And they whirl and they twirl and they tango

2007-08-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

2007-02-12T18:35:00.000-08:00

Oh, good.

2006-12-29T18:12:00.000-08:00

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Emails at Work, Part 2

2006-12-27T12:19:00.000-08:00

My loves, my only joy, my clients,

Are you in the market for an old, used, beige, enormous, bulky, multi-function fax machine? Then may I recommend the stunning JetFax M5 with Powerscan Multifunction Machine? And you won't believe the price--it's practically free! You don't have to give me one cent. All you have to do is hold me for 20-30 seconds while I weep violently (my therapist is out of town this week).

I couldn't find a picture of it on the internet, which may have something to do with the fact that it was built before cameras were invented, but I'd be more than happy to show it to you. If you don't think you could use it for its original multi-functions, then it could also be used as an extra chair, a decorative antique showpiece, or a bludgeoning device.

Act now! Don't let this beauty slip away!

(A) YOU EXPRESSLY AGREE THAT USE OF JETFAX M5 IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. NEITHER -------, NOR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYEES, WARRANT THAT JETFAX M5 WILL BE ERROR FREE; NOR DO THEY MAKE ANY WARRANTY AS TO THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM USE OF JETFAX M5, OR AS TO THE ACCURACY, RELIABILITY OR CONTENT OF ANY INFORMATION, OR SERVICE PROVIDED THROUGH JETFAX M5

(B) JETFAX M5 IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTIES OF TITLE OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OTHER THAN THOSE WARRANTIES WHICH ARE IMPLIED BY AND INCAPABLE OF EXCLUSION, RESTRICTION OR MODIFICATION UNDER THE LAWS APPLICABLE TO THIS AGREEMENT.

(C) THIS DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY APPLIES TO ANY DAMAGES OR INJURY CAUSED BY ANY FAILURE OF PERFORMANCE, ERROR, OMISSION, INTERRUPTION, DELETION, DEFECT, DELAY IN OPERATION OR TRANSMISSION, COMMUNICATION LINE FAILURE, THEFT OR DESTRUCTION OR UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO, ALTERATION OF, OR USE OF RECORD, WHETHER FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT, TORTIOUS BEHAVIOR, NEGLIGENCE, OR UNDER ANY OTHER CAUSE OF ACTION.

(D) IN NO EVENT WILL -------- OR ANY PERSON OR ENTITY INVOLVED IN CREATING, PRODUCING OR DISTRIBUTING JETFAX M5, BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE JETFAX M5. YOU HEREBY ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE PROVISIONS OF THIS SECTION SHALL APPLY TO ALL CONTENT ON JETFAX M5.

(E) IN ADDITION TO THE TERMS SET FORTH ABOVE NEITHER -------, NOR ITS EMPLOYEES SHALL BE LIABLE REGARDLESS OF THE CAUSE OR DURATION, FOR ANY ERRORS, INACCURACIES, OMISSIONS, OR OTHER DEFECTS IN, OR UNTIMELINESS OR UNAUTHENTICITY OF, THE INFORMATION CONTAINED WITHIN JETFAX M5, OR FOR ANY DELAY OR INTERRUPTION IN THE TRANSMISSION THEREOF TO THE USER, OR FOR ANY CLAIMS OR LOSSES ARISING THEREFROM OR OCCASIONED THEREBY. NONE OF THE FOREGOING PARTIES SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY THIRD-PARTY CLAIMS OR LOSSES OF ANY NATURE, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, LOST PROFITS, PUNITIVE OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES.

Emails at Work, Part 1

2006-12-27T12:15:00.000-08:00

Sarah,

I would like for you to read this email I just received. It is my belief after reading it that the man who wrote it is actually an alien posing as an insurance agent. Note my comments below.

From: Larry ----
To: (Muskrat)
Subject: Assitance with mailing

Cassandra,
This is Larry with ------. Our remote system is down so this is my personal email. Can you give me a price on stuffing about 125 envelopes for a mailout.

Respond to this email please.

Take the time today to listen to a child.
Larry ----

The whole email is utterly strange, definitely like someone trying to sound like a human but not quite succeeding. He hasn't yet learned the lesson on question marks, and he doesn't realize that his name will already appear both in my inbox and also in his signature, thus rendering the greeting "this is Larry" completely superfluous. The most interesting part is the line "Respond to this email please." What did he think was going to happen if he didn't type that sentence? That I would just read the email and say, "Well, he clearly asked me a question and needs a response, but nowhere in this email did he directly ask me to respond, therefore as much as it pains me to leave him in the dark, I will simply have to ignore his email and hope that the answer comes to him another way"?

I don't want space invaders in my executive office suite, Sarah. I will not stand for it.

A Tribute to Patton Oswalt: The Comedians' Poet

2006-12-18T13:32:00.000-08:00

"At Black Angus, we'll start you off with our appetizer platter, featuring five jumbo deep-fried gulf shrimp, served on a disc of salted butter, with fifteen of our potato bacon bombs, and a big bowl of pork cracklins, with our cheese and butter dippin' sauce."

"Uhh...we're all gonna split that--"

"OH, YOU'LL EACH GET YOUR OWN! Then we'll take you to our mile-long soup and salad bar, featuring bacon and cheese cream soup and our five-head of iceberg lettuce He-Man salad, served in a punch bowl, with 18 pounds of ranch dressing, pork-stuffed deep fried croutons, and what the hell, a couple of corn dogs!"

"Uhh...hey, man, I'll tell you what, I'll just...I'll get like a mixed green salad."

"Hey, I'll suck a cock on the Golden Gate bridge before I bring you a mixed green, buddy!"

"I--what? I--"

"Then we'll wheel out our bottomless trough of fried dough!"

"I--wha? Wait a minute. Am I getting a steak?"

"Oh, you'll get a fuckin' steak! 'Cause then we'll bring out our 55-ounce Los Mesa He-Man steak slab, served with a deep-fried pumpkin stuffed with buttered scallops, and 53 of our potato bacon bombs."

"Oh, dude, I don't think--"

"And then bend over, Abigail May, 'cause here comes the gravy pipe!"

"I--wh-what?

"Black Angus. Doors are locked from the outside, faggot!!"

We'll see...

2006-12-07T19:10:00.000-08:00

Hey [Area Director for our Company],

We here at the [our office] were torn over whether or not the following message would be an appropriate invitation to our Holiday Party. While the message is designed with the intention of offending no one, the possibility was raised that it might offend those who are offended by those who try to avoid offense. We therefore send it to you for your opinion:

While [our company] neither promotes nor denigrates the celebration of any religious holidays and respectfully recognizes not only the equal validity of all religions and celebrations thereof, but also the equal validity of those who do not adopt, practice, or follow any religion and/or those who are undecided on whether or not they adopt, practice, or follow a religion and/or any religious, nonreligious, or semi-religious individual who decides for whatever reason that he or she does not wish to participate in celebrations on, near, or inspired by religion, nonetheless we have reached a time of the year when many offices around the country tend to celebrate a "Holiday Party," which is to be considered a non-offensive, unaffiliated, festive end-of-the-year event, brought to the members of an office with the intention that none of the individuals in said office should be alienated by the celebration for any reason whatsoever, including but not limited to race, color, creed, nationality, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, while still recognizing that those who are for any reason offended by the celebration hold a viewpoint as valid as those who are not offended, and so we at [the company] cordially invite you to our "Holiday Celebration," the invitation being made with the caveat that the word "holiday" is meant solely to refer to the myriad holidays surrounding the season and refers to no holiday in particular, nor does it imply that those individuals who do not celebrate any holidays during this time of year are unequal in any way to those that do choose to celebrate actively, passively, or both. What?

I wish I were a little girl again

2006-12-07T08:19:00.000-08:00

I use the word "fuck" a lot in this post

2006-11-30T16:51:00.000-08:00

I'm really starting to understand why Jeff was in such a bad mood all the time when he worked for Northwest Lawn. It doesn't matter how much your job pays; when you work these kinds of hours, you want to kill the first person you see after you leave work. I have to work from 8:00am until AT LEAST 10:00pm tomorrow. And at least Jeff got to surf the internet while he was at work; I will be reprogramming the entire voicemail system from square fucking ONE.

And it will fuck up. Don't worry about that. It WILL fuck up. And then I'll have clients calling my cell phone all weekend, telling me that they can't access their voicemail because our Telcoms technicians have no fucking clue what they're doing. Of course, none of the clients can call THEM. The evil-ass multinational corporate fucks that I work for made damn sure that everyone in corporate is un-fucking-touchable, while I, a motherfucking ENGLISH MAJOR, have people screaming at me to fix problems that only a network engineer is trained to fix.

And are the people in the office understanding? Sometimes, but what does it matter? I can think of four companies just off the top of my head with satellite offices in my suite who rank at the top of the Fortune 500. Do you think enormous, soulless corporations like that wait patiently while a 25-year-old girl with scuffed heels re-cables their T1 connections? NO. They have their bullshit, outsourced, idiotic IT fucks call me at all hours of the day and bitch at me. It's all I can do not to hand them the number of OUR bullshit, outsourced, idiotic IT fucks and let them try to verbally fuck each other in the ass.

FUCK THIS FUCKING JOB!!!!!!!!!!

God damn, I make a sexy man

2006-11-17T09:54:00.000-08:00

One Toke Over the Line, Sweet Jesus

2006-10-26T17:05:00.000-07:00

Perhaps my long stint as a volunteer for a crisis/suicide hotline has left me biased, but I have to say that most people aren't very skilled at talking their fellow human beings down from the ledge. During my ongoing stint with "suicidal ideation," I've had the opportunity to talk to several well-meaning friends who very much want to help me, but just end up making me more depressed. Today, for instance, I was talking to a friend over lunch about my depression and my suicidal thoughts, and she fired off several tactics which she seemed sure would cure me in five minutes. I decided to start categorizing them and list them here, to help others who find themselves chatting with a friend who's holding a full bottle of Vicodin. Here are the most common reactions to the admission of suicidal thoughts, and I'd like to advise my readers to avoid them at all costs, because they don't help. AT ALL.

1. "You're so great." No. Guess what? I'm not great. Or I may be great, but I don't realize it, and hearing you tell me that isn't going to help. Why not? Because people who are suicidal despise themselves so much that compliments nauseate us. We start looking at you like you have something wrong with you for liking us. Suicidal people have so completely convinced themselves of their worthlessness that they've got a ready counterargument for anything nice you might have to say. So don't waste your time.

2. "Suicide is the cowardly way out." Suicidal people are suicidal precisely because they think there is NO OTHER WAY OUT. There's not a choice between cowardly and brave. And I can't believe I have to say this, but insulting anyone at the end of his/her mental rope is not the way to win them back to the side of life. And on that note, don't say:

3. "Suicide is so selfish." Thanks. Not only do I hate myself and want to die, now I'm selfish, too. Take your tough love and shove it up your mentally stable ass.

4. "So what's causing this?" I know this is a really tempting question to ask, but try to avoid phrasing it in this way. Most people considering suicide, unless it's during the heat of passion (fight, breakup, whatever), have a lot of things wrong over a long period of time, some of which they understand and some of which they don't. They don't want a friend to try and figure out a singular cause and then talk them out of it. "Oh, so, you have low-self esteem? Well, you should exercise, that really boosts my confidence!" Deep, long-lasting depression can have many causes, or even none at all. You're not going to get to the bottom of it, at least not at that exact moment. You don't need to become an amateur therapist to help a friend. Getting them to go a professional is a good idea, but don't practice your freshman psychology 101 right now.

5. "Well, I would miss you very much and be sad if you were to die." No, you're not going to guilt me out of suicide. I know you'd be better off without me, even if you don't know it yet. It's a really sweet thing to say; I'm just telling you it's the wrong thing.

6. My favorite response: "You're just doing this to get attention." Ah, there's the way to go. Challenge the suicidal person to PROVE YOU WRONG by going through with it. What are people thinking?! I've always felt horrible anytime I've felt myself slipping to the Dark Side and had to talk to someone about it. I know that it worries them and ruins their night. I hate feeling like I need people to take care of me. I don't want anyone to know that I'm insane. So don't tell me that I crave attention when I work every moment of every day to pretend that nothing's wrong.

Not included on this list but worth mentioning are responses like Jeff's last night: "(Hugh sigh) Look, if you say that, I'll have to call the police, and then they'll come over and then I won't talk to you for a long time and all of your friends will hate you." Thaaaanks. Then he reiterated that he didn't want to see me or speak to me for six months. And here I thought we couldn't sink any lower than the night he told me hated me, called me a bitch, and then hit me as hard as he could in the side of the head. There's always a new low!

That's the other thing about suicide. Everyone always tells you that things have to get better eventually. But we all know that's not true. You may well find that things get worse and worse until the day you die. There's no way of knowing the depths to which you will plunge.

I have had personal and professional relationships with suicidal people. I have bandaged up arms and held heads over toilets. I've listened to people on the crisis line phone who were one step away from jumping off the roof. I have studied the phenomenon of suicide extensively, and have trained many people on how to deal with suicidal callers. I personally have dealt with suicidal feelings most of my life, and I'm dealing with it now more intensely than ever before. So even as a person who is completely out of mental balance, I can tell you this with complete confidence: the only, and I mean ONLY, way to handle a suicidal person is to get THEM to talk.

That's what's really wrong with all of the responses I listed above. It can't be about you. Don't dispense advice, don't play therapist, don't be a cheerleader, don't guilt or shame or belittle or scorn. Just LISTEN. And why does this seem to be such an uncommon response? Because it's next to impossible to get a severly depressed person to talk about him/herself. I've had to sit on the phone for HOURS listening to almost nothing but silence and occasional sobs. But eventually, as you build trust and assure the poor nutcase that you're not going anywhere and you really do care, he will open up to you.

And then what, you ask? Nothing. The problem will not be solved. You will not end the conversation with a sigh of relief that you fixed everything. But you will have made a connection, and that connection to another human being is just what a suicidal person needs to feel. You cannot rescue them, you cannot be their reason for living, and you cannot sacrifice your own sanity to help them regain theirs. But you can listen. It's free and easy and it could save someone's life.

I guess what I want to impart to the two people that still read this blog is this: you cannot reason with a suicidal person. Suicidal people are constantly convincing themselves of things that they know are not really true. Sure, I know that I have people in my life who love me, but when I get really bad, I promise you that I believe everyone I've ever met despises me. Telling me that's not true is not going to work, because I either can't or don't want to believe the truth. You're not going to knock any sense into me, you're not going to snap me out of it. And you're sure as hell not going to figure out ways for me to feel better about my life. People do not commit suicide because bad things are happening to them; they commit suicide because they cannot cope with the bad things that are happening to them. I know the difference is subtle, but it's incredibly important.

Alright, I'm spent. And please don't send me panicked emails; if I get to the point of no return, I'll let you know. I'm alive, and I'm not going anywhere tonight.

Lords and Ladies

2006-10-05T19:26:00.001-07:00

I've heard that with other people, she gets inside of you and knocks you out immediately. But I'm special. My lover Ambien seduces me slowly, making the world shimmer and shine before she finally drags me to bed. She makes the world around me breathe along with my own rhythms. She holds me in strong, black arms, as long as I want her to, all night long, and sometimes she sings me to sleep, her tiny voice in my ear.

But I like fucking men, too, as some of you know, and some of you quite personally. That's where my studly Provigil takes over as my willowy Ambien drifts off into the morning's shadows. Provigil is steadfast and true; he carries me around all day, my eyes bright, my spine straight and erect, pressed against his wide, strong chest. They are never jealous of one another, my two lovers, and for that I love them even more.

I have pills to sleep, pills to wake up, pills to dull pain. Pills to keep me from infections, pills to keep my bones from rotting away, pills to keep my mind from believing things it shouldn't, pills to keep my body from decaying within. I have needles, and vials in the fridge, and creams for every occasion.

I could throw them all away now, or I could take them all at once. What do you think? A wise man once said you shouldn't kill yourself because you want to die, you should kill yourself because you're dead already.

I can't figure it out. And Ambien wants me to stop thinking and come to bed. Mmmm...good night.

2006-09-29T21:45:00.000-07:00

Since the moment I met her, she's had her tiny hand gripped around my heart. And yet I hardly ever see her anymore, because I feel like I'm watching her die. I love even the things I hate about her. She is my chosen family; she's in my blood.

And I love how she's completely bare here, and yet she's hiding absolutely everything. I feel that if I knew what she was thinking right at that moment, I would know everything. Wow.

2006-09-26T19:13:00.000-07:00

Bill Gates is so dope.

Love, loss, and morphine

2006-09-14T18:27:00.000-07:00

Riding in an ambulance isn't that much fun. Especially when they don't turn on the siren because you're not bleeding to death and your heart is still beating, so it takes a long time to get to the hospital and you're just strapped there, wondering if you're going to die before you get to the hospital.

I think one of the worst parts was going through all that and wanting so much for Cathy to know what was happening to me and be worried about me, but not being able to call her because she despises me so much she won't even speak to me or return my phone calls. I needed her so much, and I always thought she would be there for me if I really needed her, but here was one instance where I knew I would just call and get her voicemail. And what do you say on a voicemail: "Hi, I'm in the hospital and they're pumping water and morphine and steroids into my veins and injecting antibiotics into my hip with a giant needle, and I love you and I just want to hear your voice, so please give me a call back sometime..."? It just doesn't really work.

I have lots of wonderful friends, but I have to admit, my world is a much lonelier place without her in it.

I'm going to be okay, I think. I'm home now; I'm just exhausted, and I miss her.

2006-08-27T21:21:00.000-07:00

Baby Buggus

Sugar High Myth

2006-08-05T14:57:00.000-07:00

I just wrote this email to my friend Salty. It might be useful for those of you who either a) believe that there is such a thing as a "sugar high" or b) need artillery for your verbal shoot-outs with people who still believe in it. You are also welcome to go here for more info.

My dear Salty,

It was good to see you here, as well....You had expected, of course, that your pathetic attempt to debunk the"sugar high myth" would enrage me and force me to respond. So be it. Let's begin with glucose. There are many types of sugars: sucrose, fructose, maltose, galactose, dextrose, etc. However, your body only uses one type of sugar, and that is glucose. No matter what other kinds of sugar you put in your body, be it fructose from an apple or sucrose from pouring table sugar directly down your throat, it all ends up broken down to glucose by the time it gives your cells energy. This is important: there is nothing that actually gives your body energy except glucose. Are we clear? Good.

Therefore, measuring the amount of energy that any type of food provides would refer you to the glycemic index of a food, i.e. how much glucose does it provide your body? A related question that you raise is how quickly does the food provide glucose to the system? The foods with the highest glycemic index are foods like grain cereals. A box of Corn Flakes, for example, would provide a glycemic index of about 90 (out of a 100), whereas a sucrose-heavy candy bar like a Snickers would come in at about 40. It seems if there were any sort of sugar high, it would be a "Corn Flakes" high. If young children behaved at breakfast the way people believe they behave at the candy store, I might buy it. The truth is, children (and adults, for that matter) are made to believe that sugar gives them a high, when in fact the high comes from other factors, such as the caffeine in chocolate or soda, or the mere excitement of the occasions surrounding sucrose-heavy intakes: birthday parties, Easter egg hunts, etc.

Now, does sucrose get converted to glucose faster than other sugars? In fact, yes. However, scientists see no reason why the fact that the human body has glucose in the bloodstream faster after eating sweets means a person feels any "higher" after the slower, but more powerful glycemic index of complex carbohydrates. If sugar in your bloodstream really does give you a high, in other words, Corn Flakes would be the thing to provide it, even though it took a while to get your blood sugar up to 90. If this doesn't convince you, consider this: the sugars in juice are absorbed more quickly by the body than the sugars found in junk food, and they have a higher glycemic index to boot. Give someone a glass of orange juice and tell me whether or not he/she starts bouncing off the walls, because according to your science, that would have to be the case.

