Fuck you people anyway. I'm over here busting my ass and I'm constantly being called out for imaginary imperfections. I'm out of here."

"God my ultraboss is so fucking stupid. You think you can bond with us by stealing whatever joke someone makes and driving it into the ground? You're such a monkey. Not the good kind."

"Fine I'm looking for jobs again. Goddamn it, I don't want to do any of this stuff. What *do* I want to do? Not work at Conde Nast that's for sure. Jesus."

"I sent out like 10 resumes last week....why hasn't anyone gotten back to me? Is there some hideous problem with my cover letters? Why does everyone call boyfriend back but not me? I guess he does a more transactional job. Ugh, what could I possibly be doing for employers to want to hire me?"

"Oh I have an email. Oh my god....XXX wants to interview me. What will I say? Do I even want to work there? I can't do it. I can't leave. Should I just ignore it?"

OK I'm sort of calming down now. I guess I should research this company. I haven't been on an interview in forever. I wonder what I should practice. I feel like I have a bad attitude right now. "Why are you leaving your company?" "Because they're a bunch of insanely insecure overachievers who are thrown into a panic when greeted with the smallest obstacle." I mean "I'm looking for a change in subject matter."

Although really, I could stick it out here. I just don't really find that the world I'm in is really suited to me. Or perhaps it is too suited to me. I don't care about any of this stuff, and I'm tired of sitting at the adult table. All they do is stare at me in disgust for cutting the fat off of my meat anyway.

Having a new job would be so fun!!!! Especially if it turned out that new job didn't make me wear office clothes and wasn't swathed in thick white rolls of bureaucracy. Does that job exist? And will they pay me the many monies I need to keep my cats in silk berets?

Typical work exchange

2008-04-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

K (5:37:10 PM): tap tap tap
K (5:37:12 PM): !!!!!!!!!!!!
work colleague (5:37:25 PM): ??????????????????/
work colleague (5:37:28 PM): //////////////////////////?
K (5:37:33 PM): OMG THANK GOD WE'RE ON THE SAME PAGE

Did you just call me a whore?

2008-04-23T14:22:00.001-07:00

Part of why I find boyfriend infinitely amusing is his hilarious tendency to say the most horrific things without realizing at first that you could take them badly. I of course do this myself and try not to get down on people for tripping over words they didn't mean. However, I think I should begin compiling them in some form or another. Today's was as follows:

The set up: Boyfriend went to interview for a job opportunity, set up by a previous manager of his who loves him. He is flustered because its 80 degrees and he's 20 minutes late. Not the best situation. As a result, and because of their mutual acquaintance, the interview was somewhat informal.

Boyfriend is relating to me why he thinks this went pretty well. The interviewer says something like: "Well, to be honest, we don't have any open positions for someone with your experience and career path. But, we would be willing to push some things aside and create a spot for you. Would that be something you're interested in?" Boyfriend relates to me how he said something to the effect of "I'm really looking for a position that has a lot of growth potential, because I met this girl not long ago, and I think we're going to get married some day. I'm really looking to start settling down."

"Isn't that great?" he asks me. "It's perfect---family stuff, girlfriend, staying potential....you're like my ace in the hole."

"Uh I guess it's great," I say in a state of mild disbelief...having sat through a couple minutes knowing the conversation was going to end this way. "Did you just refer to me as your "ace in the hole"?"

"Uh no...yeah....wait...oh god..."

You can practically see the horror gradually wash over all of the features on his face. I don't know if he had a girlfriend once who would freak out when he said those things or what. It's completely great, watching someone struggling with what were the best intentions, totally afraid that you're going to yell at them. Like when a puppy knocks over a plant or something.

I somehow can't find a way to express why all this is funny to me, to him. It has to do with not recognizing that the things you say about someone to other people, while true in a way, are not really meant to be related in story form to the person you're talking about. Essentially, boyfriend was saying that he saw an opening, and used me and our relationship as a bargaining chip. Does he really feel this way? Of course not. I guess it's the obliviousness to social norms that really gets me.

Maybe I should be a research librarian.

