-katie holmes (three times in the past 48 hours, once by a dude claiming that people think he looks like tom cruise)
-liv tyler (the usual)
-michelle monaghan (have been getting this one all the time lately… who the fuck is she?)
-lauren graham (argh.)
-bjork (seems to only happen when i do insane things with my hair)
also gay men keep thinking my eye color is fake, which is fucked up and hilarious because in college i wore ridiculous aquamarine contacts despite the fact that my eyes are some shade of green or sometimes blue.
i think i’m just not going to sleep today. it isn’t working.
Filed under: dear diary | Tags: then what could i say that would sound right?
tonight at 10 p.m. i begin another 8-day (night?) stretch of work. then, just as i’m about to go crazy, i will have next saturday and sunday off. i’m also taking the MAT at 1 p.m. on friday at DU, and i’m weirdly excited about it. i didn’t show up for the GRE. even if i am capable of scoring decently on it, i had anxiety because (of course) i couldn’t sleep… and that part about not studying.
instead i began the day by catching up scott, lying supine on his couch, where i spent so much time just weeks ago. i guess we’re going to try for a round II. being messed up about david interrupted the nice thing we had going in october, but there were other problems, too. i’m not ready to be super serious with someone (hence my earlier comment about needing to be in a totally different life situation), but i think i am capable of growing close to another person in this time of transition. i hope so.
i went home, took a shower, and did productive things in the whole foods coffee bar, like drink green juice and take care of grad school things. i got in touch with some people i would like recommendations from. i thought about the things that make me happy and decided being productive is one of them.
sunshine is another. it’s nice to be awake all day.
coffee and chatting and friends is another. i went to the new hooked on colfax to meet jason, and that was nice, though i prefer the old location next door. i generally spend a lot of time alone during the day and need to make myself get out there, laugh with people more often. i’m happy about the circumstances that allowed us to get in touch — technology and my somewhat stalker-ish tendencies.
after that i did one of the weirdest things i’ve done in a while. i drove down west colfax to the lake steam baths. i’ve wanted to go inside since last winter, after i spotted it and did some online research to determine it wasn’t a hand job whirlpool spa. despite the creepy sign, it’s probably the closest thing denver has to a schvitz. monday and thursday are ladies days, and it’s open till 10 pm, with unlimited use for $15. (five bucks off if you mention yelp!)
other than a few yelp reviews, i didn’t really know what to expect. you walk into this little wood paneled front desk area and are given a draping sheet, a tiny hand towel, and a locker key. past that room there is a hallway that leads to a large locker room and a “cafe” that sells (amont other things) hot dogs, salad, greek yogurt, seltzer and extremely cheap beer. i wanted some seltzer after my first round of sweating, but unfortunately their machine was broken yesterday.
anyway, i had been instructed to find lena to check in for my massage. i did that and she kind of showed me around. i was told that the draping sheet was just for the locker room. you walk in to the steam area nude, and inside there is a naked old woman who tells you what to do. she will also scrub you with salt, if you wish. the first step is to take a shower. then you sit in the eucalyptus-scented steam room until you feel like you’re going to die. then you go into the dry sauna and splash cold water from buckets onto your body. when you’re really sure you’re going to die, you go back to the big room with the naked salt scrub lady and lie on a tiled platform/bench until your heart rate goes down. then you sit in the hot tub in the corner, and finally (well, this was my own decision), you go back to the shower area and stand under cold water for as long as you can stand it.
i completed that process twice, sat in the locker room and read an oprah magazine from summer 2008, and then got a pretty good hour-long massage for $30. the only quality control issue was that my massage therapist wanted to talk about her life the entire time. but i was in the mood to chat, so i didn’t mind. she’s 28 and divorced with three kids, which made me feel a little more at peace with the things i was complaining about the other day.
after that i drove home feeling very relaxed, and though i had planned to do yoga, i decided a run in the cold would be nice. it was.
the day ended with l’arrivée du beaujolais nouveau at le central, and a belated celebration of scott’s birthday. i drank a little too much but it helped me go to bed at a normal time. i fell asleep with good thoughts in my head and felt somehow renewed.
i thought i would have another productive day today, but instead i wasted basically all of it sleeping more and lounging around with gonzo — an activity i’ve determined is not good for my overall well-being, even if it feels nice at the time. i’m going to read for a little bit now to prepare my brain for the drunken clusterfuck i will inevitably encounter in a couple hours.
oh, i had the weirdest dream about a party, d.c., portland, gardens, those draping sheets, cats (namely gonzo and an anonymous kitten), and pete’s kitchen as a high school sorority meeting at my parents’ house. i’ll have to write about that later.
from dad:
Today I had strawberries, pineapple, grapes, orange melon, broccoli, tomatoes, a little cottage cheese, and mushrooms.
I was sitting across from a coed and I told her that she looked like Taylor Swift, and she said that she was surprised that I even knew who Taylor Swift was so I sang Fifteen and gave her the finger! Just kidding (about the finger).