Twist

2006-07-24T15:52:00.000-07:00

Every one of her little sighs and gasps makes my insides twist just a little more, counterclockwise, I think. Her skin is impossibly soft and flawless; I want to put my mouth on her, but I can barely move anything except my right hand over her belly. She doesn't want me to think she's small, but I feel like a lumbering giant next to her in my bed, watching her tiny, finely made hands curled above her head.

Just don't fuck anything up, just don't fuck anything up.

And so we stop and get dressed to go to the theater, since we've squandered our naptime now. Hours and hours later, I'm finally unravelled inside and feeling good, and he's sitting next to me on the couch while she changes for the pool, and he asks me, "Are you sure this is okay?"

Twist.

I hand him the pipe and let the white smoke out of my lungs. "Don't ask me that."

When I get back I will dream in Barnes & Noble's
Oh, leave me here, oh leave where angels fear to tread
When I get back, I will bleed after my beating
Don't leave me here, don't leave me here, I'm scared to death

I give my blessing, at last, and so avoid any messiness; I'm so magnanimous. She's in the bathroom again later when I walk to him, put my arms around him, and dance on the living room carpet for a few moments in weary tenderness. He smells good; I tell him so. She appears and he follows her out the door, smiling behind him; it's three o'clock and I don't go to bed until four, but the next day I cannot remember one single thing from that whole hour.

Driving her to the other car in the afternoon, I casually mention that his hesitance was probably due in part to worry about how I might feel. Her face is impassive, maybe slightly confused. "I don't see why he would have thought that."

Twist.

Zzzzzzzzz (gasp!) Zzzzzzzzz (gasp!)

2006-06-13T20:05:00.000-07:00

To those of you keeping track of my physical illnesses, you may now officially add sleep apnea to the list. My oxygen levels drop so low while I sleep that the nurse actually used the phrase "sleep deprivation" to describe what I apparently do all night, every night.

Good times! At least now you know those dark circles under my eyes aren't because I'm doing drugs, as my boss's neighbor told her after I finished house-sitting for my boss one weekend.

In other news, I've had a super-fun stomach virus for two days and have had no significant intake of calories or liquid during that time. Oh, and I'm still taking care of a 19-month old child. My life SO FUCKING ROCKS RIGHT NOW.

Time to go to sleep...I mean, time to suffocate on the installment plan.

Emails I Have Actually Sent Out to Everyone in My Building, Part 2

2006-06-08T07:23:00.000-07:00

My beloved clients,

144 years ago this coming Friday, a small Mexican army of only 4,000 defeated the French army of 8,000 in the battle at Puebla, Mexico. Back then, [the company] was operating out of the back of a saloon in Laredo, offering its clients telegram services, fast horses, and a very primitive Flavia machine. My ancestor Mabel Lou was the Client Services Rep/barmaid before she died of consumption or dysentery or something, but she passed on her legacy so that I would be able to send out this email to you today and get you to come to the .......

FIESTA!!! That's right, folks! This Friday at 3:00pm in the atrium we are celebrating Cinco de Mayo, which is Spanish for "We Killed the French." We'll have a make-your-own nachos bar with all the fixin's ("nacho" is Spanish for the English word "nacho"), a piñata filled with candy, and yes, ¡bebidas alcohólicas! I don't yet know whether it will be Mexican beer or margaritas, but one way or another, you can get soused at work out in the open instead of under your desk for a change. If that isn't motivation to join the party, I don't know what is.

To help you get into the spirit of the holiday, I have included some Spanish phrases and their translations so you can say them at the party to impress your coworkers.

Me burro esta muerto, gracias.
My day is going well, thank you.

Una vez construi un ordenador de arena utilizando ramitas y trozos de cuerda.
Once we finish the construction on our new arena, we'll really be making truckloads of cash!

¿Donde puedo comprar un bigote falso para mi esposa?
Where can I buy a shirt like that for my wife?

Tráigame la pista del hombre que robó mis dedos del pollo!
Bring me another tasty drink!

Use these phrases at the party, and you'll be a hit! I can't wait to see you there. As the Mexican people say on Cinco de Mayo, mi alimento preferido es paquetes de la salsa de tomate.

Emails I Have Actually Sent Out to Everyone in My Building, Part 1

2006-06-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

"The tax man has cometh, and now he has goneth."

Dear Clients,

Please join us this Thursday, April 20th, for our after-taxes breakfast celebration. We're all glad that tax season is over, and we need some comfort food to make us feel better about all the money we owe the government. We're not sure what to call the celebration yet, so please vote for your favorite title:

"Uncle Sam Has Left the Building"

"The Power of Deduction"

"Keep your Itemize on the Prize"

"Deep in the Heart of Taxes"

"Give Yourself Some Credit"

"Withhold Me All Night Long"

"A Token of Our Depreciation"

The celebration will take place in the atrium (look for the creepy fish) at 9:00am Thursday morning. We'll have breakfast tacos, sausage, biscuits and gravy, fruit, cinnamon rolls, and egg casserole. And don't worry, I personally will not be cooking any of these items.

See you there!

Doctor: I'm sorry, ma'am, but you only have six months to live.
Patient: Oh, no! What should I do?
Doctor: Marry an accountant.
Patient: How will that make my life longer?
Doctor: It won't, but it will SEEM longer.

It's a boy!

2006-06-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

Amazing but true: Muskrat is a mommy, at least for a little while. Child Protective Services of Central Texas has awarded me temporary custody of sweet baby James, a.k.a. The Bug, and he'll be moving in with me tomorrow. I've decided it's time to be over my sabbatical, because I may need to rely on the kindness of friends. That, and there's no more alone time for now, obviously. Feel free to call with well-wishes and offers to change diapers. =)

If all goes well, little Bug will be returned safely to his loving parents within the week. If all does not go well, my life may change very drastically. But I'm trying not to think about that just now.

Wow.

Recantation

2006-05-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, forget everything I said in the last entry, I guess. Young guys are assholes, too. It doesn't make any difference.

AAAAAAGH!

Reflections over a bowl of pho

2006-05-23T17:35:00.000-07:00

The cute boy at work and I had lunch again today, and while I've known for quite a while that there is nothing in it but friendship, looking at him today across the table, I finally realized what I'm missing always dating older men.

Well, first I have to admit that's not exactly true...there are lots of things I'm missing by dating only older men, and I knew about them before today. Of note:

1. The near-insurmountable emotional baggage. Failed relationships form an invisible pile of bodies one must climb over to see the man himself; you've got to grope your way through the invisible corpses of his ex-girlfriends, and that without becoming unpleasantly associated with any of them, or worse, becoming one of them yourself. Elliot had spent so much of his life learning how to hide his true feelings from girlfriends who would use the feelings against him, that when I first met him, I couldn't tell if he actually any feelings at all, about anything, ever. He was the original owner of the "plastic heart," and he absolutely bewildered me. The words "I love you," which he likely said in his youthful days as soon he felt them to be true, had become words of such terrifying importance and power by the time he met me that it took him forever to work up the courage to choke them out.

One could argue that quantity or even severity of heartbreak is at work here, rather than longevity. Perhaps there is some truth to that, but in most cases, it seems that time is what it takes to build up one's defenses. And my dear older men have had more time than I have to withdraw into themselves and live as emotional hermits, peeking out from behind their eyes with suspicion and mistrust. Loving them can be like beating your head against a wall.

2. The "I am who I am, deal with it" factor. I think the more popular spin usually put on this quirk of older men is "they really know who they are." On the one hand, this is absolutely true, and it's what attracts me to them, at least initially. Older men come off as more confident, more sure of themselves and their personalities, than the wandering, aimless, nervous young bucks of my own generation...and the aimlessness of my own faltering self. It's part envy, of course, and I think inherent in the idea of envy is the fervid desire to possess, and to absorb some of the power you don't possess by drinking the blood, as it were, of the stronger one. Envy and love for me have always been hopelessly inextricable, and I suppose that plays well into my older man fetish (if it does not directly cause it, even). Lorne and Jeff both loomed in my mind like great men of adventure returned from far-away lands with fantastic stories of epic loves, narrow escapes, unfathomable tragedies, and incredible rebirths. I loved them for all the life they had led before me, all the things and places they had seen. They seemed so much more complete than my college-aged contemporaries, if that makes any sense. Que hombres!

And then there's the other hand: the maddening, unrelenting, obstinate, and perverse resistance to change. They are who they are, and there's not a goddamned thing I can say about it. Elliot's fastidious routines and schedules were unbearable, but my attempts to deviate from them with any spontaneity were met with derision and scorn. Any argument with Jeff left me characterized in his mind as a raving lunatic-bitch who wanted nothing more than to make him be, say, or do something he didn't want. And Lorne never had anything to learn from me, God forbid. Who the hell was I?

And that's really it, I think. I felt I had so much to learn from them, and they seemed to have nothing to learn from me. Whether or not they were right about that is in the mind of the beholder, I suppose, but what did they get out of the relationship if that were true? If the person you love doesn't change you, doesn't make you see things in a new way, what's left to excite you about them after the newness has worn off the relationship? Nothing is the obvious answer, given that all of us are alone now, even Elliot, who's married.

And those great stories they have? They lead me to my next point:

3. The twilight of their great adventures. This one is the most specific to my experience, I suppose, since I'm sure many men in their mid-to-late thirties are still living life to the fullest. I just haven't had the pleasure of dating any of them.

"Sure, at one time, I lived, I breathed, I traveled the world, I came close to death, I cried, I loved, I lived in Dionysian excess, terrifyingly near to madness, drinking, dropping acid, smoking pot, running from the cops, sleeping in the woods, fucking in the back of cars and alleys, anywhere, anytime, joining the Air Force, dodging bullets, driving all night, making shit-tons of money and losing it, begging, stealing, crying, laughing 'til my sides ached, watching the sun rise, running into the ocean, following a silly dream, meeting incredible people, wrecking a car, jumping out of a plane, and so on...but now with you it's just going to be here in the house, in the bed, climate-controlled, doors locked, movie rentals and video games, early-to-bed early-to-rise, heavy important books, dull drunkenness, beer heavy in the belly, dinner parties, idiotic television shows, dried apricots for dessert, smugness and obstinacy, tedious relationship conversations, dry kisses, don't break my glasses, don't knock over the vase, careful, careful, careful, answering machines, flossing, delays, fruitless plans, unfinished projects, budgets, bills, and boxer shorts. But at least I was cool when I was in my twenties!"

The irony! I can catch the best ones, but only in their denouement. I want to be crazy with them, I want to have adventures, too. But they're done with all that, and I rush out into the rain fully clothed while they stand in the doorway, slightly bemused. It's very lonely out there, I can tell you.

But I digress. We began this entry at lunch with a cute boy, just my age, not long out of college and at the beginning of adulthood, just like me. I looked at him and imagined what our life might be like as a couple. I think it would all seem so new, so strangely innocent, to be in love while both people were still in that delicious stage of who-will-I-be, what-will-I-do. And that's really what I've been missing with my (admittedly, wonderful, fascinating, intelligent, and sexy) older men: the chance to discover yourself with another person at the same moment in both your lives. Sitting with that sweet, beautiful boy today, I caught a glimpse of the lightness, the giddiness, of a love with more Tomorrow than Yesterday. God knows they had it, so they probably wouldn't begrudge me a little taste, too.

"There is something very satisfactory about being in the middle of something." -Marilyn Hacker

And this is hard

2006-05-17T01:28:00.000-07:00

At the end of every relationship, there is always the question of whether or not love is worth the pain it causes in the end. Obviously, we all believe it is, or we wouldn't keep putting our hearts on the line again and again; we would just give up on love after our hearts were broken. I remember when Elliot called to tell me that he was engaged, I had to go to a show E (from work) was putting on the next night. I didn't want to go, but I had promised, and everyone else from work was already there when I arrived. I said my hellos and then wandered off by myself for a bit, staring up at the stage and letting myself really feel feel the pain for the first time since he told me the day before. Everything that I had felt when we broke up was now coming back from where I had hidden it deep, deep down in myself. In that moment, my eyes filled up with tears, but I also found myself smiling. I knew in that moment that love was worth it, that I wouldn't have given up the incredible beauty and joy of the time we had together to avoid the pain I was feeling now. It was a wonderful realization, and I'll remember that feeling for the rest of my life.

That weekend, I drove to Fort Worth to meet Jeff halfway between our respective cities, and fell into his arms like a lost child. Here we go again...

And now that's over, too--really over, since he told me Sunday that he wasn't in love with me anymore. Since then my love for him has felt like a gang of rats eating their way through my stomach lining. Saturday night when we crawled into his bed together and he pulled me to him and whispered "My baby," the way he had a hundred times before, I think I would have said yes at that moment if he had asked me to marry him. And now I don't know when I'll see him again. I'm still there, in his bed, even now. I wonder how long it will take me to come back to myself, and if I even want to this time. I'm back here again; I can't believe it. And is it worth it?

Gentle reader, it is.

A Perfectly Good Airplane

2006-04-22T16:47:00.000-07:00

Our first skydiving weekend was a bust. I guess that goes without saying, since if it had gone well, there would be no "first" and "second" skydiving weekends. Cathy the Communist, Paula, some other dude who's name I can't remember (we'll call him Ringo), and I were planning to celebrate Cathy's 24th birthday all the way from 10,000 feet in the air. To do this, we had to drive way out in the middle of fuck-nowhere to a strange land called Cushing, Oklahoma. There's a Subway there, and also a locksmith/barber shop (yes, you read that right). That's about it.

Oh, and there was the Cushing airport, which you could easily pass without noticing. What makes airports noticeable is the huge amount of space that contrasts strikingly with the urban surroundings. When there's nothing BUT space around, though, you could pass by DFW without seeing it, I'm sure. The Cushing airport consisted of a bunch of small hangars, a teensy little runway, and a building marked "Skydiving Center." It was a great place to jump out of an airplane, because there was absolutely NOTHING for 50 square miles that you could hit upon landing except maybe a cow and a locksmith/barber shop (I swear to God, I saw it with my own eyes).

Our instructor was one of those short guys who feels like he needs to work out all the time and bulk up to make up for the fact that he's short. If any of those guys are reading this, I'm here to tell you: don't bother. It really does not help--just find a short girl, there are plenty of them. The main instructor and all of the other instructors were very intense, and they asked questions of you constantly to make sure you knew not to try to do somersaults in the air or something. A lot of them answered their own questions, which made the classes fairly easy.

"And why do we want to check our rip cord three times before we pull it?"

"Becau-"

"Because we want to know exactly where it is, that's right."

Before we had learned a single thing, however, we had to sign what can only be described as the most terrifying document I have ever read in my life. Since they don't give you a copy of the document, I'll summarize it for you here:

1. You know that skydiving is dangerous and you might die. Here's a list of all the horrible things that might happen to you.
2. It's not our fault if you die.
3. You can't sue is if you die.
4. You can't even sue us if you get injured.
5. Even if WE fuck up by punching holes in your parachute, planting mines in your landing field, or pushing you of the airplane with nothing but Dumbo's magic feather, you STILL can't sue us.
6. If you really want to sue us if you end up paralyzed, okay, but you have to give us $500 in advance for that privilege.

You had to initial every fucking paragraph. You had to sign three or four times in the presence of witnesses. You had to burn the symbol of a parachute into your right temple while bathing in a tub filled with menstrual blood collected from fifty black-haired virgins on the night of the winter solstice. It was like a prenuptial agreement; it may have been necessary, but it was a real bummer to sign right before you commit to something serious.

And then we couldn't go that day, because the winds were too high. I drove back to Texas dreading the next day when I would have to endure everyone in my office asking, "So! How was it?"

But we didn't give up. A full month later, we were back in Cushing. Ringo couldn't come, because he was a chickenshit or something like that. We took the certification test, we did some last-minute training and refreshing, and then...we waited. I think they make you wait a couple of hours so that by the time you actually get on the plane, you're so worked up that your adrenaline rush is optimized for the fall.

And what a fall it would be. The type of classes we took were for the "Accelerated Free Fall." Accelerated free fall is where you fly up to 10,000 feet, jump out, and fall for about 30 seconds before you open your parachute. It's a lot more badass than jumping out with someone strapped to your back, or jumping out from only 4,000 feet with a parachute that opens about one second after you leave the plane. Boooo-ring. We wanted the real thrill, and we were willing to pay the extra cost and take the extra hours to get it.

I was the first to go. I had planned to meet my parents for dinner in Cushing after the jump, but they showed up about 30 minutes before I went. At this point, my heart was slowly rising to the bottom of my throat and I had gone to the bathroom five times in one hour, so I was not in the best state of mind to see my parents. My terror-addled brain told me, "Your parents are coming because you're going to die, and God wants your parents to be able to have one last moment with you that they can always treasure." I seriously almost called them back and told them not to come until I was finished. Besides the irrational fear, I was also hoping to get a welcome-back-to-the-ground kiss from Cathy the Communist, and having my parents around would make any sort of lesbo lip lock very difficult.

But they came, and hugged me, and told me I wasn't going to die, and that I was insane, and Cathy hugged me, and told me I wasn't going to die, and then it was time to get into my yellow jumpsuit and cool black parachute backpack. I told everyone how glad I was the suit was yellow, because it wouldn't be noticeable while I was pissing myself between 8,000 and 6,500 feet (that's about 5 seconds worth of peeing, for you laymen). I strapped on my helmet and walked bravely toward the tiny plane that looked like it had been put together with tin can scraps and bread-ties. The pilot, my two jumpmasters, and some random dude who was training to be a jumpmaster piled in. It was crowded and hot, and the ride up was nauseating from start to finish. In fact, by the time we got to 10,000 feet (which takes a long fucking time), I was so sweaty and cramped that I couldn't wait to jump out of the plane.

Random dude bailed out at about 5,000 feet, and then it was just the three of us jumpers and the pilot. We hit 10,000 feet and Jumpmaster 1 opened the door, which let in a staggering rush of the coldest air I have ever felt in my life. He climbed out on the strut so casually it might have been a diving board over a pool filled with marshmallows. Then it was my turn. I stepped out below the right wing and held on tight until Jumpmaster 2 appeared in the doorway to my left and grinned at me. I had expected at this point that I would need to stay on the strut for a while coming to grips with my own mortality. However, they make you practice your moves so much during training that when you get up there, your body just starts going through the motions even though your brain is screaming, "What the fuck are you doing to us??!!"

Look at Jumpmaster 1 to the right: "CHECK IN!!" Thumbs up.

Look at Jumpmaster 2 in the plane: "CHECK OUT!!" Thumbs up.

Forward, up, down, BACK! We all leapt off the plane at the exact same time. I have to say leaping backwards off the wing and seeing the airplane in the air in front of me was one of the most surreal moments of my life. The airplane disappeared from sight after a nanosecond, however, and we had to arch our backs and face the ground. Each of them had a hand on my suit to keep me balanced, but other than that I was on my own. The air was freezing and rushing past our bodies at 120 miles per hour. I had to keep checking my altimeter and looking from side to side to get more thumbs up from the jumpmasters. At 6500 feet, I wasn't supposed to look away from the altimeter, because at 5500 feet, I had to signal to the jumpmasters and pull my rip cord. Once I pulled it, they immediately let go and floated away.

As I said before, you fall at a rate of about 120 miles per hour. Once your parachute opens, your speed changes to about 10 miles an hour. The roar of the wind is immediately replaced with silence, and you are hanging gently in the air like a windchime. Let me tell you, folks, my stomach did NOT like the transition from 120 to 10. As soon as my parachute opened, a wave of nausea like I have never known swept through my entire body. It immobilized me so severely that for several seconds I was unable to do the things you're supposed to do to make sure that your parachute is working properly. Once I finally did them, my arms were so weak that I could barely pull the toggles down to my hip. I looked out at the beautiful view, registered the fact that I hadn't died, and then thought "This is horrible. I will never, ever do this again. All I want to is to get to the ground, even if I break my fucking leg getting there."