Mini ponies are great

2008-04-22T12:01:00.000-07:00

I've been spending a lot of my time lately sitting at my desk/avoiding going to work, thinking about the deep, deep loathing I have for my job. I pretty much sit here, work for an hour, look for jobs for an hour, think about cats for an hour. Repeat.

However, I was just in Strawberry, which has a Website which is an AWESOME reminder of this game King's Quest that I used to play in like 1992. 4rltho! For those of you from other states, Strawberry = Rainbo. Anyway, I picked up these awesome aviator sunglasses, which are the only aviator sunglasses on record to not make me look like a horse in flight. While I was swiping my debit card, I was seized by a panic that I was running out of money.

I'm not so good at the "savings" element of life, especially since I've committed to paying off my credit cards this year. However, what with $600 therapy bills every month and the fact that my little tan panda is quickly collecting many fatal friends for his diabetes....I'm not feeling particularly well off right now.

Partially I'm trying to empathize with boyfriend's current predicament, in which he is into week three of looking for a job, and is starting to spiral downward into the "Why did God have to make me so unlovable?" spiral of unemployment. No amount of placating can break you out of that mood...its a truly dark place. Also: the less money he has, the more money I don't have. As I slowly reacquaint myself with the panic I associate with not having enough money...I find that I'm more willing to grimace cooperatively whenever a sweaty, underachieving 40 year old office professional makes a joke about the election in my vicinity.

Someone get me some chocolate covered pretzels!

Seriously, I've been thinking about them for days. For some reason, I feel pretty positive today. I'm not really sure why. Part of it has to do with something my therapist told me the other day...that I've spent enough time looking inward and that now it's time to start looking outward. I interpret this to mean, "Your introspection is not helping you understand yourself and your actions, it is instead helping to freeze you in a state of anxiety in which you are unable to function." Apparently, I'm no longer moving forward.

I think getting a new job will be helpful in this regard. It seems to me like you can only move forward by taking huge, clumsy leaps. Although it seems like time is ticking by, we're actually all in a holding pattern until something else big comes our way. At least, that's what it seems like.

To digress a little, but still in keeping with the general theme here...whenever I try to explain to boyfriend why it is I have so many problems with drinking...I end up explaining that I'm an extremely shy person who spent most of her childhood in an environment where physical and emotional violence were the end result of any confrontation. Somehow that doesn't really seem to encapsulate my many different feelings towards other people.

I think that there's something that happens when I get through the uncertain beginning of a relationship...where I suddenly can stop expending the copious amounts of energy it took for me to (a) Find this person in the first place and (b) Deal with the constant uncertainty of being with a stranger who might turn out to be the worst thing that ever happened to you. Once I'm all settled in, I inevitably decide that I never want to talk to anyone ever again. Apparently, this is because part of me totally hates talking to new people and is totally freaked out by putting myself out there in the first place.

I need to find some sort of balance, as usual.

Squeeeesh!11111

2008-04-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

So, I had a particularly bad episode this last Wednesday, which included a long conversation with my mom on the phone and a bunch of lost hours. There comes a certain point in my evening when I think "Gee. I should probably stop drinking. I am about to cross the line." Of course, perversely, 9/10 times I instead try to trick my body by drinking even faster. Take that body. Or brain. Wait...who is running the show here?

Anyway, 2 cigarettes and a bunch of ill-advised yet extremely typical self induced vomiting later, I woke up with an incredibly incredibly bad hangover. Like the kind where all you can do is stare at the hundreds of bottles on your counter, and think about throwing some trash on the floor to match. I helplessly opened the fridge every half hour or so and looked desperately at my cat for advice. No amount of coffee or vitamin water fixes this kind of hangover. It is an anomaly in the drinking sphere. Not only do you regret what you remember of the night before, but you don't even get to file it away in the past. You feel just as bad, if not worse, than when you decided to call it a night after hitting your head on the bathroom floor the previous evening. Except now, instead of the prospect of hours of drooling, corpse-like sleep, you have hours of penitential time in which to be awake, waiting as the alcohol slowly squeezes out of each of the pores of your body.

