full of moxie and viscosity

And this is my life. People ask me daily if I like "here," if I'm going to stay, how I ended up here. I feel like the answers to all of those questions would take so much TIME to say.

Do I like it here?
Of course I do, I'm still here, right? But hell no, I hate it, where are my good friends and boys? And yes, it's incredible, I write all the time, it's perfect, exactly what I want. So, to answer your question, yes, no, of course, maybe.

Am I going to stay?
In what way? Emotionally? Probably not. Physically? Yes! I can't move anywhere now, I'm too set on this novel project. Mentally? Jury's out. Artistically? Definitely.

How did I end up here?
Read the novel.


Also: many, many thanks to Micah Bedrosian for his incredibly insightful and calming comments about the first 20 pages of the novel that he read. He gave me SO much to think about in a really accessible and appropriate way. He's so smart and his comments were right on. You're the Jew, Micah, you're the Jew.

Another dream, this one very bittersweet.
I haven't heard from Mark in months. It just so happens he went on tour with ol' what's his face, and ever since then, he refuses to call me back or return my emails. I was really upset for about a month and then I realized I don't have a choice, so I kind of let it go. Anyway, last night, here was my dream:

My family is visiting New York. We're staying with family friends but Justin is there and so is Mark and some other jazz people. We hang out for a long time but as we're leaving I tell my mom I need to talk to Mark before we go. I asked him why he hasn't called me back and he said that it was because I started out as an 8 in intelligence and once I got up to an 11 or a 12, then he knew he had to stop because we'd always fight and never really come to any kind of conclusion about anything. He said he was mad that we never "completed a date" and that he stopped calling because it was just easier. I look at his face, really carefully, and see that I care about him so much and I never really let myself see that before. I kiss him. I ask for my subscription back, if I could please, please have my Mark subscription back. He kisses me back and says of course. Then I leave.

I have:

conjunctivitis

no money

a gross cough

a dissociative disorder that has strangely surfaced this week for the first time in a while...

no idea where this tape is of me singing mariah carey when I was ten... I have a slow, sinking feeling telling me that I left it at someone's house who will definitely NOT know where it is...

to go to work tomorrow whether I have a gross cough or conjunctivitis or not because I have no money

no reason to be whining this much

to write on my novel more, he's getting mad that I don't pay attention to him

to warn you that this is only for the faint of heart: my conjunctivitis

I know, I know. SUPER GROSS. Try having that be YOU.

I encountered the stupidest people EVER this week.
One guy wasn't offensively stupid, but he sat there, slack-jawed, spouting cliches, whilst I attempted to hold a conversation with him. I don't even know how to comment on him, other than to say I spoke with him for a good hour and have absolutely NOTHING of substance to bring from it. I can't even remember his name.

The other instance was seriously offensive. Two mid-forties people, a man and a woman, in the bar where Portland Idol was being held (I didn't audition for lack of time, but fear not, Romans and countrymen... there's always next week!). The conversation started off innocently enough, but then suddenly they were saying Negro and Spic and mentioning how many Mexicans there are in Portland. I (again, innocently enough) said how, comparatively, the Southern and Central California regions are markedly more racially diverse than the Pacific Northwest.

They DISAGREED. They said that I hadn't lived here long enough to know what I was talking about. They said that Portland was really, really racially diverse and that there are tons of black and Mexican people ("look behind you. See? a black man AND a Mexican.") And then, when I was explaining where I grew up, they LAUGHED at me when I said I was from Fresno, as though Fresno was not a true California city. The lady asked "How old are you, sweetheart?" as though my youth would somehow shed light onto the RIDICULOUS comment I had made... and then she went on to kindly explain to me that the "numerous farms in the Portland area really give the immigrants a place to work. Oregon needs lots of workers, so that's why the Mexicans come here."

I even went as far as to offer up a new thesis for agreement sake: perhaps they would buy that Portland was much less racially INTEGRATED than Los Angeles? No. They LAUGHED at me, as though they could literally not believe the mush coming from my mouth.

I seriously wanted to leave the bar, go online and print them census reports from 2003 and maps denoting racial integration in all areas and shove it up their ignorant, white, outspoken bullshit asses.