Those of you who know me well know that I would rather scrub the walls of my rectum with sandpaper for five hours than experience even 5 minutes of nausea. I cannot STAND being nauseated; it makes me so miserable that I would stab my own grandmother to death if that would make it stop. Also, when we had trained for the parachute ride, they suspended us in the parachute gear from the ceiling of the hangar with straps that cut into our thighs so severely that everyone was begging for it to end. They told us that it sucked we had to train this way, but the real ride wasn't uncomfortable at all and the straps would suspend us perfectly. BULLSHIT. It hurt just as bad if not worse during the real ride down, and this time I couldn't cheat by extending my legs and touching my tippy-toes to the concrete.

I just kept praying for the ground to come closer so that I could land, fall to my knees, and vomit. Well, I didn't make it that far. At about 200 feet AGL (that's "Above Ground Level" for you laymen), I vomited all over my yellow jumpsuit. So much for that kiss from Cathy, even if my parents weren't looking. My arms had grown even weaker, so I had to muster all the strength I had left to pull the toggles down so my parachute would deflate and let me touch ground. I landed sort of on my feet, but I wasn't interested in having a good landing, so I sort of let my body fall to the ground and drag for a couple of feet before I stopped. I lay there in my helmet, my goggles, and my fouled jumpsuit waiting for the folks in the hangar to realize that I wasn't okay. My stomach was coming out my ears, my head was ringing, and I couldn't hear anything. I tried to sit up, and someone on the radio yelled, "Are you okay?" I shook my head weakly and went back down for the count.

The next things I remember are the terrified faces of my loved-ones rushing out onto the field to see what I had broken. Cathy, Mom, and Dad were just behind the jumpmasters, and everyone was asking me questions, but I only answered the jumpmaster in a voice so weak and strangled it didn't sound like me.

"Are you okay?"

"I threw up on my jumpsuit."

"But are you hurt?"

"No, I'm sick. I threw up at 200 feet. I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

They pulled off my helmet and goggles and helped me sit up. Someone asked, "Was it fun?"

"No, no it was not fun."

"You didn't like it?!"

"No, I did not like it. I will never, ever do this again." My mom broke into a huge smile and said, "Good!"

They eventually loaded me into a golf cart, drove me back to the hangar, and poured me out on a couch, where I lay spinning and spinning and spinning with a saltine cracker and a cold Sprite in my hands. Cathy kept looking at me like I had just told her I was dying of cancer, but soon she had to go up for her jump and I was left with my nonchalant parents and a very sympathetic Paula to comfort me. After 30 or so minutes, I was able to speak and move like a relatively normal human being, but I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would never subject myself to that kind of torture again.

Now, though, I'm kind of thinking about going again. Maybe it was just a fluke, right?

I Had a Great Weekend

2006-04-12T21:08:00.000-07:00

Even skydiving wasn't the high point. ;)

I Did All, I Did All I Could

2006-03-04T17:40:00.000-08:00

J'ai fait tout, j'ai fait tout
Ce que j'ai pu
J'ai fait tout, j'ai fait tout
Ce que j'ai pu

I have seen some trouble
Been around the way
Rode the streetcar of desire and I paid
And if you want a witness
I will testify
To what I saw through a wandering eye

'Cause nobody loves you like I do
Nobody loves you like I do
Nobody loves you like I do
Nobody loves you like I do

I heard all about it
You don't need an alibi
There was no medicine I did not try
You lost your Mona Lisa
Got burned by Jezebel
You can always draw water from my well

'Cause nobody loves you like I do
Nobody loves you like I do
Nobody loves you like I do
Nobody loves you like I do

J'ai fait tout. j'ai fait tout, j'ai fait tout
I will give everything I am to you
J'ai fait tout, j'ai fait tout.
You know it's true
J'ai fait tout, j'ai fait tout, j'ai fait tout

You can go and leave me
But you'll come back for more
I know where all your old secrets are stored
My history is written
My heart is still pure
You crave redemption and I got the cure

'Cause nobody loves you like I do
Nobody loves you like I do
Nobody loves you like I do
Nobody loves you like I do

J'ai fait tout, j'ai fait tout
Ce que j'ai pu J'ai fait tout, j'ai fait tout
Ce que j'ai pu
J'ai fait tout. j'ai fait tout, j'ai fait tout

As I Lay Living

2006-02-17T10:57:00.000-08:00

After much consideration, I have decided that now would be an excellent time to die. Who knows when my time was supposed to come, and whether it would have been a good or bad time? I've found the right time, and I'm sticking with it. By the time you read this, I will be lying on my bed at home, motionless. No, I'm not committing suicide; I'm just going to lie there and will myself to die. I'm sure it will work.

Why now? Well, I don't have very many loose ends to tie up, for one thing. The bridges I've burned have been burned well, so there's no lingering fights or disagreements to be worried about leaving. My relationship with my family is good, and I'll soon have life insurance to cover the funeral costs for them (if I died without that insurance, I'd feel terrible), and my brother is married and has promised my mother a grandchild (which will take her mind off my death). Jeff and I broke up (again!) this week, so I don't have to worry about leaving him alone. I have plenty of good friends that would be sorry to see me go, but given my track record, I will no doubt fuck up those relationships eventually, so now is a good time to quit while I'm ahead.

Yup. Definitely dying. No, you cannot have my iPod.

I love this man.

2006-02-08T12:34:00.000-08:00

Lorne: In Colorado, you could drink out of the mountain streams with no worries except for perhaps a little bear urine.

Muskrat: Bear urine's good for you, I hear. They're going to start bottling it soon.

Lorne: Yes, I think I've heard about that. They're calling it "Coors."

Death Becomes Her

2006-02-01T18:15:00.000-08:00

My boss hinted the other day that I looked a bit scary due to the dark circles under my eyes. I wanted to tell her if she could see inside my head she would know from scary.

The truth is, I haven't really looked at myself in a mirror in weeks now. My eyes look dead, and it gives me the utter creeps. Do you remember as a kid the urban myth that if you spun around in front of a mirror in the dark and repeated "Bloody Mary" three times, some evil woman would appear in the mirror? I think I'm still afraid of her.

Jeff and I broke up.

Yeah.

2006-01-09T16:53:00.000-08:00

Yikes.

Meme from Rockhell

2005-12-19T16:34:00.000-08:00

Four jobs you've had in your life:

Research Assistant

Marketing Coordinator

Janitor

Fundraiser

Four movies you could watch over and over again:

Coffee and Cigarettes

Groundhog Day

Freeway

Home movie of my dad's surprise 40th birthday party

Four places you have lived:

Tulsa, OK

Norman, OK

Houston, TX

Austin, TX

Four TV shows you love to watch:

Six Feet Under

Sex and the City (sorry, Gavagirl)

Arrested Development

Family Guy

Four places you've been on vacation:

Yellowstone Park

San Francisco

Toronto

Eureka Springs, Arkansas (I know it's a tourist trap, but I love it)

Four websites you visit daily:

Blogs are the only websites I visit daily

Four of your favorite foods/beverages:

Grilled portabello mushroom pesto sandwich at Kerbey Lane

Zucchini cream pasta Elliot used to make for me

Potato soup Courtney used to make for me (wow, this category is getting depressing)

Vegetarian sushi at Banzai

Four places you'd rather be right now:

Jeff's arms (so fucking cute, isn't it?)

Berkeley

Willy Wonka's factory (the old one, NOT the new one)

A coffin

10 Things You Might Not Expect Me to Hate

2005-12-08T16:34:00.000-08:00

1. The American obsession with body hair. Me, I don't shave. Anything. On my body. Ever. I used to shave my legs every couple of months, but now I've given that up, too. It's not as bad as it sounds, though: I'm naturally almost completely hairless, anyway, so I decided to cherish what I have.

2. The Peanuts comic. Hate it. It's not funny, it's not cute, I don't identify with Charlie Brown, I don't think Snoopy is cool, I don't give a shit. Okay? Feel free to delete me out of your cell phone.

3. Children's movies. Yes, they were fun when I was a kid, but now I'm an adult, and I want to watch grown-up movies. Fuck Pixar, I don't care how cool their computer animations are, they can still go to hell. I hope that Nemo gets lost again and never comes back. I hope that the claymation Rudolph gets his legs pulled off by the abominable snowman. I hope that the Spy Kids go spy in Iraq and get killed by the Kurds. As soon as someone says to me, "Sure, it's a kid's movie, but they put a lot of stuff in there that only adults could understand and laugh at," my fingers involuntarily start scratching around for a knife.

4. People who crinkle their noses when someone stands near them with a cigarette. Go home and snort Febreeze, you fucking cunt. No one will miss you here.

5. My allergy shots. No, I don't enjoy jabbing a needle into my thigh, pulling it out a bit to make sure I haven't hit a vein, and then injecting the clear fluid under my skin so it can make a big red itchy spot there. I don't cherish the 20 minutes after that moment when I have to wait around and see if I'm going to die from anaphylactic shock, and I don't cherish the next hour I have to wait before I can breathe normally again.

6. Howard Dean. Thanks for wasting months and months of my time on your campaign by screaming like a complete idiot on national television. I sat at a fucking BOOTH in the STUDENT UNION for you, in front of everyone at OU, once a fucking WEEK for MONTHS. And what did you ever do for me? You fucked it up. You fucked it up!

7. People who suck at open mic night. Why can't they just realize that they aren't any good? Not only do they think they're amazing singers and songwriters, they think that the appropriate length for each of their songs is 7 minutes with a round of six choruses at the end. There is one problem with hating the people who suck, though: I have to hate myself, too. But at least our songs only last 2-3 minutes each, and we don't give stupid intros to our songs: "This is a song I wrote about a girl I used to know; she broke my heart, but I never forgot her. It's called 'The Taste of You.'" Nooooooooo!

8. The guy who ripped out the Minuard's eye. I know he doesn't actually exist, but if he did, I would hate him.

9. My cousin Jeff. I got car insurance through my uncle's insurance agency in Dallas because I thought working with family would be easier than dealing with a cold, impersonal company, only to find out that that Jeff is the worst insurance agent ever to exist. I hate you, Jeff. If it weren't for your father, you would never be able to get a job anywhere. Oh, and by the way, all three of your kids are ugly.

10. Alex Trebek without the moustache. Ugh. Grow it back!

Points for Jefe

2005-12-04T12:19:00.000-08:00

Jefe: I love you.

Muskrat: No, you don't. You tolerate me. That's not the same thing.

Jefe: That's not true! It is the same thing.

2005-11-30T18:18:00.000-08:00

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

Frankie Lou Sings the Blues

2005-11-28T17:32:00.000-08:00

Ah, those fake milestone relationship moments. You know, the ones that are supposed to be really important but you don't actually care that much about? It's like Greg and Sarah getting married just so they could move to the Czech Republic together without too much of a hassle, or like Ingrid and Brian going through the whole ridiculous proposal scene after they had already decided they were engaged. For me, that moment has always been Meeting the Parents. I've never really given a shit what my parents think about the person I'm dating; in fact, if they don't like my current flame, it's almost a good sign. My parents loved Elliot. What does that tell you?

I've never really gotten butterflies in my stomach about meeting the parents of my main squeeze, either. If someone is going to break up with me because of a bad review from Mom 'n Pop, I figure I'm better off alone, anyway. The only time I've been nervous before a parent meeting was when I went to California and had dinner with Elliot's mother, but that was only because I was thinking quite strongly about marrying him and was worried about spending the rest of my life sitting at family dinners across from someone who despised me. "Pass the potatoes, you unbearable tongue-pierced whore who stole my little boy [I was planning to get my tongue pierced at that time, FYI]."

Can you guess where this entry is going? I met my beloved Jefe's parents this weekend, and I didn't worry for one moment. The truth is, part of my lack of worrying about parents is that parents have always been my thing. They love me. When I was a kid, my friends' parents would ask their children to have me spend the night or come with them to the movies. Why, you ask? Was I angelic? Polite? Neat? C'mon, you know me better than that. I was entertaining as all hell. Whereas most young'ns cower in front of parents and give stilted responses regarding age, hobbies, and family when questioned, I just let loose and said the first thing that came into my head. I was precocious, weird, brave, and spontaneous. I was one of those kids that made you laugh while you were trying to give me a lecture. I am the Master of the Parents.

And I'm proud to report that I defended my title this weekend. From the moment I was introduced to the kind and hospitable Mr. and Mrs. We've-Got-a-Small-Angus-Beef-Ranch-Out-in-the-Middle-of-Fuck-Nowhere-and-We-Inseminate-Cows-with-Frozen-Sperm-and-an-Arm-length-Glove, I knew it was going to be smooth sailing. They were easy to like: down-to-earth, funny, and Oklahoman as a scizzor-tailed flycatcher. Still, I was on my game hardcore. When you're fighting for the affection of your lov-ah's parents, you've got to get in some really good punches early on.

Swing One: Perfect outfit: casual yet classy, tasteful, feminine enough for Dad to think you're sweet but not so feminine that Mom thinks you're a flaky bimbo. Bam!

Swing Two: Eat lots of Mom's food and pretend to enjoy it. Bam! Luckily, with Jeff's mom I didn't have to pretend; that ham he's been talking about on his blog is no myth.

Swing Three: Fulfill Mom's requirements for what a good girl should be. With Frankie Franklin (I swear to God, that is her name, and I love it), I met all three: 1) college educated, 2) free of tattoos and/or unusual piercings, and 3) trained enough to say "Yes, Ma'am" in response to her questions. Bam! Bam! Bam!

Swing Four: Laugh at Dad's crazy stories. Again, this wasn't difficult, because they were actually funny. Bamma-lamma ding dong!

Swing Five: Love on the family pets. Awww, come here, Stubby, and let's cuddle. Go fetch, Shaq [so named because he's black, I think]!

And may I say, bam?

It all went swimmingly, and when I left, Frankie Franklin hugged me and told me it was good to know her son was in such good hands. I left beaming, and my darling rewarded me for all my hard work by treating me to a giant bowl of pesto tortellini with a chilled bottle of Conundrum. I was in such good spirits, I decided to quit smoking that night and had my last cigarette right there in the Bellini's smoking section.

However, right now I want a cigarette so badly I could kill you. Yes, YOU. Please don't tell Frankie I'm a smoker.

The Good Fight

2005-11-20T08:57:00.001-08:00

It had to happen eventually, I suppose. My dear Jefe and I just had our first real fight. In fact, I'm not sure we've quite finished having it--I'll keep you posted. I won't get into the details, but I did want to address the subject of fighting/argument in general.

M came over the other night to record Pinkish Mauve's first album; we entitled it Soul Solicitation. Before we started, though, I had to have some girl talk about the argument with Jefe. "He said I was mean!" I exclaimed, vying for sympathy. "Just because I disagree with him doesn't make me mean."

M's response? "Well...you are mean."

Beg your pardon? What the hell ever happened to the unspoken rule that your girlfriends always have to take your side when you're complaining about your boyfriend? Did that go out the window? Someone let me know when and how that particular duty of a friend got shirked in favor of complete honesty.

Obviously, I was nonplussed by this information. M and I have had two fights, and both were pretty damned unpleasant, I must admit. One resulted from a comment from her that I perceived as homophobic, and one that came from her constant judgment about my life and, ironically, my relationship with Jefe. We got pretty angry with one another both times, but I never felt that I said anything mean; I may have said some things she didn't want to hear, but that's not the same thing.

I probed the issue more and more, trying to find out what I did that made me mean, but she kept answering me in the negative whenever I would try to guess what it is. Did I insult her? No. Did I hit below the belt? No. Did I yell and scream? No. Did I fight dirty, saying anything that was meant merely to hurt her? No. Well, then, what IS it?!

It finally came out that during fights I am intimidating, very frank, and good at using my words to turn the situation in my favor. She said she always felt two steps behind me when we were fighting, like I was somehow controlling the argument like an evil mastermind.

So what was her point? I'm not actually mean, I'm just GOOD at arguing. Shit, I knew that already! I went to Regionals every year I was in debate and I even won first place at the Cascia Hall Classic in 1999. I'm a professionally trained arguer, for fuck's sake. "M, you can't tell me I'm mean during an argument if all you mean is that I'm intimidating and well-spoken." She acquiesced, and I felt better.

But only for a moment. I kept thinking the whole night, and I decided I could tailor my technique to fit the needs of those in my life who are going to be a little less thick-skinned than my debater friends from high school (remember the Akbar post?). I guess I just learned to be aggressive during fights and to monitor the other combatant's responses for even the slightest error or contradiction. This probably does not make me very pleasant to fight with, I'm sure, and unlike debate, you don't get to shake hands pleasantly with your opponent and chat afterwards like you haven't just said his case was ill-conceived, illogical, irrelevant drivel.

So I'm going to try and change the way I fight, in hopes that I'll stop alienating the people I love with my bared-teeth approach. I will say, however, that I think life should be more like a debate round. At the very least, it would be nice for a judge to tell you at the end of the fight who won it. By the time you get to a judge in real life, you'll probably just regret getting into the fight to begin with.

Did I mention that I've decided to apply to law school next year?

2005-11-16T18:05:00.000-08:00

It's Fucking Cold!!!

I didn't move to Austin to be cold. I could do that just fine in Oklahoma. Someone turn the sun back on!

More Fun from Craig's List Personal Ads

2005-11-15T17:55:00.000-08:00

Mind-fuck me harder

You: Be so intelligent that your own thoughts frequently become unbearable. Hate people less intelligent than you; love and resent people more intelligent than you. Waver constantly between irritating bravado and pathetic self-disgust. Read obsessively, awed and terrified at the brilliance you so hope is inside you, as well. Be an almost-amazing writer, incredibly talented but far too in love with your own words to ever say anything truly new and revolutionary. Know that in that last sentence I split an infinitive, and know that it doesn't really matter because we're not speaking Latin here.

Use your clever wit in manipulative ways: hide your flaws, point out my flaws, and protect yourself from ever having to admit you don't know something. Feel physically ill when you see the word "definately." Write people off too soon, sure that you're too old now to waste your time with anyone below your standards (which you don't ever define because seeing them spelled out would probably make you look an asshole). Make the cool fall air crackle with your sarcasm, misanthropy, and icepick-in-the-chest insight. Leave me always wondering if deep down you're really cruel or really kind, in part because you're not entirely sure yourself.

Be so fucking smart and introspective that it's almost impossible to connect with another human being. Then connect with me, anyway, and fall in gut-wrenching love with me, and fuck me bent over the arm of your ratty old couch. I know you'll sabotage us someday, because you'll either love yourself or hate yourself too much to give anything of yourself away to another human being, but let's have fun until then.

Me: Absolutely no one. I can hardly wait to disappoint you.

2005-11-15T16:26:00.000-08:00

That about sums up my religious upbringing. How about you?

Pinko + Snake Eyes = Pink Eye?

2005-11-14T20:29:00.000-08:00

You've been waiting for it, folks, and it's finally here. The love story of two dear friends of mine; to protect them we'll call the young woman "Pinko" and the young man "Snake Eyes." It doesn't offer much protection, since that's what I call both of them in real life, but it's better than writing out their full names and phone numbers. (That information, however, is available upon request.)

I had long been waiting for Pinko to come from Oklahoma to Austin to visit me, and she finally made it down late on the first Friday of November with her friend (let's call her "Paula"), whom I had never met but liked immediately. Paula, Pinko, and I chatted for a bit before I whisked them away to the Spiderhouse, telling them that it was an essential part of the Austin experience, but really just needing an excuse to chain-smoke. They liked the atmosphere and the yummy vegan carrot cake (Pinko is a veggie girl), and we planned the next day's activities. They made it clear that they were planning on visiting the famed Sixth Street, and then they wanted to head over to Red River to see Li'l Cap'n Travis play at Room 710.

Now, before Pinko had even arrived, she had made inquiries about any hot male friends I might have available to get her laid while she was here. My first thought was Snake Eyes, of course, because he's an absolute cutie and had gone so long without getting laid that I was worried even the Suicide Girls wouldn't satisfy him much longer. When I was calling around to invite Austin friends out to join us downtown, I made sure to include Snake Eyes. I didn't actually expect anything to come of it, because in the past I haven't been much of a matchmaker, but it was worth a shot.

