getting a cat, my own cat, is basically the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
yesterday i woke up fairly early, went to the farmer’s market (which actually had produce, finally), drank coffee with old friends at greektown, ate an amazing gluten free vegan scout cookie from city o’city, went to pridefest (oddly i had only been once before, six years ago, somewhat randomly before the only time i ate at greektown when i was in college), picked up gonzo, smiled a lot, went to work and made a zillion dollars thanks to lots and lots and lots of drunk gay men.
tonight: star trek and friends.
“trouble” by lindsey buckingham is playing in the whole foods coffee bar. this was pretty much my favorite song last summer, and i listened to it about a hundred million times while riding the metro and walking around and doing all that sulking i used to like to do. now i am realizing that it’s a little closer to my theme song than i’d like, once again. once a-fucking-gain. oh well.
this was me a year ago, right after i started my daily photo project:
this is me today:
i have bigger eyebrows now. it’s because i’m becoming greek by association.
i applied for health insurance today. i found a pretty decent blue cross plan, and if they approve me, it will only be $80 a month. that would make me feel a little bit more like a responsible adult, i think.
“away we go” was good, even though it instantly rekindled my desire to have babies and travel around the country and look at david in that way that made me feel so safe.
this was the original plan for the next few years of my life. but it’s funny, because just the other day when i was playing passenger on the way home from utah, i came to the realization that i don’t need a husband to spend the rest of the fleeting days of my youth having adventures wherever and whenever i see fit. i mean, actually, being single probably makes that kind of plan/lack of plan easier.
i struggle when i think about putting down roots. i’m going through a big nesting phase again, and my apartment is just how i like it. i’m getting this cat, and i’m meeting my neighbors — i helped the girl next door try to break into her house tonight, using various hair ornaments and kitchen utensils (unfortunately we failed).
i’m liking denver, all the roses and the atypical summer rainstorms and my neighborhood. i’m liking my new friends, my old friends, my new job with its already familiar setting. i am sitting at st. marks and it feels comfortable, drinking this sweating glass of shitty sauvignon blanc and eating a chocolate chip cookie for dinner at eleven o’clock at night (i tried to eat an italian tuna sandwich, but the grill was closed — i’m actually still pretty good with the proper nourishment thing, maybe better than ever).
i could stay here for a while.
but i came up with a shortlist of places i would like to go, pretty soon. i am once again thinking a lot about joining the peace corps, maybe going somewhere completely foreign like africa, a place where i could use my french and get outside of myself for a while. it seems like the only viable “next step” sometimes — it would keep me away from the office tether for a few more years, but probably lead to something that doesn’t involve serving up gyros for the rest of my life.
besides that, my top five includes:
-somewhere in the south of france, maybe aix, where my mother spent a good part of her twenties.
-budapest. i always just thought i would like living there.
-vienna (ditto).
-new zealand — the english thing, and everyone seems to like it there.
-switzerland. maybe in the french-speaking region. just to give it another shot, i guess.
[EDITED TO ADD: GREECE! that would probably make the most sense, eh?]
i have no strong inclination to move to asia. not even to russia, where my brother will likely be for the next few years. i don’t really want to do the ashram thing, or whatever. i guess western europe appeals because it seems like i could stay there, like it would be the same as here but different, which is pretty much my thing in case you haven’t noticed.
i don’t know. i don’t know.
michael jackson’s death kind of rocked my world yesterday. i’ve been having a lot of there-is-only-this feelings. i guess realistically i would prefer to have david by my side. but i don’t know.
i played uno in a weird church courtyard this afternoon and it was nice. that, i do know.
still figuring out this new schedule and having too much fun in the meantime… petting shelter cats, climbing walls, almost succeeding at breaking into the botanic gardens, eating sexy pizza on the sidewalk, late night girl talking on my front steps. other weird stuff.