I love you,
Your Old Fart Dad
i keep consulting the internet like an oracle, thinking it’s going to tell me something about myself i don’t already know.
it doesn’t help my insomnia, anyway.
so, i’m up at 6:30, but i only slept from 2 till 5. i still haven’t even decided if i’m going to show up for the test. that’s a bad sign, eh? i’m lounging around in a fleece-lined bathrobe i got the other day, and it’s funny how those things can immediately cause a person to develop lebowski-esque tendencies.
i don’t feel like writing, or actually like doing anything. but i’ve had words swimming around my head for days and i figure this is the best way to get them out: admit i’m feeling lazy but keep typing until the logorrhea flows.
i’m supposed to take the GRE in the morning. i think i’m going to show up and make an attempt, but i doubt i will perform well. the foremost problem is that i did not prepare as much as i should have. however, this is a fact related to the second problem, which is that my fucked up schedule prevents me from functioning like a normal human being most of the time. i have no idea how i’m going to get to bed tonight and wake up at 6:30 tomorrow morning. i hopped out of bed at noon yesterday, which was wonderful — but as a result, i needed to sleep till it was dark outside this evening.
also, i realized earlier tonight that i can take the miller analogies test instead. unlike the GRE (which requires a 4-hour time commitment, a $140 registration fee, registration a month in advance, and actual math skills), it is a brief, inexpensive test composed entirely of analogies. it’s also a mensa qualifying exam, heh. one only needs to register a week beforehand, so it’s likely that i will be taking it soon, in lieu of another attempt at the GRE.
really, though, i’m questioning once again how much i want to go back to school — whether it’s just a mental trick i’m playing on myself so i don’t feel like such a loser for serving drunk people food at 3 in the morning. i do want to be a teacher; i mean, i think i would be good at it. but i’m not sure i have the drive to fill out all these forms, to acquire the student loans, or to skip grad school all together and do it the other way.
serda was in town last friday for one of those biology teacher conferences we used to attend for awi. we went to dinner at watercourse and talked about things, like graduate school and ambivalence, and like how your late 20s is a scary place full of confusing thoughts about marriage and babies and careers. it’s not that everyone else has their shit together or anything, but it sure seems like it sometimes.
i don’t know why i am so reticent to admit that the typical female role appeals to me. or rather, with the internal knowledge that my desires are genuine and not simply out of convention, i don’t know why it’s difficult to talk freely about wanting to be in a loving relationship that leads to marriage and children, and knowing it would be more satisfying for me than any kind of career i could conceive of falling into. maybe it’s because when i was younger i didn’t relate to normal girls and their desires for these things — desires that seemed shallow and conventional.
as i’ve gotten older, and particularly in the aftermath of my relationship with david, the opportunity for a family of my own has seemed more elusive than a good job (though, i’m not going to lie, i am still occasionally terrified that i will not be able to dig myself out of this hole, that i will continue to be greedy for the decent income and lack of responsibility my job provides). i want to have children, but i don’t just want to have children. i want to build a relationship with my ideal partner, and that takes time. it also requires finding such a partner, and essentially being in a totally different life situation.
so in the meantime i displace my desires into this half-effort to become a teacher: a career in which i can influence young minds and have an immediately gratifying effect on the universe.
if i decide to do that, anyway.
for a couple days i was having trouble sleeping, getting home at 4:30 but not falling asleep till 7 or 8. there were two incidents recently, two days in a row when i found myself crying at 6 in the morning over nothing and everything, what i have and what i don’t. my life could be a lot harder, but there are still some things that are hard.
mostly i am uncomfortable with not knowing the next step, or the last sentence in the next chapter. i’ve always been like that. though, as i was getting out of my car in the parking lot at work the other night, a new mantra came to me: wait and see.
i guess that’s all i’m going to write for now. i sort of wish i’d gone to the movies this evening. oh well.
god for an ugly dude nick cave really effing turns me on. he needs a haircut these days, tho.
often i feel like i’m not good at much else besides being pretty, and sometimes i feel like i’m not even very good at that.
i began writing on sunday night:
i went for a run to clear my thoughts, slowing to a flaneur’s pace to enjoy the scenery quite regularly. i passed st. marks and it looked inviting in the afternoon light. the clink-clank of coffee cups nearly drew me in, but i decided to abstain until later in the evening (i am here now, waiting to go to work at a ridiculously late hour of the night — all the more ridiculous with the time change last night).
on york street wet leaves were matted to the ground. i reached colfax, the corner that houses the salvation army, and remembered something that happened half a decade ago around this time of year: ness, david and i drove to the thrift store so i could examine a pair of green pumps i’d seen in the window. david got upset for some reason and walked all the way back to his house.
i thought about last year, leaving the banya with my brother, clean with sweat. the day before, we crunched leaves in city park on the way home from science museum. and i thought about how a quarter of a year has passed since he was last here, walking back from the thin man with me and leslie, the day before i was supposed to get married.
back in november 2009 a girl crossed the street, heading in the direction of the bus stop in front of 7-11. shocking violet bra straps stood out against her ebony skin and she looked back when she heard me breathing heavily a few steps behind her — visibly relieved i was a slightly out of shape female jogger and not someone more threatening, i would imagine.
i went to the tattered cover and read magazines while the sun set behind those lovely windows. i considered going inside twist & shout, but i don’t need any albums. i did note from the partially open front door that it smells exactly like the old location, despite looking somewhat like the sad little sister of a virgin megastore.
i ran home in the dark feeling much better about my situation in life, and that’s pretty much all i have to say about that.
***
i am going home to see my family from january 4-10.
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