Little did I know what was in store, folks.

Snake Eyes arrived at the bar looking like the Austin semi-grungy hipster that he is, and as soon as he went to the bathroom, I whispered in Pinko's ear, "Well?"

"Oh, yeah! He's fucking hot!" she replied enthusiastically. Whoa! Could this actually work? I didn't have to worry much about his response to her, because if there is one thing Snake Eyes loves, it's boobs, and if there's one thing Pinko has in her love arsenal, it's a fabulous set of Dueling Banjos. Sure enough, he returned and confirmed in whispered conversation that she, too, was the Hotness. Let the games begin!

They flirted, he bought her a drink, Paula and I shared secret smiles. We walked down to Room 710 and chilled out for a while. Or rather, Paula and I kept drinking a shitload of beer while Snake Eyes and Pinko flirted. At this point, my world was quickly going out of focus, so it was hard to keep an eye on the two lovebirds, but I assumed they were doing well. I vaguely recall passing Snake Eyes on the way to the bathroom and asking how it was going, and he replied something like, "It's going okay, but I'm definitely ready to make out with Pinko." After another friend, Salty, showed up, we had three people to hang out and chat while Pinko and Snake Eyes got to know each other better.

The concert began. Maybe 20 minutes into it, Salty turns to me and says, "Don't look, but they're making out." I look immediately to my right, and indeed, two of my very dear friends who have known each other for an hour are making out in the middle of a crowded bar. We couldn't look away. Paula, Salty, and I kept trying to enjoy the show and some occasional conversation, but we just couldn't stop looking over to see if the two of them were still going at it. They were. A lot.

Finally, I suggested a cigarette, and both Paula and Salty jumped at the chance to avoid the awkward moment inside. When we returned, however, Pinko and Snake Eyes were GONE.

"Oh, my God," I said to Salty, "Do you think they're having sex in the bathroom?" (This was not the case, but I learned later that Snake Eyes had, in fact, suggested that very thing.)

We finally found them upstairs, going full force sitting up in a chair way in the back. This was not innocent kissing, dear friends; this was, much like the rhumba, a vertical expression of a horizontal wish. The three of us stood on the landing of the stairs so that we could still see the show while we took turns running up to watch them. I only paid for one show, but I got two.

The concert ended, but the happy couple didn't notice, so a bartender had to help them: "Break it up! The bar's closed." They came down the stairs looking sheepish, and we all left the bar as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Now things got tricky. I pulled Pinko aside and asked her if she wanted to go home with Snake Eyes when Salty drove him home, and she said no. I didn't know if that meant, "No, I don't want to have sex with Snake Eyes," or if it meant, "I want to have sex with Snake Eyes, but not at his place." The five of us were standing around in front of the bar, uncomfortable and tense about what the next move would be. Finally, we decided to go to Starseed's, which is a greasy spoon near campus where people go to replenish their B-vitamins after a night of drinking. I rode with Salty and sent Snake Eyes and Pinko in Paula's car, which gave Salty and me a chance to bitch about how we were both tired, but we had to stay awake while the two lovebirds figured out how and if they were going to get into each other's pants.

Starseed's was a blast, partly because Salty and I decided we were going to be the life of the party to soothe over any tension, sexual or otherwise, that might occur because of the illicit liaison between Mr. and Mrs. Kissy-face. Salty fixed one problem for us by leaving without taking Snake Eyes home, which gave me a chance to ask him if he wanted to sleep at my place or go home. He chose my place, and Paula drove us home, where she immediately fell asleep on my papasan chair. I sat on the loveseat, and Pinko and Snake Eyes cuddled on the couch. The Big Lebowski was playing, but no one was really watching it. I gave up and told the cuddle-bugs that they could have the bed, and they didn't object. Like a good hostess, I went into the room, straightened out the blankets, and left two condoms on the night table.

They disappeared into my room, and I fell down on the blankets I had made for myself on the floor, trying to fall asleep as quickly as possible. I did this for two reasons: a) I didn't want to hear them having sex, and b) even if I didn't hear them, I didn't really want to think about two people having sex on my bed when one of them wasn't me. Fortunately, I fell asleep very quickly, and I never had to experience those moments we've all experienced at one time or another in which you wonder every few seconds: "Was that a sex noise?"

The next morning, Pinko woke up rosy, and the three girls hung out until I had to wake up Snake Eyes to go out to lunch with us. Seeing him naked under MY sheet in MY bed was a little bit disturbing, and I definitely noticed the condoms were gone from the night table. Snake Eyes smiled at me with half-shut eyes and mumbled, "I owe you one, Muskrat." It sounded good at the time, but now I have to wonder what exactly it is he owes me, and how he might go about paying off the debt. Does he have to provide me with one of his friends to sleep with? Because I've met his friends, and...no.

Now for the weird part: the entire evening was a series of incredible coincidences all revolving around the number 5. We were sure this proved that fate had brought Pinko and Snake Eyes together.

It was November 5th when they met.

Year: 2005.

By the time they got around to the sex early in the morning, it was 5:00 am.

They had both only slept with four people in their lives, and this brought them up to 5 each.

There were 5 of us in the group that night.

We (the girls) had gone to 5 restaurants over the weekend.

Whoa! Pretty crazy, huh?

The next morning, I put on my baseball jersey with the number "5" on the front and asked Pinko if she would like to borrow it. She let me know at that point that she hated me. Some gratitude for all my hospitality, huh?

Follow up: I found one of the empty condom packages on the floor underneath my bed. At a fancy dinner the other night with several people I didn't even know, I walked right up to the table, threw the package in front of Snake Eyes, and said, "Here, you left this in my room." That's what happenes when you litter, folks.

The moral of the story? Come visit me in Austin, and I'll get you laid. Who needs more motivation than that?

Question for the day

2005-11-09T05:02:00.000-08:00

Why do child labor laws not prohibit children from acting in movies?

Anyone know the answer the this one?

The worst pun EVER

2005-11-04T20:47:00.000-08:00

Muskrat: You have the hair of a mad genius.

Lorne: Yes. Now wait while I make a nuclear death ray out of this toaster.

Muskrat: Well, it didn't kill me, but this toast is delicious! So warm and crispy!

Lorne: I shall call it, "Plu-toast-ium."

Muskrat: [commences beating Lorne vigorously for a good ten minutes]

By the way, the post about the best personal ad has been deleted. I discovered it was unoriginal!! That bastard. Fucking personal ad plagiarizers. I feel sorry for any intellectual woman that was wooed by the ad, only to find out on the first date that the guy is a monosyllabic dolt.

2005-11-04T16:47:00.000-08:00

For Giles. I hope this makes you feel better.

2005-11-02T06:29:00.000-08:00

It's coming. Watch out, world.

Incompatibility

2005-10-31T17:42:00.000-08:00

It continually and increasingly amazes me how little Jeff and I actually have in common. We rarely like the same music, movies, or recreational activities, and what's more, we often actively dislike each other's choices in those areas. It seems like every other day I'm telling him that all of his music is monotonous and repetitive Casio-keyboard shit, and he's telling me hates coffee, cigarettes, and the movie Coffee and Cigarettes. He'll be living here in February, and I'll be damned if I know what the hell we're going to do together when he gets here. I live at the Spiderhouse, drinking coffee and smoking. When I'm not doing that, I'm cavorting around town in sizeable groups of people that would make Jeff incredibly uncomfortable. He hates Toy Joy; I hate video games. I hate goth bands; he hates Genesis. There is no way this match could possibly work.

And yet we're madly, madly in love. Sigh. It really is all just pheremones, isn't it?

This is how I feel today.

2005-10-20T18:58:00.000-07:00

My mom sends me a lot of stupid shit through email, but this was a gem I found in an otherwise unspectacular collection of cute pet photos. It really sums up my life, I think.

Another quote

2005-10-19T15:27:00.000-07:00

"Of course I want to fuck my mother. Doesn't everyone? And my sister and my dad and my dog!"
-Andrew

Andrew wanted me to post the context of the quote, as well, but I think it's more fun this way, don't you?

Recent quotes

2005-10-17T14:29:00.000-07:00

Lorne: There's a great herpetarium up there.

Muskrat: [confused look]

Lorne: You know what a herpetarium is, right?

Muskrat: Uh, I don't think so...

Lorne: It's a place where they keep snakes.

Muskrat: Ooohhh, definitely not then.

Lorne: What did you think it was?

Muskrat: I don't know. A place where they sequester people with herpes so they can have sex with each other?

Lorne: No, dear, that's college.

"The world needs people like that. I don't."
-Jefe

Self-indulgent drivel

2005-10-10T21:28:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if I'm going to continue this blog. I update it so infrequently that people aren't really checking it anymore, anyway. I might start another one that is more about my thoughts and not so much about my life. I don't like talking about my life, because most of the people in my life have access to this blog, and it's not like I can really talk about them. And of course I'm always worried about someone I know down here stumbling across it and finding something that hurts his/her feelings.

So how am I, you ask? Kind of bipolar these days. I always feel either very happy or almost scarily depressed. People always say you have to face your demons to get rid of them, but it seems when I face them, they just want to hang around more. I've been trying to deal with a lot of the doubt and self-hatred that has been plaguing me my whole life, but I'm only exaggerating the problem. I feel extremely uneasy whenever I'm alone, but when I'm with other people, I often can't wait to get away. I'm in love with everybody and I can't have anybody; I constantly feel amazed when friends and lovers show signs that they actually do care about me, and I secretly wonder what's wrong with them for liking me in the first place. I'm always ready to sabotage myself by saying the wrong thing, knowing what it will cost me, but convincing myself that "honesty" is always worth the sacrifice. I walk around most of the time feeling raw and bruised, and it's so, so easy to hurt me. It takes nothing: a careless word, an unreturned phone call, a look, and instantly I'm a quivering mass of insecurity and resentment. I try to see pain coming 100 miles away and cut off whatever might cause it before it can reach me. I feel uncreative, unspecial, and unimportant. More than anything, I feel alone. I feel alone in crowds, in rooms full of friends, during intimate coffee shop conversations, in the arms of lovers, and in my pathetic cubicle at work. Pretending to be happy leaves me exhausted, and even the frequent bursts of happiness and creativity that punctuate my week seem to highlight the low points even more.

Basically, I'm a whiny, obsessive mess who deseves absolutely no pity. So now I'll post some bullshit lyrics that supposedly sum up how I feel better than I can express it.

Candy says, I've come to hate my body
And all that it requires in this world
Candy says, I'd like to know completely
What others so discreetly talk about

I'm gonna watch the blue birds fly
over my shoulder
I'm gonna watch 'em pass me by
maybe when I'm older

What do you think I'd see
if I could walk away from me?

Candy says, I hate the quiet places
That cause the smallest taste of what will be
Candy says, I hate the big decisions
That cause endless revisions in my mind

I'm gonna watch the blue birds fly
over my shoulder
I'm gonna watch 'em pass me by
maybe when I'm older

What do you think I'd see
if I could walk away from me?

No. Fucking. Way.

2005-09-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, I put up a humorous posting on Craig's List, just for the fun of it. I got a lot of emails and rebuttal postings about it, which I didn't really expect. Then today, I looked and they've updated the "best of" list, which usually has some of the funniest shit on the internet. People vote for the "best of" and it takes a lot of votes to get up there.

MY POSTING IS UP THERE.

I couldn't believe it! I'm so proud. It's a meaningless accomplishment to those who don't do a lot of CL-ing, but for me, this is a great honor. Check it out:

http://austin.craigslist.org/about/best/aus/96936233.html

Wow. I am still in shock.

Cancer can be funny

2005-09-13T16:08:00.000-07:00

So I have a job working to raise money for blood cancer research: lymphoma, leukemia, Hodgkin's, and so on. I thought that this would make me feel like a good person, but today I had what is possibly one of the worst moments of my life, at least as far as seeing myself for what I really am.

I had called the principal of a school yesterday, but her secretary told me she was out sick. I called back today, told her who I was, and asked if she was feeling better. "Actually, I wasn't sick," she replied, "I was out yesterday because my brother-in-law died of lymphoma."

Now, what do you think was the first thought to go through my head? Was it: Wow, that's horrible? Was it: That poor woman, she must be so sad? Something along those lines?

No. It was "Oh, good, she'll probably sign up with our fundraiser now."

A few seconds later, the realization of what a blackened, evil soul I had came crashing down on me so hard that I could barely contain the hysterical laughing/crying that came when I finally hung up the phone a few minutes later. I turned to my fellow fundraiser and told her what I had done, hoping that by confessing it I could be forgiven. Her name is Angel; I think I'm going to change my name to Demon.

I think I've hit some sort of cynical rock-bottom. I've been listening to David Cross albums lately, and two of my favorite lines have been:

"Raising kids isn't hard. You know what's hard? Talking your girlfriend into her third consecutive abortion."

"[talking about how much he hates the band Creed] I would rather hear the death rattle of my only child than listen to that shit."

I don't think that good people laugh at that sort of thing. The people in the audience on the CD sound pretty horrified, and I'm sure there was a time that I would have been one of them. No more. I have crossed a line, and only a conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints could bring me back over the line at this point. Help me, Joe. Show me the way.

Give money to cancer research, by the way. Just because there's a hurricane doesn't mean every other charity should have to go under.

Mommy Muskrat

2005-09-02T03:59:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking it might be a good idea to take a break from Lorne and Judith. They're starting to drive me crazy, and they're turning their sweet little baby into a raging brat. I've had a similar experience in the past; when I was a nanny for my neighbors back in Tulsa, I would get everything in order, get the kids to behave, get the house clean, and then their parents would come back and fuck it all up. Rome was built and destroyed in the same day. The father's method of discipline was to get pissed off and then walk out of the room, ignoring the whole thing, and the mother's method was to give the kids whatever they wanted. For the longest time, I was the only one that could get them to do anything, and I was the only person they actually respected.

Tonight the baby woke up and started crying, as he still does sometimes even though he should be sleeping through the night by now. Judith's method was to turn all of the lights on, pick the baby up, talk to him, and feed him. That is about the worst thing you can do, because it will only train him to want those things in the middle of every night. This is why he can't get a decent night's rest and why he is often cranky all day, because he rarely sleeps in long cycles. I took him from Judith and tried to rock him in the living room, but the two parents kept coming in every 10 seconds, making noise, talking to me, turning on lights, drinking water, until the baby was wide awake again. I put him in his crib, which is where he needed to be, and Judith kept feeding him Cheerios and saying that he needed a bottle. Lorne got pissed off and snapped at Judith, then left the room to let us deal with it. After she finally gave him a bottle, I tried to lay back down on the couch, turning off all the lights. Judith came back in and snapped at me for turning the kitchen light off; at that point, I started getting my shit together and left without saying goodbye to either of them. Aaaagh!

Here are Muskrat's rules for parenting. I realize I am not a parent and that people without kids always know more than people with kids, but I promise you, everyone will agree with what I'm about to say, with the exception of Lorne and Judith.

1. When your baby is going down for a nap, BE QUIET. Don't talk to him or one another, don't turn the TV up loud, don't open and shut doors....just sit the hell down and shut up for a few minutes. While the baby's taking a nap, resume your regular activities with the thought in mind that if you make noise, the baby will wake up. Of the four adults who live in that household, zero seem to understand this concept.

2. Parenting is made possible by routine. Feeding, sleeping, bathing, etc., need to be on some kind of schedule. Flexibility is certainly important, and there are always special circumstances, but if the child has no routine, you'll find it impossible to live your life in any other way except minute-to-minute. When I would babysit for my neighbors' children, they would go to bed at a certain time, and if they cried about it, they still went to bed. After a couple of days, they went to bed without complaint. When their parents took over again, the kids were allowed to get up 100 times for juice, cookies, water, blankets, you name it, and so they started whining again when it was time for bed. My parents had their faults, but they always kept us on a schedule so that the family wasn't constantly in a state of panic and disorder. I never realized how smart they were to do that.

3. Do not wake your child up so that you can play with him. Wow, I can't believe I even have to write that.

4. Do not use the TV to babysit your child. Some educational TV is great for children and babies, but limit it to an hour at most. Lorne and Judith's baby is already starting to zone out and stare at the TV when adult shows are on like The Daily Show and anything on the SciFi Channel. If you try to distract him with a book, he gets annoyed at you. This is NOT GOOD.

5. Don't smoke. At all. Anywhere. I used to think that as long as you smoked outside, you were fine, but the doctor told us that the smoke gets on your clothes and will still end up hurting the baby. After I heard that, I quit. I've had relapses, especially in the last week, but I never smoke over there because I don't want to hurt the baby. Judith, on the other hand, thinks it's okay to smoke in any room in which the baby is not currently residing. This means there is smoke in his sheets, on his clothes, in the carpet where he plays, etc. This is also NOT GOOD.

6. When your child has some sort of recurring problem, decide as parents what you're going to do about it, and do it. If you both do different things, the kid will learn that the rule is to find the parent that will give him what he wants and cry until he gets it. The time to argue about what to do when the baby wakes up in the middle of the night is NOT while the baby is crying at 3a.m.

7. Do not feed your baby sweets such as chocolate, donuts, and other things with refined sugar and saturated fat. This gives the baby a taste for all that shit at an early age, plus he won't be satisfied with something as bland as whole grain cereal.

8. Do not leave lights on when your child is sleeping. Do people not know this? Read this. Leaving lights on while the baby sleeps will cause eye strain and difficulty staying asleep. Just so you know, leaving a light on isn't good for you, either. It's better to sleep in total darkness (unless you're diabetic, but that's a whole other story).

9. Trying to make your child like you should not be one of your highest priorities. If you love your baby, play with him, feed him well, and take good care of him otherwise, he will love you back. You do not need to give in to every passing whim and tantrum so that the baby will think you're the greatest parent ever. In fact, the kid will probably end up treating you like shit when he gets older, because he can get away with it.

Of course, telling any of this to Lorne and Judith has proved pointless. I'm not the baby's parent, I don't have any children of my own, so my opinion can't really count for anything. Yet I'm involved in his life so much that I have to deal with the bad effects these things are having on him. The best parents I have known just seem to find the items listed above to be common sense. Forgive me for being single and childless and knowing everything, but I pray that if I have children, I will at least find more subtle and complex ways to fuck the kids up. Lorne and Judith are just too damned obvious about it.

Well.

2005-08-26T17:01:00.000-07:00

So, Elliot's engaged. (To someone who's not me, in case that wasn't clear.) Isn't that delightful?

Will she fit in the overhead bin?

2005-08-23T17:55:00.000-07:00

Anyone have an Asian-in-a-suitcase fetish?

This is my dear friend, D (from work), stuffed into a large suitcase. I think she looks adorable.

Thank you, slow gas leak!

2005-08-22T16:07:00.000-07:00

Since not that much is happening in my life that I can write about on this blog, I'll tell you about a charming story from the past I just remembered. I had gone to Oklahoma State University sometime during my freshman year to visit my dear friend Isabel. Actually, the reason I had gone to visit was to surprise my brother, since we didn't see each other that much. However, I called him on the way there and said, "Hey! I'm on my way to visit you for the weekend!" His response: "I'm driving to Enid to visit my girlfriend's parents. But the door's open if you want to stay in my apartment." Needless to say, I was disappointed, not only because I wanted to improve my failing relationship with my bro, but also because I would have to stay alone in the apartment with his creepy-ass roommate, Chris.

A quick aside about Chris. He was a very impressive and convincing speaker, but he always had a cold, slightly crazed look in his eye that I always associate with serial killers and Kiefer Sutherland. He actually looked a bit like Kiefer, come to think of it. He never ended up doing anything scary; we found out later that the crazed look in his eye belied his habit of compulsively lying about everything and anything in his life. He actually moved to OSU with my brother, got an apartment with him, got up every day to go to class, and spent time in his room and in the library studying, but my brother eventually found out that he wasn't even enrolled in school. He was just pretending to be a student. After he moved out, Brother of Muskrat went into Chris's room and finally took a look at all the "homework" he had been piling on his desk. It was some old math worksheets from high school that Chris had recycled, sitting in the living room next to my brother night after night, scribbling away.