i have a huge unexpected crush all of a sudden, on someone who is both familiar and new due to life’s strange circumstances. it’s odd when someone has slept in your bed, but never with you, for several months. it’s even more complicated when that person is kind of sort of forbidden due to friend codes and what have you, if not just because i really don’t know if i want to get wrapped up in someone right now. or if i can.
i’m getting a mangy cat with a broken leg and a space collar tomorrow. pretty psyched about that. his name is gonzo.
i finally stopped being lazy and i’m going to start doing stuff for the onion again.
and something finally clicked to make both cuticle biting and cigarette smoking unappealing. i celebrated:
late last night i put on my engagement ring for the first time in a month and stared at my hand for a while. it felt so wrong and right, opening the little blue box and slipping it on my finger. it’s the only time i can remember my hand looking grown up enough to wear such a thing — i was vaguely ashamed of my five-year-old boy hands the day we went to tiffany’s. and yet it will never be something that is mine, anymore. i don’t really know what to do with it.
chris might sell it for me on ebay. in the meantime, we are going to see a movie and eat ice cream tonight. and then i work. i <3 summer.
on saturday morning i went to bed around 4:30 and woke up about an hour later. i showered but did not dry my hair, dressed like it was half-winter, and only made jason wait outside my apartment building for a little bit. we hit the road and made it to ikea by 4:15, as the gps robot predicted, despite the fact that it was programmed for the wrong time zone. we hit traffic, there was rain, i had to pee a lot, etc.
the draper, utah ikea was similar to other ikeas i have frequented, from switzerland to the suburbs of d.c. and chicago. there was no princess cake in the cafe, but i did find some personal-sized ones in the frozen section. i ate one in the car on the way back and it was pretty good. not enough marzipan, but still good. i’m sort of scared to eat the others because we did not get back until after 3 in the morning, and they were sans refrigeration for about a zillion hours.
the day ended on a frustrating note, first as my phone died on the drive back, then as jason revisited his why-we-should-not-be-friends speech, prompting me to launch into my why-we-should-be-friends speech, which essentially goes back to my opinion that giving up on people will only make you less happy. and really, jason is already one of the least happy people i know, in terms of being okay with where he is in life.
in a way he’s like danny, who has accepted certain things about himself as fact… and as a result, they are. incidentally, danny was a jerk to me when i got home, and i really was not in the mood for that.
*
greekfest was fun.
hanging out with patrick last night was, too.
tonight i officially start at the kitchen, and i have to idea what to expect re: that. i already miss greektown in the same way you miss your parents’ house the second you get to college, even though you spent the entire summer counting down the days till you got to leave home.
cheers.
i have not showered, and it is 2:38 in the afternoon, and i am drinking a full sail ipa for lunch. but i mean, it’s friday, right?
continuing on a. my life theme of everything getting weirder and more unexpected by the second, and b. the fact that i have become firmly ensconced in the big fat greek world of all people/places/things-in-denver-owned-by-pete, i start working at the kitchen on sunday morning-ish. which means, basically, a minimum post-tax monthly income of $4,500, but possibly some other stuff that will annoy me. regardless, working at perhaps the most well-known restaurant in denver seems like a good opportunity for my grand finale as a waitress. the uniforms are better, too… no more ruining my former young professional button-downs and pencil skirts (a costume i never actually wore till i started waitressing) with olive oil and baklava syrup.
yesterday was good. jesse and i walked around the city for hours, and then i met up with ashley at the thin man to chat, chat, chat. i drank my quotidian glass of sauv blanc. some guy came up to us, asked to borrow a lighter, and said to ashley, “aren’t you david’s friend?” she replied, “yes, but i’d rather be known as cat’s friend.” he looked confused, and then i said, with a particularly bershon expression on my face, “um, i’m david’s ex-girlfriend.”
and then it was awkward, the end.
tomorrow jason and i are driving to utah to shop at ikea for an hour. if i don’t eat some princess cake, i will just fucking die.
