but youtube is the big exception of my adult life thus far. i really held out. not so much anymore.
shithead symphony
a recidivist’s exit strategy
leaves of crass
my sadness has a new dimension
the cat fancier’s association
if i still lived in d.c., i would be here today:
it’s my favorite spot, and it spits me out new.
in march i was here, in the basement of my high school theater, standing next to a mural i painted nine years ago.
i keep forgetting that in between giving up on this blog and picking it up again, i did a little navel-gazing over the winter, mostly about finally getting over my eating disorder, doing yoga, and being fucking head over heels for david.
i read some of it this morning and i think i’m happier now, or perhaps more well-adjusted anyway. but what i really miss is being that close to someone. i miss our house, our cat, our plans. and while i rarely feel lonely these days, i am still sad that those things no longer exist.
Filed under: dear diary | Tags: you can't make someone love you with a song
haven’t listened to the the in a long time, but it makes sense today.
except maybe i’m over him, maybe.
i think i just realized that.
i also just realized that my car is still at the squire. fucK.
if you changed the lyrics of luna’s “chinatown” to “pete’s greektown,” well, that would describe the lives of pretty much everyone i know.
(me and leslie)
last night was theWEIRDESTnightinmylife, by the way. my apartment is littered with wine glasses, russian cigarettes, greek cheese, broken plates, and paint. paint everywhere. four drunk people and a drying painting is a bad combination. and did you know that the squire gets kind of awesome at five till 2? and did you know i spent the evening in my work clothes and striped knee socks?
danny quit greektown last week in a drunken haze (surprise), i guess denying that he and alex were together. even to me it took those weirdos several hours of drinking and debauchery to finally admit it, that they were not making out for the first time in my kitchen.
but anyway, pete being pete gave danny a job at the bank yesterday. so maybe we were celebrating. maybe it was a family reunion. maybe it was just sunday.
(me and lil bro, a dino)
tonight i painted my first painting in eight years. i made a big mess.
bonus points if you get it.
oh i don’t even know anymore. but that’s okay.
ran real fast today. conducted an interview on the fly. a couple maybe. converted a pedicure virgin. making progress, check.
Filed under: dear diary | Tags: my last name just don't make yours complete
i did see david for a minute on sunday, and even though i think it made the weekend a hundred times worse, i kind of wanted everyone else to go away so i could spend the rest of the night with him. took pictures cuz… well.
only one random outburst of tears since then, at least.
you write pretty well for someone who doesn’t know how to read.
you talk pretty well for someone without any teeth.
i think i’ve been wishing on broken pennies. the message isn’t quite getting through, and instead i’m receiving attention from the wrong ex-boyfriends, and perhaps more strangely, being intensely pursued by my last two employers.
work has been great this week. pulling my uniform shirt over my head is like putting on a superhero suit: something happens to me. i needed that feeling after the weekend. i needed to feel on top of it, with a side of pretty and charming and sweet. smothered and with cheese, please.
i have to be at the onion in five and a half hours, so i should probably go to bed now.
***
there was a meteor shower tonight. two years ago today (i checked), i saw eugene mirman perform at the rock and roll hotel and afterward john and i drove out toward the chesapeake to watch a meteor shower from the beach. i can’t believe how many things have happened since then.
all of my guests have gone home, and now it is just me, alone. i get the feeling that another chapter has ended, and i’m sort of excited to see how this next one turns out.
my replacement at my old job has left (er, been let go), and my former coworker just asked me to take over the editing work from afar while they search for a new one. i said yes. maybe i should just ask for my old job back. i mean, i know they would give it to me (update: they just offered).
i wrote that review. i’m pretty sure it sucked.
we went to boulder today and i even drove on the interstate without having a panic attack. we did not visit the sunrise amphitheater or chautauqua, because maybe i am not that much of a glutton for punishment after all. nate drove us home in my car after he got off work, and now we are here, back at my house, where leslie is having severe allergic reactions to my cat.
i’m kind of ready to be alone again. my brother left me some art supplies and yesterday i bought brushes and things. i know exactly what i’m going to paint.