This was the man I had to be alone in a dark, damp basement apartment with for three days. But I tried to stay cheerful as I went ahead and changed the purpose of the weekend to visiting Isabel.

At the time, Isabel had this kind of crazy boyfriend who was also named Chris. It was a big Chris weekend for me. Come to think of it, I'm fairly sure the two of them are still together--married, even. They had a fairly tempestuous relationship at the time. He would break up with her, and she would hurt hurself in some way in an attempt to get him back, which apparently worked most of the time. I heard one time she threw herself down the stairs in her dorm room after they had a fight. I suppose it all worked out in the end, so I should highly recommend the self-mutilation method of love. I hear they're very happy. Anyway, I called up Isabel and told her I was here to visit her, which surpised and delighted her, and she told me to come meet her new boyfriend and we'd all go out on the town in Stillwater and have a good time. I went to her dorm room and chatted for a while with Chris, who seemed nice enough but looked really strange in a metallic-looking button-down shirt that Isabel had made for him in one of her fashion design classes. It might have been appropriate attire for a rave, but it wasn't exactly the right costume for what I had planned.

I had recently invented a great game that I enjoyed introducing to new people: the $1 Wal-Mart contest. It works like so:

1. Each contestant must have a $1 bill.
2. Let each go his/her own way in Wal-Mart for a designated period of time (the shorter the better, say, 15 minutes or less).
3. Each contestant must buy something within the designated time limit with the dollar.
4. All contestants meet back in front of the store with their items. Latecomers are disqualifed, as are any who cannot prove with a receipt that their items cost less than or equal two one dollar.
5. A randomly selected, uninvolved customer is then invited to judge the contest as he/she is leaving the store. The judge must decide which of the purchased items is "the best." The judge's word is final, unless the contestants agree to ask a greater number of judges and take the majority opinion.
6. The winner recieves as his/her prize all the items purchased by the other contestants.

I told Chris and Isabel about the game, and Chris drove us to Wal-Mart with a strange glint in his eye. When we got there, I tried to get the three of us organized to begin the contest, but Chris just kept walking, so Isabel and I followed him, a little annoyed but curious. He seemed to have a clear purpose in mind, but he wouldn't answer any questions about what he was doing.

The first thing he picked up was a cucumber. He then proceeded to the hardware section, where he found a fifteen foot stretch of rope. After that, he circled back to the front of the store and snagged a box of lubricated condoms. Isabel and I were giggling madly; we had absolutely no idea what his plans were, but one way or another, we knew it would be funny. I was a little nervous, of course, despite my laughter. The three of us were all virgins (I think), so I didn't really suspect that he wanted the evening to turn into a bad porno, but you never know.

Soon enough, we discovered his evil plot. He walked past a bunch of cashiers until he found the line that he wanted in front of a young man who was apparently a good friend of his. Without saying a word about what he was buying, he greeted his friend, and plopped down the rope, condoms, and cucumber on the counter. The cashier looked first at Chris, then at the items in front of him, and finally at the two 19-year old girls standing behind Chris. He rang up everything in a silent stupor, obviously trying to figure out how to ask what was impossible to ask. I'll never forget looking back as we walked away and watching him stare at us all the way from the register to the front doors, a line of customers waiting impatiently, with a dazed look on his face that was part shock, part disbelief, and part incredible admiration. I wonder to this day what all debauchery he imagined about us for the rest of the night.

The story goes downhill after that, I'm afraid. Stillwater is an incredibly dull town, especially when you're not old enough to drink, and we tried to entertain ourselves by throwing pieces of the cucumber at things as we drove around. Finally, we went back to the dorms, determined to freak more people out with our items. The cucumber was gone, and we didn't know quite what to do with the condoms, but we still had the rope. Chris and I decided to tie up Isabel with the rope, gag her, and put her in the dorm elevator, hitting random buttons so that the doors would open at several different floors to reveal her to any students milling around late at night. The doors would open, Isabel would squeal and writhe around in her bonds, and the students would...stare. That's right, not one person tried to help her or asked her if she was alright. They all just looked at her with their mouths hanging open until the doors closed and the elevator moved to the next floor. People are great, aren't they?

Isabel was fine with the elevator, but when that started to bore us, we dragged her in front of random rooms, knocked on the doors, and ran away. She didn't like that very much at all, but by that point she was very securely tied and couldn't do much to stop us. Chris finally started to pity her, and after he untied her I decided I'd had enough fun for the evening.

I went back to my brother's apartment with trepidation, but I didn't end up seeing his roommate all weekend. I guess pretending to have a life can keep you pretty busy.

I wouldn't bother to read any of this if I were you.

2005-08-14T23:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've now called Laura and left messages two times. No reply. The wise woman would give up, I suppose, but no one ever accused me of being wise.

I am so ridiculously happy. Of course I can't talk about why, since you can't talk about things on your blog that are actually occurring in your life because people you know actually read it. God damn it. Just know that things are much, much better lately, and I'm giddy and feeling really, really good for a change.

My foot doctor, "The Hub," will take out the terrifically painful pin in my right foot tomorrow. I can't wait for it to be gone; I can't wear anything except tennis shoes or I'm in excrutiating pain. I can actually feel the motherfucker sticking way up out of my skin. [Shudder]

Listening to a lot of AC/DC and Allman Brothers. The latter had a hit called "Whipping Post" that most people seem to have forgotten. I highly recommend downloading it--it truly is a work of art.

This is a really random assortment of thoughts. Oh, well.

Judith came to see me and M do open mic night, since we were singing two songs that Judith had introduced me to. She hated all of the people that I really love, and loved all of the people that I really hate, so I was sure that she was going to hate me and M, too, but she loved us. I think that means that if I were listening to myself in the audience, I would probably hate it...which sounds pretty accurate, actually.

Enough! Time for bed.

Blech.

2005-08-02T06:03:00.000-07:00

I know I never update and when I do it sucks, but I'm not sure that's going to change anytime soon. The problem is, I really only have depressing things to talk about. One of my friends was sentenced to life in prison last week for a crime he didn't commit. I'm doing miserable temp work. Lorne's roommate OD'd on heroin and had to be taken to the hospital, which set off a giant argument between everyone who lives there about whether or not he should be allowed to stay. I feel disconnected from all of my friends because I work so much and am too tired in the evenings to have any fun. I'm just going through a rough time in my life and you probably don't want to hear about it. I'll be back when things improve (knock on wood). Until then, send some good thoughts my way.

Thanks for coming

2005-07-25T09:18:00.000-07:00

Forgive me for being away so long. I know you're dying to hear news about my birthday. Well, the wait is over!!

I went home to Tulsa Saturday night, and my birthday was Thursday. 16 members of my immediate family showed up at my house Thursday night to celebrate ME. It was oh-so-nice! I even saw my Aunt Linda and Uncle Harold, who have been estranged from our family for quite some time (almost 8 years). Later that night, I met up with Sarah (college buddy and astrological twin), Phillip (her fiance), Dave (ex-boyfriend), and other Sarah (friend of Dave's) at a bar in the trendy Brookside district. We drank beer, listened to bad karaoke, chain smoked, and relived old times. Actually, most of the old times we left in the past, which is where Sarah and I both wanted them. What we really talked about is how eerily similar we are--you really wouldn't believe it. It's actually amazing that we met up at all, because one of the characteristics that we have most in common is the inability to put energy into relationships. Perhaps that's why we're drawn together, however; we don't have to worry that the other one will judge us for flaking out, not calling back, not writing back, etc. We'll understand.

I got back Friday night and slept at the Flea Motel, then returned home in the morning to clean my entire apartment for hours and hours. I was worried there would be an after-party at my place (that didn't happen) and I had to clean up for my houseguest (El Jefe). Yes, Jefe came all the way down to Austin just for my birthday. He seemed to enjoy the evening's festivities well enough, though perhaps not enough to have been worth a terrible drive both ways. Also, he refused my hospitable offer of breakfast yesterday morning, even after I carefully listed all of the breakfast-related contents of my refridgerator and pantry. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, Jefe--it makes you less grouchy when you encounter bad Texas drivers.

So...Saturday night. I met a few of the gal pals before we went to the bar, and let's just say we got the party started early. Then we went on to Opal Divine's and sat in the middle of what I can only describe as an absolute circus. There were roughly 35 people on the guest list, and I think most of them ended up coming at one point or another. I couldn't keep up with everyone, and I felt like I missed talking to a bunch of people, which was unfortunate. I admit my "partying" left me mostly incapable of human interaction, so I apologize to all of those who expected me to be more coherent for my own birthday celebration. However, I can certainly say that it was the grandest birthday party I've ever had, since I finally combined all the little pockets of friends I have around Austin. They all seemed to get along, too--perhaps I seek out the same kind of person wherever I go.

Today I'm working at a temp job answering phones. I answer the phone. For 9 hours. Every day. That's my only job. Wow. Want to hear more about it? Well, there are over 40 extensions just on the phone itself, and then--

[blog readers cover their eyes and scream]

Okay, I'm stopping. Have a good night, all. I heart you.

For those about to rock, we salute you!

2005-07-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

Keep your calendars clear, my darlings, for my birthday is more important than anything else you have to do. Saturday night I am having some sort of party. It will either be at my house or at a bar, but you should definitely come. 24 is a very important milestone, and you don't want to miss it. Jefe, I think this should be motivation enough for another trip to Austin? And "Dylan," I expect you to bring me some Whole Foods cookies for my birthday. Preferably those raspberry ones. You get a discount, don't you? :)

Unfiltered truth

2005-07-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

Had a funny little moment the other night. On the way to Showdown to meet up with Gavagirl, Oubliette, Sarah, Greg and others, I passed a few homeless guys asking me for change. I told one of them I didn't have any cash, but would he like a cigarette? He gratefully accepted, but as I dug around in my bag, I realized that I had left my cigarettes at Gavagirl's new apartment.

"Fuck! God damn it! Shit! I can't believe this; I can't go to bar without cigarettes. This sucks my ass!"

The two homeless dudes were very sympathetic and comforting, and they told me I should try to have a good night, anyway. I continued to the bar and bummed cigarettes off Sarah and Shelly all night, which will have to repaid in the future, of course. Walking back to my car later, I passed the bums again who asked where I was going.

"Home, where my cigarettes are."

"Here, I'll roll you one," one of them replied. I plopped down beside them on the sidewalk and introduced myself while he was rolling the cigarette. One was named Chris, and the other was named Spencer. We were soon joined by more bums whose names I can't recall. Chris was disturbed when he discovered my name, since it was the same as the name of his girlfriend who had broken up with him, kicked him out of her house, and left him in his current homeless state. Spence didn't really care (he'd probably heard it before) and continued concentrating on the tobacco. It was at that point I realized he was rolling me a cigarette WITHOUT A FILTER.

No, no, no. "No way, dude, I can't smoke without a filter. That's too hardcore for me. Once you do that, you're over the edge." Spence was insistent that I take the cigarette and that I would "get used to it after the first puff." He was right about that, although I still think I caused some serious damage to my lungs. It seemed to burn so slowly, only going down whenever I took a drag. I had to surreptitiously blow a few mouthfuls of smoke out without inhaling just to get through the damn thing. I don't think it was really that bad, of course, it was just the association I have with unfiltered cigarettes and really scary, nicotine-addicted freaks.

It was nice, though, to sit there and talk about nothing with those guys in the middle of the sidewalk at 1:00am. When I worked in Houston, all of the homeless guys hanging out at the church were my buddies, so I got used to striking up conversations with people on street corners all the time. This kind of things makes a lot of people very nervous, or at the least uncomfortable. Me, I say be friendly to the homeless, because you might be one of them someday. Of course, when I say that, I'm thinking of myself in about two weeks when I run out of money.

Beware of the Scare of the Ricki-Ticki Bear

2005-07-06T18:45:00.000-07:00

[Insert obligatory apology about not posting lately here]

The apartment has been a bit lonely since Gavagirl left, but fortunately I'm only here about 1% of the time. The rest of the time I'm at the Flea Motel (Lorne and Judith's), or out until all hours of the night at various bars, coffee shops, and friends' houses. My life is both incredibly active and uninteresting at the same time.

For the entire summer at work, we have eight of our students who just graduated working for us down at the high school. Every day, one of us has to go down there and baby-sit them while they do their jobs. This sounds fairly easy, I know, but I'm just not one of those people who can surf the internet for ten hours a day. I don't have any work that I can take there to do, because all of my work requires many important files on my computer at the office. It's mind-numbingly boring and an enormous waste of my time to sit at the school all day. My other co-workers have apparently been taking it seriously, because when I'm there the kids ask me questions all the time and expect me to be an authority figure. I finally made it clear to them that I had no idea what they did there and that I tried very hard to keep from knowing. "I don't care what you do," I told one kid, "As long as it doesn't annoy me." They finally figured out I didn't give a shit and spent most of the day screwing around instead of working. I could not have cared less.

I am a very harworking person, believe it or not. Those of you who know me well know why I've turned into the supervisory equivalent of a deadbeat parent. As a VISTA, I am NOT supposed to be working with the students--that's not what we do in this program. I'm supposed to be doing my job while volunteers and/or paid coaches deal with the students. But all year, all of my time has been sucked away driving 25 miles down to the school several times a week to teach class or help the little brats with their applications. This summer employment thing has just been the last straw, and so I've decided to just let them run wild. I hope they set the building on fire.

In other news, it's been a while since I've showered. I'd better go do that before my "date" tonight. I'll try to post more in the next few days, I promise.

God help us all.

2005-06-29T08:18:00.000-07:00

Garth Brooks has a foundation called Teammates for Kids. Here is the website:

www.touchemall.com

I'll let you think about that for a while.

La fiesta del fuego

2005-06-21T15:51:00.000-07:00

I apologize, dear readers (all three of you), for the long delay in my posting. I usually write from home, but now that Gavagirl and I share the internet connection back and forth between our computers, it's usually more trouble than it's worth to spend much time on the internet at home. I've decided to just start blowing off work more to post.

So, yes, this weekend I finally met Jefe, of the infamous blogs Hook Echoes and Seeing in the Dark. Our meeting was nothing like I imagined; I expected him to burst through the door of my apartment with a bottle of whiskey in one hand, a sheet of acid in the other, and an entourage of long-haired freaky people. Instead he walked in with a Mexican wedding shirt and a sincere smile. Apparently he's toned it down a bit from the old stories we read on Hook Echoes. Gavagirl (who was grumpy), Jefe, Oubliette and I went to some crazy-ass party in the middle of fuck-nowhere South Austin, where I further proved to those three and everyone else at the party that I am Not Cool.

I'm always slightly uncomfortable at parties, to begin with, especially those where I don't know a lot of people. I just started drinking beer and chain smoking, hoping it would loosen me up, but it mostly made me sleepy (more on that later). When we first arrived, Jefe was running around like a caffeinated six-year-old with ADD trying to set up some subversive liberal propaganda for everyone to watch, but it never ended up working out. He did, however, become the star of the party later on when he FUCKING BREATHED FIRE. There's the Jefe I imagined! He kept drinking the mysterious contents of a plastic bottle and spewing it out onto his torch, and the flames would just barely miss the trees hanging overhead. Everyone was mesmerized. People standing next to me were saying, "Wow, that looks so scary," and I'd reply, "Yeah, he's one crazy motherfucker, I've known him a long time." The show lasted a good ten minutes or so, and at some point watching Jefe bravely risking his eyebrows in his black Guayabera, ponytail, and neon-lit top hat, I realized that I wanted to make mad, sweaty, passionate love to him against a wall somewhere.

It was also at this point that I realized I was really fucking soused.

I remember sitting down with Jefe and Oubliette to discuss the finer points of fire-breathing, just before I wandered away and fell asleep in an empty room. While I was asleep, everyone was apparently looking for me, thinking that I had disappeared with a drunken neighbor who charmed me with his monacle. Yes, he had a fucking monacle, I shit you not. And no, I was still not interested. I woke up in the room with what felt like 100 people staring at me and talking to me, delighted that I had woken up. I stumbled out of the room quickly, bursting outside to see Rachel with a relieved look on her face. I didn't mean to cause so much worry, but I was exhausted. After a while, I wandered back into a different empty room and fell asleep yet again. And yet again, I was awakened by 100 people, but this time they were playing guitars and singing "Johnny B. Good," which totally rocked. Rachel came in at this point and took me home, where we sent Jefe back to Oklahoma with hugs and well-wishes.

All in all, not the most exciting night for me in particular, but we had a good time, and Rachel got over her grumpiness. We both slept until after 1 or so. Nayce.

AmeriCorps Exit Survey: Excerpts from Yours Truly

2005-06-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

My time with AmeriCorps is rapidly coming to a close, and it's time to evaluate the year and what I've accomplished. Here are some of my responses to the online survey that CNCS (the Corporation for National and Community Service) sends out to all exiting AmeriCorps*VISTAs.

"My organization applied for a VISTA with a fabulous work plan, but I never got to do most of it. Some of the reason was funding, but it was also just that the organization always tried to write what they thought CNCS wanted to hear rather than what was practical or fair for a VISTA to do. I was put in 'charge' of a lot of things that I really had no authority over whatsoever."

"A lot of the job titles handed out to VISTAs are meaningless and bear little relation to what they actually do. My case is no exception. This isn't the way it has to be, but so many organizations claim to have big things for VISTAs to do that never pan out for one reason or another. And quite frankly, part of this CNCS's bull, if you'll forgive me. There are special key words and phrases they want to hear, and if they hear those words and check off items on their lists, they can very easily ignore what's actually going in the sponsoring organization."

"If CNCS weren't so hopelessly buried under a pile of dense forms and meaningless corporate jargon, they'd have more time to make sure their VISTAs aren't being misused. Like most government organizations, CNCS is an impassable bureaucracy almost entirely out of touch with the people it serves."

I doubt this will make much of a difference to anyone at the state office, but at least I can say I tried.

I don't deserve a paycheck.

2005-06-10T10:08:00.000-07:00

I heart anagrams. I've been playing around with all of my coworker's names on this online anagram generator and then sending them the anagrams through email with no explanation. The best one is E's full name, which came out of the generator as "My best lingerie."

I tried to do one for Rachel, but they weren't very funny, so I changed it to "Rockhell" + her last name and got "Her lovely rack." Nice, huh?

Try it out: www.anagramgenius.com What better way to waste time at work?

Wow.

2005-06-08T09:40:00.000-07:00

Conversation with Lorne last night:

Me: Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?
Lorne: I hate Alanis Morissette.
Me: That song drives me crazy with the way she misuses irony.
Lorne: Right, she just lists a bunch of stuff that sucks, but isn't ironic.
Me: Exactly. There's no irony in the song whatsoever.
Lorne: Which is in itself ironic.
Me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!! OH MY GOD!!!! ALANIS MORISSETTE IS A GENIUS!!!!

RockHell is Coming to Town

2005-06-03T11:16:00.000-07:00

A momentous event has occured here in Ow-steen Tay-haas: two bloggers that have linked to each other and commented on each other's blogs from afar for months have finally joined forces in the same city. Rachel (aka Gavagirl) got here Tuesday night, and it's been a barrel of monkeys ever since. We began by hauling all of her stuff out of her Protege at midnight since this isn't the kind of neighborhood in which you should leave valuables in you car. This was a bit painful for both of us, since I live on the third floor; Raquel had to carry heavy computer equipment and I am still recovering from the foot surgery. We made it, though, and since then, she's set up camp on my very comfy couch and works all day on her computer at my dining room table. It's only a one-bedroom apartment, but we don't seem to get in each other's way too much, mostly because Gavagirl is a slender slip of a girl and I can slide past her with a fair amount of ease. Wednesday we made an ecstatic trip to Central Market, where Rachel remembered what it's like to see produce that isn't rotting in some Oklahoma grocery store.