stumbling toward normalcy again, finally. last night i went to yoga, walked home, made dinner: kale and navy beans sauteed with garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and chardonnay. i sat on the steps outside my building, drank a glass of said wine (hmm, almost typed “whine”), read a book and then called my parents.
eventually it got dark and i went over to gyros place because basically i am greek now. i talked to the manager about the latest gossip. he said he’s going to fire julie from greektown, which put me in an awkward place. i left and stopped by amanda’s house, and a bunch of us hung out on her balcony. it felt like summer because it is. danny came off his bender and we went to smiley’s. i finished doing my laundry and worked on my bust-a-move skills.
a smarter person might avoid someone like danny completely, but lately i have learned that nothing good comes from giving up on people. there are other lessons i’ve been taught by accident over the past year, perhaps because i really am aging in reverse — these are mostly the sorts of things that your parents tell you when you are five and you think you know until you are put in certain situations twenty years later. like that if you don’t stand up for yourself, no one will. and no matter how shitty people are being, not much else matters when you know in your heart that your aim is true.
in a fucked up series of life happenings, i have learned the importance of family, the need for personal identity, and that you will always feel a little bit better about yourself when you keep your room tidy, your trash empty, and your laundry clean.
last night i saw a glimmer of hope. not with david, but with my life, in general. i found myself actually getting ready for bed, which is notable because i’m not sure i’ve done anything more than brush my teeth in weeks. but suddenly i was flossing, washing my face, applying wrinkle cream and a dot of acne medication to something that looked like it might become a zit. i brushed my hair, applied body lotion and hand cream, like these were things i’ve always done. five minutes of grooming might not seem like it has anything to do with anything, but i think embracing the idea of routine again is a big step when it comes to accepting change. part of the reason that the greektown social club is the only ritual i’ve participated in lately is because it is so obviously ephemeral. it doesn’t mean anything… it just keeps me from thinking about my life, my actual life.
yesterday my landlord asked to show my apartment to some people for insurance purposes. it is nice to be the show model, sometimes.
“there are five reasons why a man feels attracted to a woman. sense of sight, he likes what he sees; sense of hearing, he likes what he hears; sense of touch; sense of smell; sense of taste.”
i’ve been thinking a lot about last summer and how i was feeling when i finally decided to move back here — and even more so about what was going on in my head once i knew the next step but had no clue how it was all going to play out, or really how i was even going to get all my books out here.
i remember very clearly being on the train, the exact moment i settled into the observation car with a heineken in my hand, watching the east coast fade away from a comfortable spot where everything finally felt safe and under control. i know things were a little shakier once i actually arrived in denver, but looking back, just as i knew i would, i landed on my feet with a cute little apartment and a wacky little job rather quickly. and with david.
now, david has just returned from the same festival he was attending in new york last summer when i came up from d.c. to see him. this was the trip that pushed me over the top in my decision to break up with john and move back here. i was in nyc for approximately 24 perfect hours, in an early summer heat wave that stretched along the entire east coast, and david and i saw each other for the first time in many months as he stood outside central park and i emerged from a starbucks on the opposite street corner. i had just obtained an enormous iced coffee and put on a fresh dress in the bathroom (so blanche dubois). the light didn’t change for almost a minute, or at least it seemed that way. we stared at each other for a long time. and then we walked across half the city, and i wore that dress for the rest of the weekend.
i remember, many hours later, innocently kissing david in a rose garden as the sun began to come up and the hooligans in our midst made half-attempts to drink some stella we bought just because it seemed like a good idea to find a bodega that would sell us beer at 4 in the morning.
i didn’t completely fall for him for another month, perhaps, and i can say that the rest of july after coming to visit colorado was probably mostly filled with lovey dovey thoughts and worries about the future — a strange mix of optimism and fear. where june went, i am not sure. i don’t have much of a record of the summer until i started this blog.