i think i’m going to just start hanging out at jonesy’s all the time. maybe the horseshoe, too. last night i figured out that i am too old for sputnik, and i think that if i have any respect for my mental health, i’m going to have to leave the thin man and st. marks behind (at least from the normal happy hour and beyond).
i don’t know how to write an album review. i wrote many of them between 2001 and 2006, but it’s been years since then, years since i have even cared much about new music. i never read reviews myself, and i can’t think of anything to say that doesn’t sound completely contrived or subjective. even then, i don’t think i can shit out the standard 350-500 words that is required of me right now.
not to mention the fact that i am supposed to be having hot wedding night sex at this moment, and instead i am writing a review of an unknown local band’s cd while my childhood friend/would-be bridesmaid sleeps on a nearby air mattress.
here is what i have to say so far about this cd:
i think it is of the experimental music genre. track three kind of sounds like rap, though. there are vocals. a boy and sometimes a girl. and instruments. the normal ones plus some extras, maybe a glockenspiel.
“why does this still hurt?” the lead vocalist whines. ”and i can’t help but wonder where did this go wrong?”
i’ve played one particular track, “yesterday’s song” a few times. ”we’ve been doing this and doing this and doing this and doing this for years.” there are some other lyrics i can’t make out, something about seeing you at a cafe, head down, something like that. i’m pretty sure it is not something i should be listening to right now.
it would have rained on our wedding day anyway, i told him.
and it.
my brother just got back to portland and called me first thing to say, “i just wanted to make sure you didn’t decide to get married.”
like because he was concerned that was going to happen.
ohh.
a year ago tomorrow, jason took me to hooked on colfax for the first time. i spent nearly a year’s worth of saturday afternoons here, quaffing cold-brewed iced coffee with kosta after work. sometimes david would drop me off at greektown on weekend mornings and come back with a delicious caffeinated treat from this place. i don’t come here much anymore, but today i am writing an a.v. club article about its expansion.
i wore that shirt yesterday.
what a difference a year makes, doesn’t make at all.
this weekend is going to be full of gal pals and my brother, which is pretty much all i want right now. allison is here from sweden, getting back from san fran today, and tomorrow evening i pick up leslie and my brother from the airport. then we will head downtown to be not at all like i am for ashley’s birthday, and hopefully later collapse drunkenly at my suite at the hotel monaco. it was supposed to be for my parents, who would have arrived tomorrow for the wedding, but i decided to hang on to it anyway.
yesterday my feelings for david swallowed me up whole again, but we parted on a not-terrible note for once. it’s hard, this.
drew is officially moving into my old neighborhood and just sent me a link to a funny article about its recent developments: Columbia Heights Hipsters Stumble Into Target Territory
“At what point will suburban stop being ironic and just start being . . . life?”
i miss the days when drew and i actually kind of lived in the real suburbs.
i think this is a pretty accurate depiction of the me that would have existed half a century ago:
david and i were super obsessed with mad men last year. dunno if i will watch the next season.
a lot of my favorite quotes are from joan didion. she said, “i write entirely to find out what i’m thinking, what i’m looking at, what i see and what it means. what i want and what i fear.” that’s pretty much my justification for having a stupid navel-gazing blog, and it has been for a while. so perhaps my words paint a picture of someone who is immature and causes her own problems, but i don’t know, i’m pretty sure that’s part of being a human being. if you don’t like it, i don’t care. i don’t make you read it.
i am having a little self-destructive moment looking through my old photobucket albums and wishing i weighed 105 lbs again.
it started out innocently enough — i arrived at st. marks, ordered a cup of hibiscus tea, and talked to justin and his new lady friend for a bit. inspired by his trip to france last summer, justin is making a new version of his “put the fun between your legs” bicycle shirt of 2007. this time the girl version is pink, and i asked if he would make me a special one in yellow.
when justin made the last shirt, he asked people who bought them to take pictures of themselves and send them in. i took one with my old bike around that time, and tonight i felt like looking at it. my old bike, that is. but instead i got distracted by my old body.