Rachel's visit has reminded me of a lesson I learned back in January when I first started hanging out with Andrew and the Spiderhouse crowd. That lesson is, in short: I am not cool. It took me a long time in life to accept the fact that not only I am not cool, but also that I will never be cool. When I would sit around discussing modern philosophy and watching documentaries at the Spiderhouse with Drew and the boys, I had a great time, but I always had the vague sense of being an intruder. I could spend time in hip coffee shops, but I was not a coffee shop hipster, as much as I wanted to be. I took up smoking in an effort to fit in (alright, and I also just love to smoke), but my clothes and general demeanor still set me apart from the others.

Now what I mean by "cool" is quite different from what you might think of the classical definition. The Spiderhouse folks weren't the popular kids in high school; they were the goths, the smokers, the drama freaks, the potheads, the art students, the queers, the kids reading Ayn Rand and Sartre on their lunch breaks, clothed in Nine Inch Nails shirts and big black boots; some of them were even Star Trek nerds or role-playing gamers. They are alternative cool, and as many of their kind as I knew and loved back in high school, I was not quite one of them even then. I remember one lovely Goth, Ashley Green, took me under her wing as her pet normal girl and delighted in shocking me every chance she got. I tried to imitate her creepy Goth handwriting and her Wiccan jewelry, but I couldn't quite pull it off. I was not cool.

Rachel, on the other hand, is cool. She possesses a sardonic wit and a withering disdain for the widespread stupidity in the world around her; she is not easily ruffled and in general gives the impression that she doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks about her. This is sharp contrast to her dear friend Muskrat, who can't seem to break out of her pathetic "Love me! Love me!" mode. She is beautiful in a mournfully sexy way; at best I could be described as tomboyishly cute. She smokes in an unthinking, careless way, just like all the other coffee shop dwellers, whereas I often still have trouble simply lighting my cigarette in one attempt. Living with her is sure to emphasize my un-coolness even more, but I'll try my best to learn from her how to be hip, and also how to drive a standard transmission.

Thanks to new commenters Wayne and Becca (sister of Gavagirl) for joining the Muskrat Love family. I appreciate your taking the time to read my ramblings.

A word of warning

2005-05-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

I've spent the weekend with a dear friend who's going through heroin withdrawals, and I just want to say to all of you: DON'T DO HEROIN. EVER!! IT DOES VERY BAD THINGS TO YOU. Okay, I need a goddamned nap. Agh!

Love and thirst are one.

2005-05-21T17:36:00.000-07:00

Do you think I won't steal from you?
I would blithely shear your sun-kissed ringlets,
And leave you bleating bald,
Spin it all into gold and hoard it in my bowels.
I don't want love, I want you--
One rosy piece at a time.

God made me flat and dry like a worry stone,
So circle me with your thumbs.
Writhe around in a cloud of sighs
Like a child in warm sheets.
Come with tears, moist breath, water everywhere;
I am storing up for the dry season.

I dare you to turn away now, love.
You are not your own,
You were bought at a price.

-Anonymous

First define your audience...

2005-05-14T09:06:00.000-07:00

For a young child growing up with a strict religious upbringing, there is no more delightful place to play than inside a church building. Churches are wonderful places to play for anyone, but they are especially fun for a child who attends the same church on Sundays and Wednesdays, because she can take a wicked pleasure in invading all the secret rooms and holy places usually revered on meeting days. I don't think I ever told you that growing up, I had the rare privilege of having a church for a playground. My mother worked for years as the church secretary, and in the summers I would go to work with her and have my run of the entire building. The church pews were a site for endless games of tag and hide-and-seek with my brother; the workroom upstairs had more craft supplies than you would need to make a thousand Noah's arks out of felt and construction paper; the hidden closets and attics held more treasures and discoveries than an inquisitive little girl could get through in a year. When that church was empty of the faithful during the working hours, every toy in every classroom, every puppet behind the youth room stage, every frosted animal cookie in the baby's nursery, was mine. We even used to slip into the room where they kept the communion supplies, nipping some of the grape juice and snacking on the unleavened bread when Mom wasn't looking. Luckily, in the Church of Christ there is nothing especially sacred about the bread and the fruit of the vine themselves, so if we were caught, no one threatened us with having wasted the body of Christ.

The one place we didn't venture was the baptismal pool, which was located behind the pulpit in the main room. There was something sacred about that place; it was where people descended with black souls and rushed back out of the water with lily-white ones. They only opened it to the view of the church when some poor sinner decided to give his or her life to Christ. Every now and then I would try to look back there and dip in a curious toe, but I always felt the breath of God on my neck and I had to run back to safer areas of the church. I was relieved many years later to have my soul cleansed in a regular swimming pool at church camp, rather than that terrifying little resevoir of atonement hiding behind the sanctuary wall.

You see, the church was mine, but the salvation performed there didn't belong to me. Though I knew all of the church's secrets and places to hide, God still seemed to have secrets I wasn't worthy of knowing. Much later in life, when I finally knew that water was just water and secrets were only illusions, I wished I could go back to the church and stick a defiant toe into that pool without flinching. I am disappointed in the little girl who couldn't conquer every shadowy place that all the other churchgoers were too afraid to penetrate. Sometimes I don't know whether she even emerged from the swimming pool that summer night or if she drowned there. These days, I find myself no longer wanting to believe in sacred things. There is something strangely comforting, Elliot, about finding out that there's really nowhere left to hide.

I rule at life.

2005-05-12T12:42:00.000-07:00

People are always talking about how they need time to think. Their lives are busy and complicated and they never have time to sit down and take stock of it all. I may have actually expressed this need once or twice, but what I'm learning from these two weeks of being trapped in my apartment with non-functioning feet is, I need LESS time to think. Sitting around all day with nothing to do but read and watch Queer as Folk DVDs has given me plenty o' time to think about all the things I'm usually too busy to obsess over, and quite frankly, I miss those busy days. When I think, I think mostly about the things I've done wrong and how I should have handled them better. And in that vein, my thoughts this week keep coming back to the same thought: Laura.

Yeah, we all saw this one coming. I was mad at everyone involved in the Elliot situation, and she was the only one left for me to take it out on. So she ended up getting all of the anger I had stored up for Elliot and Courtney. At first I was so self-assured and tranquil about the whole thing, but lately the veneer of apathy about my former life is starting to crack. I thought I saw her in the car next to me the other day, and my heart leapt up with joy before I could stop it. It wasn't her, of course, but why the hell do I care? When I have too much time to think, I think, "If you don't want her in your life anymore, why do you still check her blog every day? Why do you still have pictures of her around your room? Why do you still wonder if one of the messages on your phone is from her?" I wish that I would just shut the hell up.

Fuck.

I like pleasure spiked with pain and music is my aeroplane

2005-05-08T12:59:00.000-07:00

The surgery went off without a hitch. Actually, it went off with one hitch, and then continued from there in a hitch-free manner. After the anesthesia wore off, I was treated to 48 hours of some of the most intense pain I ever experienced. Luckily M and D from work took me in to nurse me back to health until my parents could get down here. I've spent most of this weekend in a haze of pain and Percocet, crying for someone to bring me ice, water, food, pills. I had to crawl on my back at the rate of one foot every ten seconds anytime I wanted to go the bathroom. In short, I've been a pathetic mess who's lucky enough to have people in my life that care about me to put up with my shit. Now I'm alone in my apartment for the next two weeks with only the occasional visitor to look forward to. If any of you out there love me, give me a call to make the days pass more quickly.

I want to type more, but the longer I sit in a chair, the more my feet swell to giant proportions. I'm supposed to keep them elevated and on ice. They gave me crutches to get around, but crutches as a concept only work when you have one bad foot. When there are two bad feet, crutches are just something harder than the floor to fall on. I'll stick to crawling for now. Keep me in your thoughts, my dears.

Love in all the wrong places

2005-05-05T05:51:00.000-07:00

Surgery update: It was postponed last Friday because I got strep throat. It is occuring TODAY at 1:00pm, so think happy thoughts around that time.

My new friends Lorne and Judith took me to the house of some friends of theirs for dinner last night. I was promised that I would meet some VERY interesting people. Apparently these folks are in a polyamorous setup in a house in North Austin, and they all just sort of share each other as they live together. They study tantra and witchcraft and yada yada yada, and supposedly they're very deep and very sexually in tune. Well, I'm here to report that they were some of the most dull people I've met since I moved here. How disappointing! They weren't interesting, they were just people who try to cultivate bizarre and exotic interests to hide the fact that they have absolutely no personality. Their house was draped in scarves and tapestries, there was strange Middle Eastern music playing in the background, they grew peyote cacti in the backyard...and yet still they were totally boring. It was such a cheat. Lorne and Judith are themselves in an "open relationship," which is not polyamory per se, but still seems to spice things up for them. Different strokes for different folks, eh?

In other news, my parents are arriving tomorrow and I have remnants of hickie marks on my neck. Yes, hickies. Who gives hickies after the age of 15, I don't know, but apparently they haven't gone out of style yet. I'm praying that the marks fade; I really don't want to have that "Who's sucking on your neck?" conversation right now. I already had to teach class in this state, much to the amusement of the 16 and 17-year-olds.

Well, I go now to face the surgeon. If I die, I hope that doesn't mean the hickies will never fade from my corpse. That could make my funeral awkward for my family. Closed casket, perhaps?

Announcement

2005-04-27T05:44:00.000-07:00

I have good news and bad news. Actually, it's the same piece of news, but it's bad news for people who like me and good news for people who hate me. Figure out which one you are and adjust your expectations accordingly:

I'm having surgery this Friday. While the chances of dying are slim, you might want to call me up or drop me an email if you're worried it will be the last time we speak. In the unlikely event that I croak during the surgery, I would like to say to all of you whom I have made enemies of in the past year: no hard feelings. If I live, however, don't worry--the hard feelings are still there.

Muskrat Does a Keg Stand

2005-04-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

Yikes. I'm usually not the kind of person who gets so drunk as to be unable to function. I'll usually get pretty drunk at first and then slow it down gradually so that by around 3am I'm pretty sobered up, drinking water, and going to bed. Not so last night, my friends. J at work threw a party at his house with all of his roommates and all of their crazy friends. They actually had a keg, which was funny for me because I never did keg parties in college at all. Once J found out about that, he told me I had to do a keg stand, which I had never heard of before last night. Apparently this is where two people hold your legs in the air while you grip the sides of the keg and drink as much beer as you can directly from the nozzle. I looked up at J drunkenly and giggled, "That doesn't sound very hygenic!"

Well, I did it, but not very successfully. I think I got more beer on my clothing and on the porch than in my stomach, but then again there was already plenty in my stomach. I don't know what was wrong with me last night. I was actually drinking the way Elliot used to; he would already be completely drunk, but still drinking more just for the hell of it. There's only so drunk you can get, though, and after that you're just making yourself sick. I always hated that about him; everyone else would be slowing down, winding up the party, falling asleep, and he'd just keep on drinking in this driven, scary kind of way.

I suppose I can't judge him anymore, though. I consumed enough beer last night to get an entire football team drunk. J and his roommates had a bowl of pieces of paper with tasks written on them, and when anyone came in, they had to take a task and perform it before the night was through. Mine read: "Put your hand in your pants and keep it there for three minutes. Refuse to explain." It didn't take too long before I performed my task with enthusiasm, much to the delight of my fellow partiers. After many more beers, I devised my own task, which was to kiss everyone at the party. I used to be able to count on my hands the number of people I've kissed in my life. Now I have no idea what the number is, but I think I made out with roughly 15 people, three of them my coworkers J, M, and D. At the end of my kissing run, everyone wanted to know who was the best kisser. I wasn't really sure, so I just shrugged, but today I thought of the greatest answer that I should have said: "Me!"

Today was much less pleasant. I woke up in one of J's roomate's rooms, the same roommate who once stayed the night at my apartment with J after a party, slept in my bed, and tried unsuccessfully for an hour to get me to kiss him. He was snoring so loudly that night and this morning that I actually hit him with a pillow. He didn't stop for a moment today, though, so I got up, got M and her friend Beth and drove them home. About a mile from M's apartment, I vomited in a Sonic bag I had in the car. Beth switched me places and drove me over to someone's front lawn where I threw up some more. Once I finally got home I vomited up the aspirin M had given me and just fell asleep until this afternoon. Drinking is bad for you, kids. Don't do it.

I feel like such a cliche of the early-twenties single girl living in a party town. I'm having a lot of fun, but I know this isn't me. I think it's time to calm down and spend more time reading and hanging out in coffee shops. No more smoking, no more heavy drinking, no more kissing complete strangers. I'm having surgery on my feet in a couple of weeks, and I'd like to be semi-healthy before I go under the knife. I'll be unable to really walk anywhere for two weeks, so that will give me plenty of time to calm my life the hell down. In the meantime, I'll try to get myself in the habit of not living like a member of The Real World.

Whoa! Hillsong loves me!

2005-04-15T00:13:00.000-07:00

It's after 2 in the morning. Andrew just woke me up with a wonderful drunken call, and it made me laugh so much that I can't get back to sleep right away. He's a very sweet, friendly drunk, which isn't surprising given that he's a sweet, friendly person. I wonder what it means that I am a dark, maudlin drunk; does it mean that's who I really am? Does alcohol reveal one's true personality? Anyway, it may seem inconsiderate to wake someone up at 2 in the morning, but I'll quote something he said tonight so you'll understand: "I was drunk and I was thinking, who can I call and not feel guilty?" Yes, that's right, Andrew has been on the receiving end of a drunken phone call from Muskrat (as many of you have), so now I deserve one back. It's only fair.

DID YOU SEE THE COMMENT ON MY LAST ENTRY? Phillip Dooley and the Hillsong crew actually found my blog. Can you believe it? While I'd like to believe they loved me so much that they stayed up all night searching for some sign of me on the internet, the truth is that most web page owners can easily look up who links to their site. Still, it totally rocked my face off.

Dear Hillsong,

I love you guys!! You all are flippin' sweet. I'm sorry that I didn't make it to your show, but not having a car made me pretty limited in my options for the evening. I hope it went well, and I'm glad that you made it home to Sydney safe and sound. I would love to come and visit sometime when I can afford the plane ticket. Perhaps in the fall when it will be spring down there; you crazy Aussies!

Anyway, now I'm worried that they'll be put off by my coarse language and questionable content, but I hope not. I'll try to keep it clean; I wouldn't want them to be afraid to let me around the youths when I visit. I actually am a Christian who's done quite a bit of mission work, although from my actual religious beliefs and behavior that information might surprise most people. I heart Jesus.

What's the theme of this entry? People love me! Or at least they love me when they're drunk or very, very far away. Either way, I'm feelin' good.

Long-ass entry

2005-04-09T20:22:00.000-07:00

My life over the past few days has been so interesting that blogging about it seems like a chore. I have too much to tell, so I'll try to trim it down to the best parts.

Let's begin with a week ago, when my dear friend at work, M, went into the hospital for what she thought was a panic attack. It turned out to be some serious problem with her heart that required surgery. Yet when I arrived at the hospital, there she was, cracking jokes and having a great time like she always does. She didn't let any of us be sad for even a moment, and she kept rolling her eyes as she listened to her mom cry on the phone. You can't get M down--she's just too damned cheerful. So I spent a lot of time at the hospital until Tuesday when she went home (she has fully recovered since then), playing games and making the nurses uncomfortable with my irreverent humor. One of the nurses came in to tell M all the things she couldn't do in the week after the surgery, like heavy lifting, running, etc. I felt a frisson of wickedness run through me, and I reached over to grab M's foot while I asked the nurse, "What about sex?" She sputtered and umm'ed and looked down at her chart until I said, "It's okay; I can restrain myself for the next few days." I have never made another human being that uncomfortable in my life; I actually had to leave the room to escape the tension that I had created. It was a proud moment for Muskrat.

Wednesday night I went out with Sarah to the Spiderhouse to have some coffee and relax. We ended up running into a friend of hers, Dave, and we all sat down together for a long talk about nothing. Unfortunately, it wasn't long after we sat down that a crazy drunken guy in his mid-to-late twenties started running around in our general area crying, "I've lost my guitar! I've lost my $2400 guitar!!" Dave looked up and immediately recognized him; they had met the day before at the Hole in the Wall (bar) down the street. The drunk had told Dave that he escaped from rehab that day and he was never going back. Now here he was at the Spiderhouse, completely soused and probably high at only 9:00pm. We managed to help him find his guitar, but that ended up being a huge mistake, since he kept wanting to perform for us. He sat down next to me and introduced himself.

"Hi, I'm Daniel. Like Daniel and the lion's den."
"Oh, yeah? Are you religious?"
"No, I'm not. Well, I guess I am. Sometimes. Maybe. I don't know. No. I am a little bit sometimes, I guess. I'm a very spiritual person sometimes."

This is about how all of Daniel's conversations went. He bummed a cigarette off me and stuck it behind his ear while he played us a tune by the Cure that was unrecognizable. When he finished, he turned to me and asked, "Can I bum a cigarette?" I pointed out the one he already had, and he was as delighted as if I were a magician who had pulled a coin from behind his ear.

"Some people think I'm a worthless human being. But I think I'm alright. I'm kind of a worthless person, but I think I'm pretty cool sometimes [repeat this sentence in fifty different ways]."

I tried to escape by going inside for a while, and I ended up having an interesting conversation with a complete stranger who was in seminary to be a Presbyterian minister. I didn't catch her name, but she was reading a book called The Meaning of Jesus. If you've ever wondered what the meaning of Jesus is, you'll be happy to hear it's all right there in that one book. Anyway, she was thoughtful, interesting, and kind, and I hope I run into her again. It's nice to meet religious people that don't make you want to kill yourself or them. This is what I love about Austin--you never know who you're going to meet or what's going to happen.

When I went back outside, Daniel was there waiting for me. He started playing a song he wrote called "April," and I think he might have made it up on the spot. It was so awful that people around us were starting to shoot our group dirty looks like we were encouraging him. Finally Dave and I started playing songs on the guitar just to keep it away from Daniel, but he asked for it back finally and played a song called, "It's Hard." The lyrics go something like this:

(screamed at the top of your lungs) "It's so hard!! Yeah, it's so haaaaaard! It's so goddamned HAAAARD!" It was hard.

I tried to stick it out and talk to Dave and one of his friends while Sarah went to pick up Greg from work, but then Daniel said he'd like to play us "April" again. At that point, I gave up and left to go home. I was flying home to Tulsa the next day and I needed some sleep, anyway. Daniel insisted he had to go home, too, since he was going camping the next day. I don't know if he was running away from the rehab people or what, but I have a feeling his camping adventures probably aren't going too well right now. Just a guess.

Thursday morning I flew out of Austin at 10:00am on a crowded flight. Almost everyone was on the plane and it was getting near time to start the flight instructions, when all of a sudden a large group of tanned, styled, utterly cool guys and gals wearing hats, bandanas, and sunglasses strolled onto the plane. Everyone was looking at them; they were happy, joking, laughing, greeting people like they were having the time of their lives. Two sat down next to me and three behind me, and the rest scattered around the plane. The one next to me said, "G'day!" as he sat down, and his friend in the next seat asked what I thought of his hat before handing it to me to try on. Obviously, these people were special, and it wasn't just that they were Australian. What it was exactly about them, I can't tell you, except to say that they made me desperately wish I were one of them. After a few moments, one of the flight attendants came over the PA and made the following announcement:

"Will everyone please join me in wishing a happy birthday to our passenger in seat 12E [note: Muskrat was in 12F], Phillip Dooley, the three-time cage fighting champion of Australia."

Everyone on the plane oohed and clapped before launching into "Happy Birthday." His friends around him congratulated him, looking at the other passengers and saying, "Three consecutive titles. Amazing." Something was amiss, however. "So...cage fighting?" I asked him. "What is that? Like regular fighting except in a cage?"