most of my late mays and early junes have been filled with conflict of some sort. my best summer experiences always begin in july (maybe because the end of the season is already in sight for us chronically nostalgic types), and i think my big trip back east will be this year’s kick off… i believe i leave the day i came back from my 4th of july visit to denver last summer.
in some ways, i feel exactly the same as i did last summer, or at least how i think i felt. the aftermath of my engagement to david is a little like the way it felt to leave my job at awi. and i am pretty sure i still look as young as i did when i boarded that train, or maybe younger. this year has certainly felt like aging in reverse.
i recently looked over my earliest ramblings in this blog, and i came across my favorite joan didion quote, which is always worth reposting:
“What I want to tell you today is not to move into that world where you’re alone with yourself and your mantra or your fitness program or whatever it is that you might use to try to control the world by closing it out. I want to tell you just live in the mess. Throw yourself out into the convulsions of the world. I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t believe progress is necessarily a part of the package. I’m telling you to live in it. Try and get it. Take chances, make your own work, take pride in it. Seize the moment.”
i know that was my goal in moving out here, and maybe i’m only now doing what i had set out to do in the first place.
i’ve been spending too much time at st. marks lately. and because i tend to go there alone, because i am female and sometimes appear to be enigmatic and mysterious when in reality i have that diner waitress syndrome of faking nice whenever someone tries to talk to me, i have accepted too many phone numbers and feigned interest in too many dinner invitations that i later have to decline.
julie says i am a flirt. that is probably true, but my intent has never been malicious.
since i heard via the cell phone grapevine that david is dating, or at least making attempts, i’ve been putting myself out there. and by that all i really mean is that i’ve been loitering in places like st. marks, like a sitting duck for lonely 30-something men who go to coffee shops to work on freelance graphic design projects — aka for no other reason than to meet girls like me.
but i mean, really, what am i doing? for my part i can say, at least, that i have to steal the internet from somewhere.
on friday, i went there after work to write. i opened my laptop like a shield, tried to eat my gazpacho and drink a glass of sauv blanc that tasted suspiciously like pinot grigio, but an awkward indian man (boy? i was surprised to learn he’s only a week and a half older than me) approached my table within five minutes and told me in equally awkward phrasing that he couldn’t concentrate on his work because he kept being distracted by the beauty of my face. we talked, i made an excuse to leave, i found myself back at greektown and the night unfolded itself like every other fucked up night since david and i broke up.
which leads me to this thing with danny, though i suppose is no longer a thing — but it has left enough of a ghost that he just took a cab past downtown to meet me at paris on the platte, where i am hiding from anyone who might notice me, because everyone here is approximately seventeen years old and only capable of noticing him or herself.
i am doing that fake writer thing tonight, dressed up in the cliche of drinking coffee and smoking my favorite cigarettes, which i learned to appreciate around the time i was seventeen myself because i was attracted to their strange square packaging. it’s a fault of mine, being attracted to form over function when it comes to objects. it’s led to ill-informed electronics purchases and is probably the reason i bought a very uncomfortable $2,000 couch for my first studio apartment.
perhaps i should be more discerning when it comes to the exterior packaging of these potential boyfriends. why would i spend time getting to know an alcoholic former rock star when i’m a health nut who shops at the fucking gap? i tend to think i can see how their insides look before i’ve unwrapped them entirely, and in fact i’m not so good at that. i never have been. or maybe the inside is never that separate from the outside. yet in the aftermath of being so cruel to david, i have an excess of compassion for others, with no good place to put it.
danny has gone next door to finish his drink. we are doing this futile dance with words that means nothing by now; it’s just a mangled permutation of things that made more sense a week ago, or even three days ago. or maybe they never made sense. i wanted to help him with only genuinely good intentions, though maybe that desire came from the same part of me that needed david to trade his bongs and video games for yoga classes and esoteric milk substitutes.
the point is, i know dating is not the answer, but i am a human being after all.