i took fine in the bike picture… it was right before i lost a little more weight. i think i was 112 or so. fuck, more than anything, i miss having hair that long. it’s getting there.
by summer i was thinner, and even though i think i look gross and had lost muscle as well as fat, i still resent that version of myself for having so much self-control.
there are also older photos from when i was much larger, 145 lbs, before i started running and eating differently. but because i am still a little crazy, all i can think about is that i used to be smaller than i am now.
this is the picture that made me join a gym:
and here i am in the black forest about six months earlier, surrounded by chemists who were trying to get me to eat pig. that old man to the left of me is called pavel. he was the bill murray to my scarlett johansson in my own personal (boring swiss) version of lost in translation.
it’s not that bad. i felt strong working out tonight and came home and made an excellent dinner of sauteed kale and sprouted grain penne with arrabiata sauce, green olives and feta. i did not measure anything or worry about calories. and that i suppose is a bigger weight off my back than the fifteen lbs between me and 2007 me.
incidentally the first thing justin asked me tonight was, “so are you still talking to that asshole?” (that asshole being david.) for once i could say no, confidently. and maybe it’s terrible of me but justin kind of went off on how david is annoying and i felt good because these were completely his own observations, not based off anything i had told him.
blah.
someone is performing a bad acoustic cover of “i want you back” downstairs.
but apparently not gonzo, or me. there’s a slight chance that getting the internet chez moi was an incredibly bad idea.
Filed under: dear diary | Tags: it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
oh never mind i’m too lazy to cut and paste. they are all weird. this one is funny/sad tho:
Wealthy Jewish Bachelor – 65 (Denver)
Date: 2009-08-02, 11:16PM MDT
Tired of being alone
Seeking soul mate for the rest of our lives
i had a pretty idyllic sunday. i got a huge iced coffee from the starfucks drive-thru and attempted to get my big greek eyebrows waxed at file-n-style. unfortunately ashley has sundays off, so i scheduled an appointment for tuesday and went next door to greektown to say hello. it was a good time. i left sort of giddy, as if i had been at a high school reunion. it always feels like going home.
after that i headed up to city floral to immerse myself in plants and look for a dwarf citrus tree. i bought a meyer lemon plant and some basil and ornamental peppers, plus cat deterring spray. gonzo has really put a damper on my indoor gardening projects — only the money tree has survived his wrath.
i also went to pete’s fruits and vegetables and got some insanely cheap peaches and apricots and blueberries and tomatoes. the neighboring summer hill market was closed so i will have to make it up there again sometime soon.
driving down 6th avenue, the part above colorado boulevard, i had an intense feeling of happiness. with all the trees and the houses (how those houses are), it seems like portland or somewhere else. somewhere verdant, not here. i listened to public radio with the volume down (this i have been doing a lot lately). frequently there are people from the uk and the middle east speaking very proper english in soothing tones via rebroadcasted bbc programming. it’s comforting to me.
speaking of accents, tonight simon and i went to jazz in the park. we sat by the water and did not listen to the music while eating picnic foods and drinking an entire bottle of chardonnay. when it got dark and quiet, we wandered down to the thin man and drank cucumber vodka and sodas. i am a little sloshed right now. i need to go to bed soon, actually like immediately.
i should not have been drinking but what are you going to do.
a couple days ago it was cold enough that i was wearing my little boy space-print pajamas to bed. now i am naked and only half under the covers, and my body is thinking about working up a sweat.
uh.
still no one has noticed i am not wearing makeup.
gonzo is purring like a pigeon and i think this is the time when cats go to sleep.
… according to of montreal, and i would have to agree. french toast, however, is less annoying to make for one person. this was my inaugural attempt, and it was quite a success.
(excuse the shitty camera phone pic again, though it is not quite as bad with the aid of natural light. gonzo ate my camera’s usb connector and it is sort of hard to find a replacement.)
anyway this is the recipe i made up (by spying on the cooks at work) and the weirdo ingredients i used:
1. crack two large organic omega-3 eggs in a bowl.
2. add a bit of organic vanilla, a squirt of agave nectar, a dash of sea salt, and a hefty amount of viennese cinnamon. whisk together.