"Oh, yeah," Phillip replied, "It's great; they bring a big cage down over you and there's just no escape. It's basically a fight to the death." I kept questioning and he finally broke down and said that, in fact, he was only training to be a cage fighter and that he had put the flight attendant up to the lie. After further questioning he scrapped the whole cage fighting story and admitted that he and his Aussie buddies had simply lined up in front of a map of the world and thrown darts at it to see where they would land. "Most landed in the Pacific Ocean, some landed on the wall, but one dart landed right on Tulsa, Oklahoma, like a bullseye. So we said, that's where we're going." I told them that they were sure to be disappointed and that they wouldn't find much to do in Tulsa.

At this point, Joel [seat 12D) leaned over and told me to stop listening to Phil's lies. "We're actually an Australian Christian rock band and we're going to Tulsa to play for this group from Oral Roberts University." Now, of all the stories I had been told, this one seemed the least plausible, but it turned out to be the only one that was true. Their band is called Hillsong, and there seem to be about 700 people in it as far as I can tell. The video they showed me on the digital camera showed tons of people running around on stage singing and playing instruments, and Phil told me that not all of them had come on this trip. I spent the rest of the flight learning about their youth ministry outreach and their music. If you think I'm making this all up, check out their website. I think these days God is trying to get me to meet more religious people who aren't evil to restore my faith in faith. In fact, I wanted whatever it was these people were taking, be it Prozac or large quantities of the Holy Ghost. They were SO happy, and not in an annoying way at all.

Here in Tulsa things have slowed down a bit. I've been hanging with the family and eating a lot of ice cream. Tonight I'm supposed to see my oldest friend, Inayat, at my favorite Tulsa restaurant. I think I'll scandalize her by ordering a few pints of John Courage and lighting up my last few American Spirit Blues. But I'm not a smoker. No, I'm NOT a smoker. NO, I'M NOT! STOP SAYING THAT!!

La Muerte del Grupo

2005-03-29T18:26:00.000-08:00

If there's one thing in this world that I'm good at, it's burning bridges. I can burn a bridge faster and more efficiently than a coked-out bipolar sociopath in the Witness Protection Program. Not that I've ever compared myself to someone with those qualifications, but I'm sure Jefe has and could vouch for me.

Why do I burn bridges when the Wisdom of Cliches would advise me not to do so? I think it's about two different things: first, protecting myself from more pain, and second, minimizing pain for the person on the other side of the bridge. You see, I recognized a while ago that I have a tendency to keep letting people back in my life who really aren't good for me, so when I break things off, I try to make sure that the damage is irreparable. Yes, I'm aware that this is crazy, but it's the way I think. And I think it makes it a lot easier for people to get over not having me in their lives anymore because I've pissed them off so much while we were parting company. Perhaps that sounds arrogant, but I like to think that someone might be sad after we've stopped being friends, and if I can alleviate that sadness by making them hate me, doesn't that make me a good person?

Well, you can guess where this one's going: I've lost yet another blog reader, and perhaps a few more. I ended a conversation with Laura the other day with the phrase, "You can now and for all of time fuck off." Not exactly the way to keep lines of communication open, I know. After a while, this direction I'm going will inevitably rid me of Tracie and Akbar, as well, and then I will have almost all of The Group out of my life forever. For those of you who don't know me that well, The Group was a bunch of people in my life freshman year, and we spent four years of college alternating between having a great time and destroying each other emotionally. The latter situation became more and more the status quo, and I've slowly but surely been burning bridges between each individual since I moved to Austin.

I'm hoping not to lose the Giles, who was not a member of the Group, but is now Laura's boyfriend and Elliot's current roommate. He doesn't strike me as a "you can't love my girlfriend, you can't love me" kind of guy, but you never know. I'm still waiting for a call back from him (ahem)...

Anyway, my advice to you all is to end relationships the right way, in lasting bitterness and painful hopelessness. Kill them dead so they can't rise again and bite you in the ass one more time. And if you lie awake at night sometimes missing them or wondering if you've done the right thing, comfort yourself with thoughts of your own death. Oops, I mean, comfort yourself with the thought that you had to move on.

Some quotes from my life

2005-03-26T10:05:00.000-08:00

If you want to know how surreal things are becoming these days, read the following quotations from my actual life. To protect the innocent, I will not attribute the quotes, but some of them may be obvious to those of you who know my friends/co-workers down here. I will admit that at least one of these is from me:

[Leaning over the six-month-old baby's bouncy chair]"Hi, sweetie. I'm your daddy's mistress."

"If our target audience is blond-headed second graders who lost their virginity when they were eight..."

"They'll cut open my foot, move these two bones back together, and then stick a screw in there to keep them in place."

"If the real reason you didn't make out with me is that you had to write a paper on race and ethnicity, that is sad."

"So she's a prostitute, but she won't have sex with you?"

"Yeah, meet us at our apartment complex out in the hot tub. Bring bathing suits and towels. I mean, we'll be naked, but you can wear whatever."

"There are many men who will pay excellent money for a prostitute with a PhD." (This was said by the degreed prostitute herself.)

"We had sex four and a half times!"

"You don't like Ani Difranco? You're straight."

"What is it about queers that I love so much?"

"Here's my new policy: if I like you and want to be your friend, I'm not going to sleep with you."

"We were making out and I saw his sideburns and almost puked."

"A toast! To the Finnish!"

[with complete sincerity] "After that, I moved to Florida and became a pirate for about a year."

"And then, all hail broke loose."

"This lentil soup has botulism."

"If my snoring keeps you awake, we can just make out instead."

"I'm not giving a Jello shot a blow job."

"God, I love smoking. I want to do it every day."

"See, exactly, I don't have a prostate, so it's just not the same experience for me."

"Blue clit sounds like the name of a girl punk band."

Doesn't my life sound interesting? It's so interesting that now I need to go take a nap.

The Lowlights of My Life

2005-03-19T11:57:00.000-08:00

After Elliot and I broke up, I tried to decide if it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. I don't know if any of you have ever tried to pinpoint the absolute worst moment of your life, but it's actually more fun than you'd think. For some of you, it may be very easy to pick the one that stands out the most; for me, it took a lot of thought. Since I'm in a sick and twisted mood right now, I think I'll list some of the candidates:

1. When I was 17, I had surgery that left me with three scars in my lower navel region. Waking up from the surgery, I promptly proceeded to dry heave from the anesthesia, and it made me feel like my surgery scars were going to burst open. That is not a good feeling. I had doctors and nurses all around me, and my mother was there as well, and they finally convinced me to take a suppository. That's right, a fun pill that goes up your butt because you can't ingest anything at the moment. The condition that required the surgery was the most emotionally painful thing I had experienced up to that point, and in that moment when it merged with physical pain, I finally understood what the Christian conception of Hell was probably like.

2. One of the incidents surrounding the Elliot breakup, of course, but I don't know which one to pick as the worst of this subset. It might have simply been finding out about it, but I think the unimaginably horrific conversation I had with Laura while she was helping me find Elliot that night might be the winner.

3. When I first moved to Austin, I was completely alone on my birthday. I had no friends, Elliot was traveling, and my family let me know that helping me move to Austin was the only birthday gift I was getting. Kyle and I were arguing at the time, and I told him that I was severely depressed and terrified (lots of stuff was going on then). I begged him to talk to me and be there for me even though he was angry with me. He refused. There have been few moments in my life where my spirit has been that completely broken. We haven't spoken since.

This is fun so far, huh?

4. My roommate freshman year and very dear friend, Jaime, tried to kill herself one night and had to go to the hospital. When I came back to OU from Tulsa the next day, I found her on her bed with her arms wrapped up. That moment was horrifying enough, but it got worse quickly. Her bandages needed to be replaced, and guess who had the first aid kit? I wrapped up her oozing, mangled arms with white gauze before I helped her back into bed. I then walked numbly into the next room with and held our suitemate Amy while she sobbed. Yeah, that was a bad, bad day.

5. I'll stop with this one, since this entry is depressing anyway and I think this story might take the big prize for worst moment of my life. I won't go into all the history, but suffice to say when I lived with Courtney and Claire, we had a lot of roommate troubles near the end. Claire and I had become very close friends while we lived alone, but when Courtney moved back in, we started growing apart. I was in complete denial about it and had been for months; instead of dealing with it, I had started trying to become Super Roommate--cleaning, running errands, buying Court and Claire gifts, etc. I was so nervous and frazzled, however, that I just fucked up at every turn. I would try to do something nice, and it would end in disaster, which would then only strengthen my resolve to try harder, and so on and so forth. One day I actually snapped and went into a full-on panic attack, but even that day I didn't realize why it had happened. Finally, it was near the end of the semester and I went out drinking with Lee, Ingrid, and Stacy. When Lee drove me home at 2:00am, I was drunker than I have ever been in my entire life. He got me in the door and left, and I immediately fell down on the floor and couldn't get back up. The whole room was spinning and I felt terrifyingly alone. I started calling for Claire, Claire, Claire. Both she and Courtney came out and seemed annoyed, which was ironic considering all the insane, vomit-spewing, apartment-destroying pyrotechnics the two of them always pulled after a night of imbibing Muskrat's patented Long Island Iced Teas. I asked for water, and they put a glass in front of me and went back down the hall without a word. I tried to drink the water, but it just wasn't happening. I called for Claire again and she came out alone. At this point, I rose up to my hands and knees and began the most god awful, soul-shaking, gut-wrenching, hysterical weeping that I have ever experienced or seen anyone else experience. I could actually feel myself sobbing in every cell of my body; I was choking, gasping, hiccupping, pleading, wailing like you can only do when alcohol has removed every last inhibition and modicum of restraint you have. As I gripped the rug with my hands and rocked back and forth like the perfect picture of a mental patient, I begged her over and over just to like me again, please be my friend, don't hate me anymore. I literally prostrated myself in front of her and cried that I would do anything, be anything, say anything she wanted if only we could go back to the way things were before. After what seemed like an eternity, my tears dried up and she helped me into bed. The look on her face that night will always be with me; it was the same look my father gave me at the airport when I was 9 years old, just before he had to leave our family to go work in California for another six months. It said, I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do now, so you'll have to do the rest of this alone. I think this has to be the saddest, most pathetic moment of my life; at least it seems so at the moment.

It might surprise you to know that I'm actually in a great mood today. Why I chose to write about this stuff is unclear to me, but it felt right. Hope you like Schadenfreude.

Grrrreat.

2005-03-15T23:58:00.000-08:00

So I guess I'll need to end this blog, much to my disappointment. I'm having several people checking the blog from Austin IP addresses, and that's the last thing in the world I want. The whole point of this thing was to let my friends in other parts of the country/world know what was going on with me in Austin. It is not meant to be something that people down here look at or know anything about. Z told me that she found it once and hasn't looked at it since, but the temptation has got to be strong to go back again. If I found someone's blog and they didn't know, I would never tell them. I'd just keep checking it to see what they said about me. But then again, I'm a horrible person.

I don't know what to do. I guess I could get a livejournal and go friends only, but I hate livejournal. I love my site here, my pretty background dots, my life story over the months I've lived here, my pictures. But I can't talk about anything that really matters to me if I'm always afraid that the wrong person will see it. At that point, you just end up blogging about how tired you are or how bored, work, what you saw on TV, random thoughts that you have (which can be good, but only to a certain point), and so on. That's not what I want to do. I like sharing personal things about my life with my friends, and I like being able to do it without 20 individual phone calls and emails a week. Apparently, this is too much to ask. As they say, if you don't want someone to know about it, don't write it down.

This may or not be my last posting then. I'll let you all know what I end up doing.

My plastic heart cannot love

2005-03-13T20:38:00.000-08:00

Muskrat's Dating Tip of the Day: When you tell someone you're not looking for a relationship, you just want to date, and they tell you, "Let's just play it by ear," that is the moment you run away. That person wants a relationship and thinks that the solution is to wait around long enough until you come around. Bad, bad, bad.

Bonus Dating Tip: Chill out and don't overestimate what you mean to someone. Physical stuff does not imply emotional connection, so just appreciate what you have for what it is. You don't always have to worry that whomever you're involved with is expecting an emotional commitment from you, or even wants it at all, ever. Avoid the appearance of arrogance by not assuming that someone who wants your body wants your heart, as well.

I'm learning oh so much these days, don't you think? My current aversion to romantic and emotional connection with dating partners (and the subsequent disasters it causes) is actually nudging me towards a certain relationship in which lack of love and commitment would be a prerequisite for that relationship's existence. I don't know if I should go there, but it may be just what the doctor ordered. I'll let you know after Wednesday night.

In other news, I'm considering a move to New York City after July. Z just got into Brooklyn Law School, and we've discussed my getting a job there and being her roomie. I've always wanted to live there, and why not when I've got a year to kill before grad school? Then, if I get into NYU (which won't happen), I'll have residency. I'm also considering applying to the University of Toronto Comparative Literature department; I could be a Canadian! It's so exciting that I have no idea what's going to happen after AmeriCorps. I'm not even that nervous about it.

In other news, tomorrow night I'm going to see Anea and Sarah for dinner, and then I'm meeting J and Fructose at Emo's to see Patton Oswalt (kick-ass comedian). Weekend plans are shaping up for good times with Liz and Starr up in Round Rock, and hopefully a rehearsal of our new band formed at work. We've got:

J: Rhythm guitar
M: Lead guitar
Muskrat: Vox
D: Keys

You'll notice I'm the only one without an instrument. Maybe I'll call Elliot and ask to borrow his mandolin. Er...maybe not.

Enjoy your spring break, all. I wish I still had one.

Blame it All on Yourself

2005-03-09T20:13:00.000-08:00

I'll give you ten bucks if you can guess who this song reminds me of. Download it immediately and listen to it; I'm sure you'll figure it out sooner or later:

She can kill with a smile
She can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child
But she's always a woman to me

She can lead you to love
She can take you or leave you
She can ask for the truth
But she'll never believe you
And she'll take what you give her as long as it's free
She steals like a thief
But she's always a woman to me

Oh, she takes care of herself
She can wait if she wants
She's ahead of her time
Oh, and she never gives out
And she never gives in
She just changes her mind

She will promise you more
Than the Garden of Eden
Then she'll carelessly cut you
And laugh while you're bleedin'
But she'll bring out the best
And the worst you can be
Blame it all on yourself
Cause she's always a woman to me

Oh, she takes care of herself
She can wait if she wants
She's ahead of her time
Oh, and she never gives out
And she never gives in
She just changes her mind

She is frequently kind
And she's suddenly cruel
She can do as she pleases
She's nobody's fool
But she can't be convicted
She's earned her degree
And the most she will do
Is throw shadows at you
But she's always a woman to me

2005-03-01T17:35:00.000-08:00

Lapis Lazuli

2005-02-25T14:47:00.000-08:00

My friend Akbar and I have been through some rough times during the almost 9 years that we've known one another. We've had incredible ups and devastating downs, and there have been times when we were both sure we would never speak to each other again. In late high school and early college, he garnered the nickname Captain Jackass for all of his relationship shenanigans. He did things so stupid that you wouldn't believe me if I told them to you; I'll just let you think about how you would feel about a guy who broke up with his girlfriend while his best friend was hiding in the back seat so he could listen in (yes, she caught them). He is also the biggest procrastinator of anyone I ever met. You may have known some procrastinators in your life, but I promise you, Akbar takes the cake. He went so far into Procrastination World that he actually began to cease turning in any papers in his college classes. It began as starting his papers the night before, then became three o' clock in the morning before, and finally turned into an hour before class, which of course became not finishing the paper at all.

I was thinking about all of this today, and all that I have been through cleaning up after this guy's insanity, and I was shocked to realize that I have more respect for him than most of the people I have encountered in my entire life.

Why?

If there is one quality I think I value above almost all others in another person, it is the ability to love someone and be at peace with them on a deep level WHILE he/she is violently disagreeing with them. This is a very rare quality to find in a friend and even rarer to find in a lover. Some people think that this shouldn't be a quality to value at all, that it only means the other person doesn't care about you and isn't affected by anything you say. I disagree, obviously. The point, my friends, is this: Akbar possesses this quality to a degree of perfection that can only be called an art, and for that reason he will always have my deepest respect. I have fought tooth and nail with this man about everything from politics to religion to deeply personal issues, and as emotional as we got, we knew and could feel that on some unshakable bedrock of friendship, we were still okay. For that reason, we have developed one of the most refreshing and brutally honest friendships I've had the pleasure to enjoy, and there is nothing one of us could say or joke about that would offend the other.

And don't mistake this situation as something that developed over time and experience with one another. We've been through a lot, yes, but I've been through a lot with many people and it still seems like it takes nothing but a puff of wind to knock over our entire friendship. It just is, it was, and it always will be, kind of like God. I find myself seeking this quality in everyone I meet, but Akbar is a diamond in the rough, I'm afraid. Something about the relationship between us is set apart from the way humans seem born to interact.

Why am I going on and on about Akbar, you ask? Last night I got into an online spat with Ed, and I realized that every time he and I have disagreed or fought, I have felt a very deep anger and violent disgust coming from him. It doesn't mean he really hates me or that we won't really be okay someday, but I don't feel like we can disagree and still respect one another. Last night's issue was very personal, but one time I remember we were in Tulsa and we were arguing passionately about Wal-Mart and its effects on local communities. He was so upset by the end of the conversation that it made the rest of dinner with Laura uncomfortable. I was fine. I didn't see how disagreeing with someone about a political issue, even to the point where you think what they're saying is stupid, irrational, and flat-out wrong, means that at the end you have to dislike each other. I suppose if it's some issue about racism or homophobia and you really feel like the other person is a bad human being deep down because of how they feel, you might be justified in feeling that way. Otherwise, however, I just don't stop liking someone even when we're on completely opposite sides of the fence. In fact, the harder someone fights and the more rationally and evenly they try to break down my own arguments, the more I end up respecting them. I hate the feeling that I have to sugar-coat things and dance around an issue just to avoid a fight. I even offered to Ed never to talk about anything again if we disagreed on the issue; I would rather do that than fight with him. He signed off AIM before we could settle that point, but I think that's just what we'll have to do in the future.

I'm sure you've all had these conversations before, and like me, you've probably been on both sides of them:
Person A: The opinion that you hold about x is completely wrong and not a little bit ignorant.
Person B: How dare you call me ignorant!

You see what happens, Larry? You have to walk a fine line when you tell someone that what they're saying is stupid, because they will illogically conclude that if they are saying something stupid, they must be stupid, therefore you are calling them stupid. But intelligent people are still apt to say stupid things sometimes--I should know.

So the fight was a complete disaster. You remember my post long ago about the way people act on AIM, and last night was no exception. Ed made sure to type two long paragraphs of rebuttals before quickly signing off in a huff so I couldn't comment on what he said. Only on IM are people this rude; I hope it doesn't star spilling over into the rest of society. I tried to talk to him about it again later, and was treated to a nice "fuck off" and another signing-off right after yet another lengthy paragraph. His arguments can be like drive-by shootings.

If you're still with me at this point, I hope you will go here: http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/Lapis_Lazuli.htm and read this poem. At the very least, read the last stanza. It may help you understand Akbar, because as Yeats put it, his "ancient, glittering eyes, are gay."

I need to post this quickly before they break up again.

2005-02-24T16:11:00.000-08:00

Giles and Laura in Dallas. Aren't they sweet and happy? This is right before I went to bed with an extremely sore throat, a fever, and a cough, and they went to bed to have sex on Laura's stepsister's expensive sheets.

2005-02-20T10:27:00.000-08:00

My new t-shirt design. I think I'll make a million dollars.

Check it and see. I got a fever of a hundred and three.

2005-02-14T11:27:00.000-08:00

I think this my be my first time ever to blog while sick. I woke up this morning (with the sun down, shinin' in, I found my mind in a brown paper bag within) with a fever and a cough. I called into work bravely asserting that I would be there in a few hours to teach my class, but I gave up on that not long ago. C, our program coordinator, is going to teach the class for me, which filled me with enough relief to rest here comfortably at home. I was worried that J, my sweaty, awkward, lisping, male co-worker would end up teaching both my class and his, which would be bad for my poor students. His classes are already horribly slow and uncomfortable, and if you add 12 students to his roster, things are only going ot get worse.