I'm in Vegas with all of my high school friends. I have brought with me a random Internet date who ends up being from San Diego. I don't think he's attractive. He has frosted tips in his hair. We all sit down to dinner and fall asleep. I wake up at 3:50 and remember that I have to leave at 6:00. I go into the dining room where the table has turned into a long bed and take Mary Ellyson's place at the table next to Kern. As I try to fall asleep, I nestle into his crook. He starts kissing my neck and shoulders. He turns into Bruno Pitton. Then I start waking people up because it's time to go out (we are similar to Sex and the City at this point somehow) and we all start getting ready. I have a huge, beautiful hotel room but the doors are open to the rest of the hotel and some strange men come in. A woman brings me a cord for my laptop that is half as long as the cord had been before. I am reminded that Bruno is married to Mary Steenbergen. I read the back of the novel they co-wrote and it says that Bruno is going to stay with her until she dies. At least. I go into Lily's room and she's written an outline of a postcard she wants to write to someone. I'm there under "RR" and then it says "liberation, picking?" and a picture of a heart. I touch Mary Ellyson's face and say that it's wan, but i pronounce it wahn instead of wayan and Jenny Cole corrects me. I also tell her that I mispronounce assuage all the time as assuahge instead of assuayage.

two shifts today of making drinks
steaming milk
talking to strangers
who are not strangers anymore
but still, strange.

wondering if i need assets. not just for the sake of having material objects,
but so that i can OWN something. like how people used to own land. it meant something.
what do i own? ownership is a strange thing.
materially, i don't own much. some clothes, books. jewelry.
i borrow a car
borrow housing
borrowed a degree
maybe it is time to stop borrowing
and really take responsibility for the things i need.

there is something to be said for taking advantage of advantageous situations, but there is also something to be said for independence.

thinking hard tonight about money, future, apartments, cars, and happiness.

The Valentine I got from my father (some things are totally immeasurably great) :

The movie was by Bernardo Bertolucci. The Dreamers. We leave the theater thinking about erections and menstrual blood and revolutions. I feel Parisian, young, and the rain outside doesn’t help my delusions. The air is clean. I am warm. My skin is softer than usual, and I feel the need to spin around hugging myself in the rain, but I don’t. We walk down stone steps and turn the wrong way down a street.

“Aren’t we on 10th?” Melinda keeps walking anyway.

“Yeah, isn’t it that way?” I try to turn but she shakes her head.

As we walk by a row of trees, spiky with tiny branches, something makes me stop. Behind me. I’ve left something colorful behind me.

“Wait.”I turn and walk back two trees. There it is. A perfect, short-stemmed red rose. Perched daintily on a branch. Dangling between two small twigs. This really is a movie. The rose has a layer of beaded water on the petals. It looks fake. Is it?

Melinda follows, asks, “Where did that come from?”

“I don’t know.” I pick it up, then put it back and reach into my bag to take a picture of it. After a few shots I lift it from its nest and hold it in my hand.

I have found another red rose. This Valentine’s Day I am not going to be concerned with black silky dresses or reservations. These words are my decision.

This depressing day is grey. Greyer than the months of grey skies had been. A totally different kind of grey. I had to expect that with all of the sunshiney inside feelings I'd been feeling that this day would come. And here it is- the day of grey. I'll be better in about 4 hours. Workout, dinner, movie, drinks. I'll be much, much better. Thank God for Melinda Ball and her caustic attitude and faboo sense of humor. I'd be in the fetal position otherwise.

Does anyone have:
$1700 for my blown head gasket on my car
ideas on how I can stop being afraid of having good old fashioned fun
some wire to wire my mouth shut
a novel I can borrow and pawn off as my own
nail clippers (yeah, we're back to THAT)
peace of mind?

"Don't be too polite to the icebreaker cutie. You can just say"No, you are much remotely outlandish, and I may worry about other things, like size fit", and I can't slap on your butt anyway. Chances are, you could possibly miss an opportunity to be enlightened. Jesus and Buddha can't come to you yet. But I am still open to you honey little."

And yet I still continue to allow myself to be exposed to internet dating. Even with these kinds of responses to my profile.