3. soak two pieces of ezekiel bread in said mixture.
4. heat some organic cultured butter in a pan, cook soaked bread on each side.
5. adorn with sliced fruit, a drizzle of agave nectar, and more cinnamon.
this took approx. five minutes. sunday is off to a good start.
i did not wear makeup today and no one noticed, or at least no fewer people than usual told me i looked hot. gay men i wait on are always telling me i am the shit, probably because i smile a lot. anyway i decided that in honor of the fact that it is summer and i am lazy and slightly less wan than usual, i am not going to wear any makeup besides mascara and chapstick till labor day. unless i get a zit. then i might have to reconsider. i am still going to have fake nails because i am weird.
i guess today is my friday. i am off till tuesday night — was supposed to work sunday but i traded because i’m taking next weekend off anyway. that is good… i am tired.
i figured out that the best thing to wear on my bottom half is running skirts. when i am at work, that is. i think running skirts for actual running are silly. it looks like you’re going to play tennis. but they make a lot of sense for wearing to work when you are me. i do run around a lot, after all.
a lot of times i feel like my job is kind of cool, in the way that it was cool to be a flight attendant in the 1960s. it wasn’t like that at greektown. i still miss working there sometimes but this is way better. greektown was like being in purgatory a little bit.
i should go to bed right now but instead i am drooling over leica cameras and thinking about perfect things.
when i wake up i think i am going to make weirdo french toast. and also i am possibly going to bust out my yogurt maker at some point. next week i am getting a new stove because my oven is broken. i hope it has gas burners like my current model, a relic from 1950-something i think.
and took a picture with my crappy camera phone. i decided this blog needs more visuals, less complaining.
this is a mache salad with kasseri cheese, sauteed zucchini and peppers. also pictured are some fresh figs, which were delicious.
Filed under: dear diary | Tags: the days go by too slowly and the years go by too fast
i tried on my engagement ring again today. it still fits.
here i am, contorting.
Il a mis le café Dans la tasse Il a mis le lait Dans la tasse de café Il a mis le sucre Dans le café au lait Avec la petite cuiller Il a tourné Il a bu le café au lait Et il a reposé la tasse Sans me parler
Il a allumé Une cigarette Il a fait des ronds Avec la fumée Il a mis les cendres Dans le cendrier Sans me parler Sans me regarder
Il s'est levé Il a mis Son chapeau sur sa tête Il a mis son manteau de pluie Parce qu'il pleuvait Et il est parti Sous la pluie Sans une parole Sans me regarder
Et moi j'ai pris Ma tête dans ma main Et j'ai pleuré
-jacques prévert
Filed under: dear diary | Tags: takes a teen age riot to get me out of bed right now
half a decade later, here i am:
(please excuse the bottle of liquid silk in the background. sometimes we all have to, um, take matters into our own hands.)
it will be weird to see evan in three weeks. we have remained good friends since i left, but i wonder if that is because he is still en suisse, an ocean away. incidentally it is almost time for me to renew my passport. i haven’t been out of the country in a long time but it is all worn out anyway. one night a few years ago in d.c. i lost my old driver’s license, which was actually from colorado, while doing a complicated cell phone answering maneuver on my bike. i didn’t drive a car then so i didn’t get a new license until my brother gave me my old jetta over thanksgiving. i just carried my passport everywhere.
my dad sent me a new license plate and it says “1 CAT.” how embarrassing.
i need to get a bike again. like really soon. one thing that is good about my job is that it only takes me four minutes to drive there (and it is also two blocks from the thin man and st. marks). it is about two minutes to get to the onion. but it would really make more sense to bike, and then maybe i could go two months without getting gas instead of just one.
speaking of my one-mile radius, tonight sonic youth performed four blocks from my house. i probably wouldn’t have gone even if i was off, but still. work was okay, very busy. patrick came in, and so did kosta, for the second night in a row actually. pete laughed about that. i also saw this guy named tyler who was in the journalism school with me. i said hello. i should have said “let’s be friends” because i always wanted to be his friend in college. i made him a mixtape once but did not give it to him because i was shy. he liked good music. i bet he went to the sonic youth show.