There is no denying, as you emerge from the shower feeling no more alive and stare into your desperate, bloated face in the mirror, that the drinking is no longer helping. That it may in fact be part of why you feel like most of your life is made up of irrationally painful situations and hopeless spiraling loops of the same behavior. It's as though you have spent all this time trying to drink your way into communicating how much you feel ostracized, isolated, miserable, bitter, resentful, disgusting, crazy, until you wake up one day, and you are all of those things.

As a result, I sat at my computer on Thursday morning, having slept restlessly until 11 oclock. I had meant to join a conference call that I knew was going to be taking place at 10, but the idea of voluntarily participating in anything gleaned nothing from my drowned, stuttering brain but derision and mental bottle throwing. I sat there on the ground drinking stale water out of some other day's water glass, and as I looked at the ceiling to finish the last of it, two tears squeezed out of the corners of my eyes.

Bodega

2008-04-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

Bodega cashier I see 4 to 5 times a week: "How many times a day do people tell you that you're beautiful?"

K: "A lot actually."

BC: "Well, God made you beautiful for a reason."

K: "Yeah....but sometimes I wonder. Would anyone talk to me if I wasn't?"

BC: [[completely engaged in something else]]

Travelling for work is like

2008-04-07T19:37:00.000-07:00

One tuna steak with peppercorn cream sauce
Three pieces of grilled asparagus
One ramekin of potatoes au gratin

One half bottle of sauvignon blanc

$105 dollars via room service

Eaten and then thrown up shortly thereafter
This is not a metaphor
I hate you all

Thcallops

2008-03-20T13:09:00.001-07:00

K: Um, can you remind me....why
did I used to say to you, "I come from the thea!"
Exboyfriend: Because you were pretending to be a scallop?
K: Oh! Right! And then I would bat all twenty of my beautiful eyelashes for you.
Exboyfriend: So you've just been walking around saying that, without knowing where it came from? You little scallops are so silly sometimes.

Current state of unhappiness

2008-03-19T10:02:00.000-07:00

My therapist told me yesterday that I didn't seem happy (commenting as a side note, "Not that you ever seem *happy.*" shortly thereafter). This has started me thinking...what exactly am I unhappy about lately?

I think the first thing I'm trying to deal with is my issue with a former colleague who made sexual advances towards me...and who is still trying to maintain a close relationship with me after the fact. At the time, I tried to smooth it out and make it as "not a big deal" as possible...but now that I'm no longer in a position to have to work with this person...I absolutely want nothing to do with them. The only problem is, I still have to deal with them in a work context to some extent.

I'm completely horrified that that whole incident occurred, to this day. I wish I could do more than allude to it on here, but los internets do not forgive our casual slips of the tongue. Suffice it to say that, this incident as well as one that happened to a friend of mind at work with someone else, have completely crushed any belief I might have had that people are able to transcend their impulsive desires and do what's right.

I realize that I'm being totally holier than thou by saying this, but I really feel like in the world men are constantly using their positions of power to exploit the imagined sexual availability of the women around them. I know that this resonates with me because of my ongoing continually misplaced search for a father figure who doesn't emotionally wound or sexually abuse me. I'm not having much luck, to be completely honest.

The second and more superficial thing I'm thinking about lately is something I think Papagayo unwittingly keeps hitting on, much to my dismay. With the (pretty successful) Keetens Quits Smoking, 2008, campaign has come an increasing awareness of food and food's role in my life. It has recently become clear to me that I am obsessively obsessed with food. Part of my quitting smoking this time was an effort to try and stop doing self destructive things...but I feel myself sliding into unhealthy eating behaviors.

In regard to Papagayo, his multiple allusions to how in shape I used to be when I lived in Chicago are contributing to a subconsciously ever-mounting sense of insecurity about my body. I realize that that probably wasn't his intent at all...and that I'm just a very negative person. In terms of practicality though...on the one hand, why do I want to be more attractive to people on the street, whose attention frightens and embarrasses me, and makes me flash back to being an overly tall gawky teenager. On the other hand...I do spend a lot of time strategically figuring out what clothing to wear.