“les petits trucs” means “small things.” i started this blog about a year ago to supplement my random jots in notebooks, scribbles in the margins of books… the little things i think about and want, for some reason, to share with an anonymous audience.
in three hours, i work. i had two solid days off, during which i managed to escape to the mountains, drink my favorite apricot infused vodka and not get drunk, read for an extended period of time, write on paper, see people and places i love, dye my hair to its ideal shade of dark brown, get waxed and pedicured, and even get some errands done.
last night, i cooked dinner. i steamed some thin-stalked asparagus and bathed it in garlic, lemon, sea salt and organic butter. i had some smoked salmon and goat brie. and i slept.
yesterday someone told me i look young because i am “a little thing,” and a few hours later another person asked me how much i weigh. ”under a buck fifty?” he inquired. i asked what he meant, already knowing, and was mildly horrified. even when i was almost fat in college, i only weighed about 145 lbs.
but anyway. i know i’ve accidentally lost weight lately, and out of curiosity i went out and bought a scale. it’s the newer model of the same tanita i once faithfully stood upon at least three times a day — morning, after my evening session at the gym, and right before bed. most of the time after i put any morsel of food or liquid down my gullet. it was fucked up. eventually i threw that thing down the trash chute.
but sure enough, i’ve lost 5 lbs since the last time i weighed myself. 118 lbs. it’s probably about my ideal, what i can maintain without much effort, at least at this point in my life. but it’s still incredibly weird that i got there by doing nothing… and that i bought a scale to see how much weight i’ve lost, when two and a half years ago i first bought a scale because i suspected i had gained five lbs. i had. and so i lost 20.
i bought a scale last year, too, during my raw food period… oddly enough to see where my weight had stabilized after gaining and losing in the months after getting over calorie restriction and occasional fits of making myself throw up. i was about 118 then too.
but as i said… anyway.
*
i am drinking an enormous iced coffee (some things never change) and poaching internet from the whole foods next door to my apartment building. i was listening to a manager and a cook conduct an interview with a spiky haired, slick looking fellow who appears to be making some of the same excuses as me. the difference is that he seemed to feel no need to apologize for his failures as a writer. actually, from the sound of it, he’s older than me and not even finished with school.
not that it means anything.
*
for what it’s worth, i’m going running now.
from the day after my half-birthday till bastille day, i will be in d.c., finding out what i’ve been missing during this little life sabbatical. i figure i’ll make it up to nyc as well and slink around the LES and brooklyn with david and jonathan and jenny. but i really cannot wait to walk the streets of my old town, to see drew and brian and alex and justin and greg… and even john and pablo. to pass by all the fucking places i used to live, the black cat, tryst, the guy with the cold brewed coffee stand, coconut and sugar cane vendors on the street corners… to see my old coworkers in their fancy new office. i know i’ll wish i never left, even though it was the best thing i’ve ever done for myself.
i’m fucked.
i feel a little like i’ve made a deal with the devil. after years of trying to escape an eating disorder and finally succeeding — then months of leading a by-the-textbook healthy lifestyle revolving around organic rabbit food, a shitload of yoga, and early bedtimes — i’m running myself into the ground with nightly glasses of wine (or three), more than occasional cigarettes, and not much exercise besides literally working my ass off. i spent years avoiding the “party girl” lifestyle because i was afraid of what it would do to me, and yet suddenly i am thinner than i have ever been since moving to colorado, and practically every fucking person i encounter tells me how beautiful and charming i am.
whenever i walk into work lately (which, incidentally, is pretty much every day), my coworkers and all the regulars ooh and ah at me as if i’ve made some kind of olivia newton john-as-sandra dee transformation and traded my poodle skirts for revealing tops and stretch pants. and i mean, it’s basically true, but that has more to do with the fact that it’s summer than anything else. and the fact that i am magically okay with my body now that i’m not doing anything to try to make it different than it wants to be — even if my methods are suspect.
and fuck, i have female friends. i have more female friends than male friends, just by accident, because we have fun together.
but none of this seems maintainable. and i don’t know what to do next.