i spent most of the day in bed, honestly. i just didn’t feel like doing anything else and sometimes you need days like that. before work it was raining and i tried to go to the gym but apparently it closes early on fridays. instead i went to the thin man and sat in the burning man bus with john for a while. i saw david briefly when i was walking in and just nodded. oh well.
the onion beer society/writer’s meeting last night was dumb. the people who came for free beer made an annoying background for a bad movie about people in their twenties. the “writers” stood around a table and pretended to talk business, or at least some people did. i was quiet because i don’t really know what makes people read articles, and probably that is why i will never be a journalist.
“okay guys, let’s talk about how we can get more people to visit the site,” said the new editor. i felt like i was at a student council meeting except with a bunch of awkward writers, who, you know, are grown ups made from the kids who weren’t on the student council back in the day.
an exception maybe is this one guy who is a comedian and used to write for the westword. he seems pretty funny and i had a crush on him for five minutes because he has a face that kind of looks like drew or an elf. he went out for a cigarette as i was leaving for work, and in some possible world i might have tried to talk to him, except for the fact that he was smoking a cigarette and i had to go to work.
i don’t know.
***
in the summer fiction issue of the atlantic, there is a collection of little vignettes by paul theroux. it is called “voices of love.” i was reading this on the toilet the other day (i was really just peeing, but everybody does it you know) and they are all good but a couple paragraphs of the one called “twenty-year-olds” stuck out to me.
here are some parts of it:
This woman was in her 20s. A woman of 20 doesn’t know if she has a place in the world; something about her age or our age. What will happen to her? Will she find a job? Will she find a husband? Will she ever have a child? Where does she belong?
She has no idea where she is going. She is anxious. She needs someone to intervene.
…. She is so relieved to be rescued, like someone plucked from a deep sea, that she believes she is in love with her rescuer. Not long after they meet she is secure, and happy, having been brought to safety, onshore at last.
… Never mind; no matter—such meetings are always a disaster. She leaves him. She has a life. He is destroyed by this love. And even if you know in advance what the consequences will be, you still pursue her, as I did…
this particular tale concerns a man of 60, but i know the scenario well. i have lived it a million times, from the time i dated a 38-year-old writer when i was 18. but for me it is not really a question of age, it’s the fact that i have always been anxious, not knowing where i am going, and looking for someone to swallow me up and make me forget about what i don’t know yet (all the while making my future more clear). i have tried to hide these tendencies because most of the time i am quite good at coming across as independent. but really i am somewhat conventional, stereotypical as a woman.
last summer david and i reclined on the bottom bunk in his tiny hostel room in new york as he gathered his things. the heat was humid and i might have wanted to kiss him more under different circumstances. he brought up something he had mentioned the night before, when we were sitting at a cafe, catching up while drinking pastis. he said he was sure he already knew whoever he would marry. i agreed. later we knew we would marry each other. actually i think we already knew that day.
i was so happy to be rescued by him. i really needed rescuing at that point. it made it very easy to fall in love, take things too fast. everything, the rest of my life, made sense for a little while. until i had to mess it all up.
i don’t know where i’m going with this. it’s just what i’m thinking about.
i am now figuring out what dating is like in your late twenties. for girls i mean. it’s different for men, i think. i have really only dated people in their late twenties and early to mid thirties, ever. but i can see how some girls, women of this age become how they are, chronically single because they need too much. my older sister had that problem for a long time. i didn’t get it back then but i do now. it is really much different dating, needing stability, when your motivation is no longer anxiety about life in general but because you are feeling the tick tock of your biological clock.
anyway i am not sure i am interested in participating, so maybe i will just step back and be single for a long time, something i have never been able to do. i am being pursued ruthlessly by a lot of men, but i can’t bring myself to waste time on any of them. this is negative so i’m going to stop.
for thence,—a paradox
which comforts while it mocks,—
shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
what i aspired to be,
and was not, comforts me
-robert browning