I feel like I walk 5 miles a day...shouldn't that be enough to deal with the weight issue? I guess I have to start doing 30 minutes of abdominal exercise again. Joy. I hate having to exercise and watch what I eat and still be unhappy about my appearance. I wonder if that's true for actresses and models? I bet it is. We are all boring and sad.

Discomfort

2008-03-17T12:51:00.000-07:00

So, I am seriously in love with new boyfriend. I think he is the greatest person ever. And our relationship is suspiciously open and rewarding.

But I'm really not used to positively engaging in relationships. I like to ferret out flaws in the other person/in our interactions that I guess psychologically make it not as bad for us to break up eventually. So...I'm not doing that right now. But I have this overwhelming sense of foreboding. I kind of wish the whole thing would just crash and burn already.

Wait, no I don't. I mean I don't really, but am kind of bewildered...lets just say. It's kind of scary. We were sitting at breakfast the other day, talking about where we will live when we live together, agreeing that we should go out for at least a year before we do that. I feel a lot of imagined pressure from the world in general that jumping from one boyfriend to another like this is stupid and will eventually be the reason people cite for the relationship failing. I think that's retarded and circumstantial on the one hand, because no relationship is ever going to have been born out of the perfect situation. And it's not like either of us forced this one. And actually, there is no other hand. I'm confident that if this relationship doesn't work out, it's not because I didn't wait a mourning period between boyfriends. Societal pressure is so hard to ignore.

I think the thing that's scaring me the most is that I am not confident when it comes to relationships right now. I probably more than almost anyone didn't think my last one would end...I am unable to see outside of my current situation without a crazy manic episode to propel me to a new place. But that makes me not trust my own judgment anymore. I was so wrong about that...chances are I'm going to be so wrong about this.

I also still experience some discomfort and displeasure at purely happy feelings or people being genuinely nice to me. It kind of creeps me out...because I am very suspicious of their motives. So dealing with people's emotions as straightforward and uncomplex is also very challenging. Especially when my reaction is practically gagging when given a compliment. Or what I'm supposed to *perceive* as a compliment.

But I guess rationality has no real place in terms of loving someone else. Or maybe it does...if you feel like the positive benefits now and for the foreseeable future outweigh rethinking your entire life, and buying your 8th set of Ikea bookcases, then rationally it is worth doing. However, I'm not really convinced of that at this point in my life....being as I'm still paying off said Ikea bookcases from the last marriage.

Small victories

2008-03-14T05:06:00.000-07:00

Dear B,
So, I would normally keep something like this to myself, because it falls into the "overly intense girl emotions" category, but I would probably kick myself later for wasting the opportunity.

I think I eventually told you when we were in high school that I had loved you and thought you were wonderful since the moment I met you. However, because I had no idea what I was doing at the time, I had no idea what a normal person would do in that situation. I sort of assumed everyone around me didn't care about me and acted kind of heartlessly as a result.

I realize you could very easily be like "Um, it's weird for you to still care about this 10 years later." That's okay. I just wanted to straighten things out. Once I understood how callous I used to be growing up, the thing with you always stuck out to me as a particularly painful regret.

Anyway...I'm sorry. I hope you know what I mean.
<3 keetens
-------------------
Keetens,
I think that it is really great of you to have written me this message. When I consider the fact that I hurt your feelings (and I've thought about this many times since then and now) I really wish that I could change the way I acted. I hope that my sincerity can be read through my words, and the only way that I can really contextualize the way I feel is by citing the process of internal castigation I inherited from my Catholic mother regarding each and every little mistake I've made in my life.

So yes, in my opinion you made the right decision to write me about this, if for no other reason then you giving me the chance to apologize, proving that the "overly intense" emotions you refer to are not as particularly gender specific as you might first have thought.