My big boss Dave is the best person ever. After talking to him yesterday, my skin is a little thicker (yes, mother was right, sometimes you need a thick skin...) and my perspective is shifted a little. Thanks, Dave, you made a big difference. I'm here to make money, right? Not to worry about that kind of shit. It's all about corporate culture. Well, corporate culture is only people. Some of them utilize the control pad of the culture a little more than others, and you just have to move around them or through them and deal with them. Then you can continue on as before.

In other news, exercise is like heroin candy (kudos to kyle wade for that term).

Not to sound dramatic, but I'm seriously considering whether or not I want to stay working where I'm working. Money is money and I can get it other places. Today they told me that my singing is annoying the people around me. Letter a) I didn't even know I was singing that much and letter b) I don't think I can really help that. I am going to have to put in a CONCERTED effort to stop that from happening. I've already spent about a thousand bucks getting a new wardrobe for work, and now I have to work on paying very close attention to what comes out of my mouth at any given moment. This is very uncool. See below post for further reasons why I do not want to continue this nonsense. I've worked too long and too hard to figure out who I am to be this stifled. Dramatic, yes I am. Upset, yes I am. Most likely shit out of luck, yes I am.

On the gold rhino that looks over me while I work every day, I post an uninspirational message each week. In writing an email to Keith today, I posted one message at the bottom of the mail. He thought I was serious and asked me to explain myself. As it turns out, this uninspirational message actually had a seed of complexity within it... and here is what happened when I responded.

"You aren't being paid to believe in the power of your dreams."

alright, the statement is a joke, really, that's just a quote i found on an uninspirational website. however. i find it ironic that i joke about it because in all honesty, it's pretty true. in this world, we are no longer paid to believe in our own dreams or aspirations. instead, when we're born, we're given options, structures, ideals that we are told we can find dreams within. does that make sense? this is very specific to me-- i would like to write, all day long, sing sometimes, take photographs, play with children, run in the freaking meadows of the beautiful country i live in and indulge in sexual pleasures. that's my dream life. but in order to do just ONE of those things (and fit the other things in on OCCASION), i have to work 40 hours a week in marketing (not that i don't like this job, but it's very much against my grain), and weekends at starbucks, just to pay for the education that i will eventually need if i want to do the other stuff more frequently or if i want to get paid to write. i'm not getting paid to believe in the power of my dreams. i'm getting paid to fill a cookie cutter mold that someone else decided was necessary for this company. lucky for me, i still believe in the power of my dreams, and i'm still going to plug away after them regardless of what i'm getting paid for. i made the conscious decision to subscribe to this corporate lifestyle because i don't have to think about my dreams whilst i work here.

some people dream about being a part of corporate america. but i ask the endless question, what if they never knew corporate america existed? what would our dreams look like if we sat inside of a box? which dreams are inherent to us as individuals and which dreams are inherent to us as societal creations?

Contemplating online dating today. I do it a lot, for those of you who didn't know, I am a straight MANIAC when it comes to Internet dating. In all honesty, I haven't stopped since I got here. When I first moved to the 'Couve, my uncle Timmy was on Match.com and he found the woman of his dreams since then. I decided it was a good idea, got on Match.com and Yahoo! Personals and Friendster. For all intents and purposes, I have had some damn good luck with both of the personals sites. Friendster doesn't count. I don't really search on either of the personals things anymore, but I do check my mail on the Yahoo one.

I've met some interesting characters- most of whom were intelligent, attractive, humorous and all in all, very entertaining. It seems strange to have met them off of the Internet, but I feel like it's just as random as meeting someone at a bar. The only difference is, I know if they can spell correctly and I know that they like (or at least can handle) computers. I don't see the problem. People are so quick to judge online dating, like it's somehow more sketchy. If you met someone at a bar, all you really know is that they like alcohol and meat markets. How is that less sketchy? I don't know why I'm trying to defend my practices, there hasn't been any recent uprising against online dating or anything, I just wanted to talk about it for a minute and pre-defend myself to anyone who wants to give me shit for it.

And for the record, the guys I've met in person have been far less interesting, intelligent, humorous or technologically savvy. So there. MORE POWER TO THE ONLINE DATERS OF THIS WORLD! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!