I'll have to cancel plans this evening at the Spiderhouse with Andrew (Rachel's friend), which makes me sad. I've been looking forward to hanging out with him all week. He's turning out to be a very interesting, funny, intelligent person, and I regretted waiting so long to call him. Rachel must have given me his number about 10 times since I moved down here, and I was just too shy to call him up. Now, he's a great new part of my life and every time I see him, I meet about five new people. It's really exciting. Oh, and he has curly hair, which as you all know is one of my favorite things in the world. I reached up the other night to pull one out and watch it boing back, but doing so made me think about Courtney and I had to pound a beer to keep from choking up. I saw her picture on facebook the other day; she straightened her hair. That made me sad, too, although she looked pretty.

On a happier note, my new co-worker M is a delight! I hung out w/ her Saturday night, and we had a blast. She plays the guitar, loves singing in harmony, loves bluegrass, and is, like me, a semi-fallen Christian. I couldn't have dreamed up a more ideal friend. I've always wanted someone to sit around and sing in harmony with; Laura and I used to do that sometimes, and it was quite enjoyable. Since I was raised in a church where everyone sang in four/five part harmony all the time with no musical instruments, I grew to love harmony in a way that I think most people can't grasp. I'm looking forward to getting together with her and harmonizing to Ricky Skaggs tunes with her and her roomies, who are also apparently good singers. Yay!

Alright, I'm getting back in bed. Once again, thanks to Laura for Saved by the Bell; it's getting me through this day, too. You rock my socks off.

Alright Already

2005-02-11T23:30:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought the Elliot pain had died down a bit, here it comes again. Yesterday, I was trying to free up some space on my hard drive because it's getting overloaded with videos and mp3s. As I was deleting a bunch of stuff from my documents folder, I came across two different files that Elliot had left there, both about philosophy and probably both relating to his dissertation. At first I thought I should delete them, but then it occured to me that he might have forgotten about them and needed them for his dissertation work. I still thought, "Who cares? I should just delete them, it's not my problem," but I really didn't want to be petty and mean despite all that had happened. So, although it was so, so, SO hard for me, I wrote him an email telling him what was in the files and asking if he needed them. I offered to send them to him before I deleted them. I felt like I was being very mature and gracious, and I was glad that I hadn't let all the pain between us stop me from doing what I felt was the kind and decent thing to do.

Well, that was stupid. He wrote back with the most curt, terse, unfriendly email I have ever received, telling me he didn't need the files. He didn't thank me for offering to send them, and he didn't even put a greeting line with my name and a comma. I suppose this is all pretty dumb, but it really did hurt my feelings. Whatever Elliot's faults, he was always a gracious gentleman when it came to certain things. I thought he would at least be polite and respectful in his reply, but instead he ended up making me feel like he was angry with me. Perhaps he is, but for what I don't really know. I did tell him not to call me anymore, but at the time he seemed to understand why I did that. Even then, I told him that if he ever really needed someone, I would still be there for him, because I had made a promise once to be there if he needed me for the rest of his life. I don't promise things that I don't fulfill, no matter how hard it is when things have changed. I just couldn't believe that he would hurt me so much by cheating on me, and then add to it by avoiding common courtesy when I tried to be mature about something difficult. I cried for the first time in a while; God, this is so, so hard. Is it not enough that the person I loved had to hurt me, now he also has to hate me, too?

Elliot and I always had a deep respect for each other, no matter what our problems were, and that respect kept us from falling into traps that many other relationships seem to encounter. To think that even that is gone is almost more sad than thinking about how our love is gone. Ugh. Why can't I be petty and angry so that I can get through this easier? Why couldn't I have seen those documents and said, "Fuck him," and deleted them? Why did I have to be stupid to tell him and then expect him to be kind about it?

What is wrong with me?

Drag Kings 'n Things

2005-02-11T04:15:00.000-08:00

Well, my body is still hanging on to the whole sleep 5, awake 2, sleep 1 schedule, so I'm doing some early morning blogging. This doesn't happen every single night, but it happens often enough that I can call it a pattern. Perhaps my body has just decided that it only needs 5 hours of sleep from now on, and the only reason it goes back to sleep at 7am is that it's sick of lying in bed awake.

In other news, things have been getting rough for my friends Laura and Giles lately, and I've been worried about them most of this week. I strongly dislike that a lot of their relationship issues sound eerily similar to ones that Elliot and I had, because I feel like I have to stop them from doing whatever we ended up doing wrong...and I'm not sure what that was. Anyway, I'm starting to wonder if Giles will regret ever meeting me. I tried to set him up with Cathy the Communist last year, and that crashed and burned; then he met my friend Courtney and made out with her, which would eventually come back to bite him in the ass when he started dating Laura, and now he's having problems with Laura. Maybe it's not a good idea for me to introduce people--I should always keep the people I know separate from each other.

I wish I had some exciting news, but the truth is I'm just trying to keep busy. E at work is in a drag king show tonight, and we're all supposed to go. Perhaps I will get to dance with some hot lesbians, preferably after having a few beers. Last time I went to E's drag show, I was a bit toasted and I ended up taking off my bra and throwing it on stage at her. She was surprised and delighted, and since then she seems to think of me differently. I suppose you can't get much of an idea of what someone is like from working with them--she thought she was the only party animal in the office.

I put new batteries in my digital camera that I haven't seen in months and months. There were four pictures of Elliot on there that I had forgotten about, and...it was sad. It wasn't too bad because they were mostly pretty terrible pictures, but it was still another one of those minefield moments. I hope they will stop soon.

That's about it for now, except...7 days until Lewis Black!!

Finding Love in Austin

2005-02-08T20:05:00.000-08:00

My favorite new pastime is reading the Personal Ads in the Austin Chronicle. Some of these people are so completely insane that I'm not entirely sure they're serious. Perhaps it's just an editor on the night shift coming up with phony ads because he thinks the entertainment value will sell more copies. Here are some of my most recent favorites:

"GARDEN VARIETY SOUTH Austin hippie, employed slacker, 45, seeks all-cotton hippie chick honky-tonk kozmik kowgrrll, for lifetime of picking, grinning, shovelling turkey manure, dodging the IRS, subverting the dominant paradigm, and generally enjoying the ironic, absurdist Pink Flamingo worldview from the narrow regions of the Bell Curve in 78704." Just think about how much this ad must have cost the poor nutcase. I almost called him for a date, but I don't live in 78704. Oh, and I have this weird aversion to turkey shit. Other than that, we were meant to be.

"OBSESSIVELY FANATIC CHRISTIAN idealist seeking buck-wild, punk-rock, cyber goddess with a nose ring. Must love Jesus...but not too much. Amen." I don't know what a cyber goddess is, but I have a feeling I don't fit the bill. I also love Jesus too much; I would never desecrate the temple that Jesus lives in by putting a hole in its nose.

"SOUTH AUSTIN ROCK 'n roll guy, 52, got a straight job now. Seeks soul mate. I'm good cookin' and good lookin'." Why doesn't he just say, wanna date a recovering crack addict?

"CAN A FABULOUS , 50-ish fashionista find a faithful, fulfilling, fall-in-love forever kind of romance? Attractive, articulate, agreeable, artsy, animal adoring SWF seeks an aesthetic SWM who appreciates acumen, and abandon." Yeah, lady, there's nothing hotter than fucking alliteration. The truth is, you're sad, single, and sagging, and we all know it. Translation: 50s-ish = 59.

"CHRISTIAN. LIBRARY 11/27, green bike. You answered my ad, left unworkable email address. Intentional? If not, please call again." Yeah, I'm sure the whole email thing was an accident, and I'm sure it was very encouraging that she gave you an email address instead of a phone number. Good Lord, people are depressing.

Double Your Pleasure

2005-02-06T13:12:00.000-08:00

My mom just left this morning; we had a fantastic weekend. I'll get back to the details of our adventures later, but first I wanted to let my four faithful readers know that I figured out some valuable things during Mom's visit. Prepare yourself for brilliance.

I realized something about all the weird little quirks, habits, and idiosyncrasies of your significant other: they are a double blessing, or at least they can be in certain circumstances. George Carlin once did a bit about the frightening, moldy leftovers he found in his refrigerator: "Leftovers make you feel good twice. Leftovers give you two separate good feelings. When you first put them away you feel really intelligent. 'I'm saving food.' And then after a month, when hair is growing out of them, and you throw them away, you feel…really intelligent! 'I'm saving my life.'" Likewise, I've figured out you can get two separate good feelings from the eccentricities of your lover. When you're happy with someone in a relationship, all of those funny little characteristics can be incredibly endearing, even if you wouldn't have necessarily found them cute in other circumstances. When you sincerely love someone, their bizarre habits and irrational beliefs can be adorable and make you love him even more. There's the first good feeling. And then later, when you're sad about breaking up with said person, you suddenly think again about a lot of those quirks and how much they annoyed the living fuck out of you.

And there's the second good feeling. :)

At one point this weekend, Mom and I took a wrong turn somewhere because of an inaccurate road sign and we were unsure where we were headed for a few minutes. It turned out just fine, but while we were lost, I kept waiting for Elliot to appear and turn into a restless, teeth-grinding, arrogant stress-case and sit next to me in the passenger's seat sighing and practicing his "long-suffering" look like our time in the car was a prison sentence. Whenever I'm alone, I drive very well, rarely have any close encounters with other cars, and can almost always find my way somewhere. When he was in the car, at times I was so stressed out I didn't know my right from my left and every five seconds we came close to death. This weekend I realized that despite this persistent sadness I feel, I'm glad to be rid of the constant feeling that I couldn't ever do anything right. Every time he knew how to do something I didn't, I had to feel like an imbecile whose pathetic attempts at helping him or learning more about it only annoyed him more.

The next incident that brightened my day was when Mom and I left the movie theater AFTER THE MOVIE ENDED. We didn't have to wait in the seats while everyone in our aisle stepped over us awkwardly, and we didn't have to sit and watch ten minutes of mindlessly boring credits until the theater was completely empty and the employees came in to clean up the trash, looking at us like we were insane. I think for at least the next year, I will bound out of the movie theater as soon as the final music begins to swell and the couple starts to kiss. I'll kick down old ladies and children if it means I'll get to the exit faster. It'll be good therapy for me, as will fastidiously avoiding watching any of the following movies: blacksploitation films, unimaginably dull films from the 70s in which the actors never change facial expressions and spend most of the movie walking or driving somewhere, mindless horror films, and Woody Allen's Sleeper. It'll be easy to avoid renting any of these movies because I won't have to walk around Blockbuster for a solid hour before I can take a movie home. I won’t even see most of them!

Okay, my hands are shaking, I think I need to stop now. That felt so good, though. Gotta love that second good feeling!

It Just May Be a Lunatic You're Looking For

2005-02-04T21:03:00.000-08:00

Steev's Survey

Choose a band/artist and answer ONLY IN SONG TITLES by that band (you pick your own band or artist, dont use the same one as the person who did this before you):

artist/band: Billy Joel

Are you male or female: She's Always a Woman

Describe yourself: You're Only Human

How do some people feel about you: She's Got a Way

How do you feel about yourself: Got to Begin Again

Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend: And So It Goes/Don't Ask Me Why

Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend: The Stranger

Describe where you want to be: New York State of Mind

Describe what you want to be: Honesty

Describe how you live: Only the Good Die Young

Describe how you love: Shameless

Share a few words of wisdom: Get it Right the First Time

Loved by the Bell

2005-02-02T17:14:00.000-08:00

I received an unexpected package in the mail last night. I didn't recognize the return address and there was no card inside. Imagine my surprise when I opened it to find Saved by the Bell seasons 3 and 4! I was overjoyed at first, and then my heart stopped momentarily. A few minutes later on my way to meet someone from work, I called Laura and said, "Please tell me you got me a present." She said yes, she had, and I breathed a sigh of relief before thanking her jubliantly. For a moment I thought it was from Elliot, and that would mean I'd have to cry.

I had a sad thought after I got off the phone with Laura. I should have known that Elliot didn't send me that package, because it was the kind of thing I would do, not him. I think if you want to be happy in love, you should find someone who not just loves you, but figures out how to show it in ways you'll understand.

I could go into a long story about my mother right now, but I'll spare you. :)

Please believe in me when I say I'm spinnin' round round, round round

2005-02-01T06:49:00.000-08:00

How do you know when you've officially become insane? There aren't any definite or complete answers to that question, but I'm pretty sure a 2:30am phone call to Rachel is in there somewhere. Thanks, Turbo. They're coming to take me away, ha ha!

On the Horizon

2005-01-30T20:38:00.000-08:00

I think one of the most important ways to fend off depression is always to have something to look forward to (to which to look forward). This has become a vital part of my life--planning things in the coming days that I can think about to cheer me up when I'm alone and sad. Today I have three things to look forward to, which makes me very happy.

First, tomorrow I'm meeting a friend of Rachel's at the Spiderhouse Cafe. Ever since I moved here, she's been trying to get me to hang out with him, but I always felt weird about calling someone I didn't know and saying, "Hi, be my friend." But earlier today I called him and said, "Hi, be my friend," and he was amenable (okay, it didn't actually go like that). I started reading his blog tonight, and he seems very funny and intelligent. He also knows a lot of people in town, so maybe I'll get hooked into an even larger group of intelligent, funny people.

The second thing I'm looking forward to is my mother's visit to Austin on Thursday. She's staying until Sunday and I can't wait! She's never, ever visited me just to visit me. She and my dad would sometimes come to Norman if I had to move or needed something else done, but they never came just for the sake of seeing me. Her visiting me this time all the way down here makes me feel special. :)

The final thing I'm looking forward to is meeting Lorelai and the Giles in Dallas in a few weeks to see my hero, Lewis Black. I'm extremely excited about seeing him perform; I've loved him every since my freshman year when I first heard his IHOP rant. I promptly memorized and performed it for my friends as a party trick. Truth be told, however, I'm most looking forward to seeing people I love, especially now that they are an official couple. They have both been there for me through this entire ordeal, despite the fact that they've been put some very awkward situations. Thanks, guys. I heart you both.

Earlier IM conversation:

me: good luck finding a movie [to watch w/ Lorelai]
me: like you're even going to watch it
Giles: we're not 17
me: yeah, I know, you're NC-17

Oh, he's into you, he's just into other girls, too.

2005-01-28T19:44:00.000-08:00

I'm learning all about breakups these days. Now I see why people are always writing books about divorce and breakups; you figure out a lot of things and you think the information might be useful to other people. The problem is, of course, that no one will really care about what you wrote until they've broken up with someone, too, and then they'll learn it all themselves. I wonder if people ever really learn that much from each other, and if they ever avoid doing stupid things just because someone older and wiser told them not to. I doubt it.

Here's one of the unexpected things about breaking up with someone, and probably about loss in general: the sadness does not follow any clear pattern. When I first found out about what happened, I thought I would be very sad for a long time, but that the sadness would lessen day by day in tiny increments. I guess that's a cliche--growing a little stronger every day and such. But for me, I never know what days it will all hit me and what days I'll be okay. Today, for instance, I was very sad and still missing Elliot very much. A few days ago, I felt pretty well, like I had just narrowly escaped some horrible accident and I was relieved to have gotten away in time. Who knows how I'll feel tomorrow? I guess eventually things do go from bad to okay to good again, but that's the big picture. The day-to-day stuff is schizophrenic.

Tonight I went to a book signing/reading at a local "womyn's" book store called Book Woman. The book was titled Vaginas: An Owner's Manual, and the authors (a mother and daughter) were hilarious. I got a bit ill during the detailed discussions of abortion techniques, ovarian cysts, and the things that can happen to your vagina when you get really old (you don't want to know), but all in all I really enjoyed the presentation. I couldn't afford the book, but someday I'll buy it and learn more about my vagina. If you ladies out there want to hear some words of advice from the professionals tonight, I can tell you something very important: it's all about the Kegels.

Today we celebrated LF's (boss) birthday at a great place called Gumbo's. I likes me some cajun food--bring on the blackened catfish! Truth be told, I haven't been that happy with LF lately, especially considering she dragged us to Houston yesterday to present to our corporate sponsor for AN HOUR AND A HALF before we had to go back. That's over three hours there, and back the same way. Six and a half hours of driving for a fleeting moment in Houston. I wouldn't even drive six hours to Norman to see Elliot unless I could get an extra day off work. After that much time in a car, you start to despise everyone and start having fantasies about the car hurtling off a bridge. Anyway, I managed to celebrate LF's birthday in style, despite the trouble we've been having lately. It's been so long since I've been in a nice restaurant that I couldn't help but perk up. Food stamps are great, but they don't come with atmosphere, y'know?

I read on the Giles' blog that Elliot is having his birthday party tomorrow. I just can't believe that I won't be there, giving him some extravagant gift like I always do. I can't believe that a bunch of people I really like will be celebrating his birth right now. Shouldn't we have to go to court for custody of friends? Of course I'm kidding; I'm not really that bitter, but it helps to joke about it.

Alright, gotta stop the moany shit and get to bed. Speaking of which, I went to bed at 11 last night to see if I would still wake up at 5am (meaning that time is what wakes me up) or at 4am, meaning my body always wants to wake up after 5 hours. I woke up at 4, but I got back to sleep a little later. Here's hoping that things are improving...

Insomniacs Anonymous

2005-01-27T04:00:00.000-08:00

My body is on an interesting new system of sleep. I don't know why it's happening, but the last few days I've gone to bed at midnight and then woken up at 5am. I toss and turn and try to get back to sleep, but my body will absolutely not cooperate until a little after 7am, when it finally decides it's time to get sleepy again. I then sleep an hour until my alarm goes off at 8, and I wake up exhausted. The funny thing is, when I wake up at 5, I feel much more awake and ready to get up then I do at 8. So this morning I stayed in bed until 6, and then decided just to get up. I might as well use the extra time to clean up my apartment or read or something. Or blog.

Since this whole Elliot nightmare began, it's been a bad idea in general to wake up in the middle of the night for any reason. I'm sure to start thinking about what happened, and then getting back to sleep is impossible. Not that it matters if I fall asleep again, because I'll just have tortuous dreams about him until I wake up. When my best friend and I cut ties our freshman year of college because her psycho boyfriend made her stop talking to all of her friends, I had recurring dreams about her for over two years. I really hope that these new dreams won't continue that long. The other night I dreamed he was carrying me through an ocean or a lake, and the water was dirty so that I couldn't see the bottom. He kept walking and getting deeper as he followed the shoreline, until only my nose was out of the water so that I could still breathe. I don't know why I couldn't let go and swim; I just knew I had to hang on for dear life so that the water didn't go over my nose. That Freud guy really knew what he was talking about, huh?

The dream ended nicely, though. We finally came to a clear, icy stream running nearby, and I swam away from him and grabbed onto some of the chunks of ice floating by. The stream's current was so fast and strong that it actually pulled me uphill away from him, and I looked down smiling and laughing at him in the ocean, and he smiled back. I haven't quite figured out that last part yet.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my self-esteem, and how I'm not sure it's in the healthiest state. Sure, it hasn't boosted my confidence that Elliot cheated on me with my friend whose new hobby is sleeping with married guys, but I don't know if my self-esteem was in that great of shape before that happened. When I was talking to Elliot the night I told him not to call me again, I brought up a time that he said the most horrible thing that anyone has ever said to me, that anyone ever could say to me, really. I won't say what it was, but let's just say it was a reason that he might not want to marry me. It was one of the lowest points of my life; I was humiliated, rejected, and sick to my stomach with rage and sadness. And yet, I didn't break up with him. Thinking back, I can only wonder, what the hell is wrong with me that I can't break up with the man who, knowing better than anyone else in the world the one thing that would break my heart, chose to use that knowledge and reject me for something I can't help and didn't choose? Who is more unhealthy, me or him? I'm really not sure. I think we both need years of therapy.

AmeriCorps, unfortunately, does not provide insurance to cover mental health claims. They tell you at orientation not to become a "case" yourself, and instead focus on helping your target population. I guess that's okay, though; I've always thought that helping other people is the best therapy you can find. Oh, and food stamps almost always cheer me up. ;)