While I take the responsibility directly, I also want to plead a certain amount of inexperience with handling complex emotions circa age 16. Those were really developmental years for both of us, I think, and women often forget the exhaustive pressures on men (both culturally implicit and socially explicit) to act in certain ways. Moreover, I look back to those times as years (and I think you can relate to this) when I was really searching for ways to challenge cultural conventions. My idea regarding selfless expressions of physical sensuality among friends with little recourse or sense of responsibility is something that got me into bad places more than in just this instance. But hindsight is 20/20 I suppose, and if I could see you now I promise that I would give you a big big hug, a kiss on the cheek, and readily agree with you all afternoon that men are jerks.

I'm not sure really what else to say. I hope that this begins to approach the apology that you deserve. I am coming back to New York in August and, if you'd like, I would be more than willing to treat you to a coffee or lunch at your favorite spot.

I'm really glad you decided to get in touch with me, and you should feel free to contact me anytime/keep me on your friend list.

All my best,
B

Life is littered with many regrets

2008-03-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, I moved to a new city. I was 14 years old. Shortly after the move, I became inseparable with a girl whom I had a very intense best friend relationship with. When I was still confused about what was going on, we were taking the bus to the mall. On the bus was a boy with the most beautiful hazel eyes I had ever seen. I remember that I looked right into them, and he looked right into mine. I of course was in love, and thought that maybe the move wasn't such a bad idea after all.

I didn't really know how to follow up on this, plus I was busy with other stuff like not being made fun of EVER by ANYONE. I got a job at a deli in town and began dating a boy I worked with. I actually actively found him to be ridiculous, if attractive, but I am contrary and shallow so I often date people for whom I have those kinds of feelings.

Shortly thereafter, I found out that this boy was best friends with the boy I had briefly met on the bus. It was then that I began to feel I had made a serious mistake. To me, original boy was now forever out of my reach. In addition, I had no idea of how to function in a relationship at the time. I dumped job-boyfriend soon after.

I think a year went by, during which period I began dating someone else, who was beginning college in another state. I planned on spending the summer with him. Because I had the view that there was no reason not to cheat on someone you will eventually break up with, I think I cheated on this boyfriend a total of 40 times in the 2-3 years we dated. We broke up when I got to college, in the fall.

Two days before my departure for what was to be the loneliest, angriest, most painful (UTI) summer I would ever experience, I met original boy at a carnival. Carnivals were big in my town because you could go and drink and hang out with your friends, and kids from other schools would come. This boy was from the next town over. I met him there, and decided that I would be sleeping with him tomorrow. We made plans to see each other.

I went to his house in the afternoon. We spent a fair amount of awkward time together, with me being my cavalier uncomfortable "I might be having sex with you" self for the immediate present. Eventually this became difficult to sustain and things grew quieter.

This boy was probably the only sincerely nice person I met in high school. He was also the first person to tell me he thought I was beautiful, and to touch a part of my inner self that most people (certainly at the time) don't see or know is there.

Clearly, if I have a hard time dealing with this now (which I do), I was completely unable to cope at the time. Though I was superficially touched, it was only in the "Wow, this person is giving me free rein to manipulate them. Why would someone be so stupid?" I had sex with him, and then promptly began hitting on his friend later that evening. Then I left the state and came back 3 months later, not having spoken to him the entire time. Why would I, was the thought.

Hanging out at the beach with some spoiled rich kids, I came upon the boy's friend (who I would also make a play for in the coming year). He mentioned that he knew what happened, and didn't really want to talk to me b/c I had done that to boy. Apparently, when boy found out I had had a boyfriend the whole time, he was sad and hurt.

I, for my part, was shocked. It was the first time in my life where my theory "No one cares about you and you should hurt everyone as much as possible" was proven wrong. This was probably the first moment of my life that I began to have a complex understanding of the world.
I had no idea that I had in my hands an amazing, wonderful person...and I was throwing him away as if he didn't matter. I didn't know how rare that was. I also didn't know that I would come to think of this incident, and a handful of other similar blunders, among the great regrets of my life.

I was thinking of it the other day, and when I came to work I googled him and found him. And then I emailed him my thoughts. Tomorrow, I will post our back and forth.

Celebrity dieting

2008-03-13T09:43:00.000-07:00

So, I was reading an article on Jezebel today about the real way celebrities get skinny. Obvs they don't eat and go to the gym all the time...but apparently some of them also check into the hospital and get put on an IV so they don't *have* to eat. Is it wrong that part of me is like "yes...that is what I should do."

I'm not really a fan of starvation diets because I think they don't really work, they're bad for your body, and punishing yourself like that is a bad addiction that I don't want to have to struggle with. I try to eat healthy foods and hope for the best. I think my fear of fast food might be a little insane, but that shit makes my stomach hurt so I think that must mean something. Once I passed the age of 18, what I ate actually started to make a difference on how I felt. Even if I wasn't afraid of getting fat, eating cheeseburgers and pizza everyday makes me feel run down and cranky.

That's why I'm sort of disturbed by the fact that I REALLY WANT to check into a hospital and get an IV put in. It seems like such a good idea to me. Just in time for bathing suit season.

keetens (12:50:06 PM): did you know that celebrities check into hospitals and get an IV put in, and that's how they become so thin?
D (12:50:15 PM): What?!
D (12:50:20 PM): That's crazy
D(12:50:27 PM): and retarded
D (12:50:32 PM): maybe i will try it

I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!

2008-03-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

After a particularly bad night last week, in which three cigarettes were smoked, vodka was drunk like water, and fresh wounds appeared on my body, I decided that I should get a handle on my drinking problem. For those of you who might think I don't *have* a drinking problem, remember that I am also very secretive but hardly ever not realistic.

So far I've gone two nights without really drinking at all. Yes, I realize that's not a lot. But for someone who NEVER doesn't drink to passing out, that is kind of a big deal. I don't feel like I've had more energy either of those days, and I am almost positive this is because when I don't drink, I dream incessantly about rape and murder.

I could barely stay asleep last night. I would wake up, drenched in sweat, only to plunge back into an alternate world where for some reason--and this is confusing and disturbing to me--my rapist was my exboyfriend. I don't specifically understand why this is. I actually don't attribute much fear to our relationship. Maybe its just, our relationship ended and I am uneasy at how much he knows about me/how much power he holds over me.

But truthfully he doesn't really hold that much power. I mean I care about him as a person, but I in no way regret my decision. Although my dreams last night were flush with people who I had slept with, and trying to decide whether I blew it by not keeping them in my life. Am I really this conflicted subconsciously? I don't feel like I am. If anything I'm conflicted in all other areas except for this one.

My therapist thinks its important for me to keep writing things down.

Email I sent my mom today, because I am a masochist

2008-02-28T10:05:00.001-08:00

Email helps me to figure out what I want to say and the best way to say it. Things get too emotional in person, for me, when I have these kinds of discussions with you. I hope you will make an exception, because otherwise I don't know how I will continue talking about this.

If you would have rather {boyfriend} didn't come on Sunday you should have said so over the phone. I would have been happy to make that happen. What I don't want is for you to be silently unhappy about it. The only reason he came is because he wants to get to know you. I didn't mean for you to feel as though you weren't a priority for me. That's not the way I feel.

What I don't think is fair is your implication that I'm being selfish. I don't mean to have less time lately, and I don't want to make excuses....but stopping smoking for me has involved addressing many of my unhealthy behaviors, and its very difficult. I'm very depressed, and I don't feel like leaving my house, having a conversation, or doing much of anything. I want to be a better person, and address the ways in which I'm severely unhappy...but it is taking up most of my energy right now.

On a higher level, your general opinion of me that I'm selfish and unfeeling hurts me and makes me afraid that if I do something you don't like, you will withdraw from me entirely. Like our entire relationship gets tossed out the first time we don't see eye to eye. Maybe you don't realize the degree to which your opinion affects me, but accusations like that, and the implication that I don't care, make me I feel like I have no worth. But I don't want to build up defenses around my emotions and withdraw in order to cope with this...I just want to address it and let you know that it really upsets me.

I hope that you take all this seriously and think of me as your child who is in need of your love and understanding.