Thursday, January 30, 2003

Cookie Smell

Maybe I Smell Like Fresh Cookies

In the past week I have been contacted by a number of former romantic interests, I got a fabulous new job doing work I love, I was praised by a former boss in a way that made me feel shiny and special, and a nineteen year old redhead hit on me.

A nineteen year old redhead punk boy thought I was cool.

Woah.

Also, this guy who won't be named had a two hour conversation with me on Sunday. I'm not going to say who it was, but I will reveal the fact that I used to break out in a sweat every damn time he happened to be on an elevator with me. Every damn time. Did you ever have one of those crushes on someone who just slayed you, who knocked you down with their mental beauty every time you talked to them, that person who you liked so much that inevitably the most stupid, inane, idiotic things would pop out of your mouth when you tried to respond to their brilliance? That crush that you had so deep and profound that you couldn't do anything about it, while at the same time you knew how totally obvious you had to be?

Yeah, so that guy called me. He was worried I might be getting married. And for some reason, I forgot to ask him why he was worried. Because I'm a complete and total idiot even on the phone with him.

Maybe I should nearly get engaged more often. It seems to scare up other suitors and life prospects. Not that any of these guys have any possible means of actually dating me or anything, but it's just funny - I let everybody know I'm thinking about settling down, and suddenly I get a job, and the guys come a-callin'. Maybe it's that huge breakthrough I had in my personal artwork. Maybe success sends out secret pheremones that can be detected thousands of miles away.

Or maybe it's just Elizabeth season. I seem to recall a jump in romantic activity this time last year as well.

Of course this year I'm living with relatives, so there's no chance of any actual...activity. Which is a positive thing anyway, because I seem to have painted myself into a romantic corner of sorts. I have no idea what to do next, so maybe I'll just sit in this corner by myself a bit while the paint dries...I'm intersted as to how the artwork will look, after the light shines on it. In truth, I've no bloody idea what the floor I tried to paint looks like. And that's enough vague English-major-type insinuation for this blog entry.

In other news, I have my very own office with a window. They're gonna give me business cards, and I get to write my very own policy manual for archivists with this institution. My cousin Ruel's 4th birthday is this weekend. My cousin Eleanor said my name last week (a feat for her tiny mouth). I'm renting my cousin Karina's wood-sided station wagon until I get my first check, with which I'll buy a car, beating my own deadline for car ownership by a good 15 days.

I still haven't processed all this yet. Last Friday, the day after they told me I had the job, I went in for a physical. Afterwards, I drove to Little 5 Points and opened up an account with the local store. That's when I noticed there was an Indian restaurant across the street. The sun was shining, I had a job that started Monday, and I had comic books and somewhere new to eat. I drove around the neighborhood noticing all the rental houses available, and I thought, I'm going to make this happen, this life that I want.

Everything is going to be good again. Better even. And now, just because I finally fucking can, I think I'll quote John Hodge's script for Irving Welsh's Trainspotting:

I'm going to change. This is the last of this sort of thing. I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm going to be just like you: the job, the family, the fucking big television, the washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electrical tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisurewear, luggage, three-piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing the gutters, getting by, looking ahead, to the day you die.


right on, Rents.

Thursday, January 23, 2003

Snowed In

Snowed In

When I woke up this morning, it had snowed for the first time in Atlanta this year. About an inch of the stuff was around, with grass peaking through. But the important part was that the snow had stuck to the street, so everyone stayed home.

My cousins were still in their bed when I woke up. "Cobb County schools are closed!" said my cousin Audrey gleefully. Colin was running around the room in a 3-year-old's state of joy at the unexpected day home with both parents.

"You're naked." I said.

"Yes, I am." he said matter-of-factly.

Audrey and Jamie smiled and put him in the bed between them.

Did I mention before I happy I am to be in the South for this winter? Have I explained how nice it is to be back where people stay sensibly indoors when the weather is the slightest bit unpleasant? Today may be the coldest day Atlanta has had in ten years, but it's still not as cold as Boston on a warm day in February. Today I will lounge around the house in my PJ's, and maybe take a walk around the neighborhood with Colin so he can see what might be our only snow of the year. Jamie is making Venison stew. I have sweet potatoes in the fridge, along with some pear tarts I made with vanilla creme and hot fudge sauce.

Oh, and while I was writing this, I got a job as an Archivist

18 months after I started sending out resumes, a year after I got my degree, a move cross country and months despair and rethinking and sort of feeling like it would never happen...I got a job, doing what I went to school for.

Amazing, man.

What a nice week this was.

Wednesday, January 15, 2003

Practicality

A few words on Practicality

I pride myself on my own practicality. I know that taking pride can be considered a fault, but I can't help it. I grew up around a lot of irrational people, and as a result I have often taken some pride in how stable and sane I manage to be 80% of the time. I'm very big on Keeping My Shit Together. For 5 years now my secret battle cry, the one I wouldn't share with many people was simply "MAINTAIN!"

side note: My friend Ford's battle cry was alternately: "I don't want to die!!" or "Not in the face, not in the face!" but of course, she stole the second one from Arthur on 'The Tick'.

I dislike change as a rule, although in the past year I have grown to accept it as the only constant in my life. I have changed so much in the past six weeks alone that I can't even begin to express all the differences.

But that's not what this update is about.

This update is about how much I hate journal entires like this one. For me, the point of my online blog is to record events and processes in my life. I should be writing about what it's like to work at Target, or about how half the people I work with at the movie theater with have at least a Bachelor's degree. These flat and rather mundane details of life are what really matter in the long run, and what are ultimately interesting to read - not only for people who have never worked at Target or a movie theater, but more interesting even to myself as time goes on and these everyday processes and details fade away to new ways of doing things.

It's the flat facts that matter most. Not little pieces of drivel like the last thing I wrote, which while interesting to a select group of people, will fade in importance as time goes on. Remember when E accepted the idea that marriage was a good thing, and wrote cryptic poetry about it? Yeah, that was funny. Next subject, please. No one will be interested in my personal dilemmas 40 years from now. But my Nashville stories are likely to be read for some time, because they are a reflection of more than just my own bellybutton lint.

So I'm writing this entry to let people know that I'm not going to write stuff like that anymore on this page This is my last personalized entry for some time. Just the facts, ma'am from now on. I have other places where I can express myself artistically; and those forms of art are bound to be more productive.

If anyone who reads this wants me to change my mind, drop me a line either on the guestbook or by e-mail. Somehow I doubt anyone will argue with me.

I love reading other people's blogs where they talk about how they feel - for instance, Alestar's writing is so knock down drag out good that I'll read anything she writes. Devon right now has a post up where she says that she wants her words to be like mescaline. And if I couldn't find out how

Monday, January 13, 2003

lost mind

Breakthrough

someone wants to marry me

I am hyperventilating

and hiding in my closet

because I am chickenshit

and the world is full of beautiful men

I had been so dedicated to going all of this alone

and infecting no others with my feminine madness

my irrational monthly flux of emotion

that makes the women in my family scream at their husbands

I didn't want to be that crazy woman, the wife

but I am so in love

that I cannot imagine life without him

whenever I see something, I think of what he would say

and we put each other to comfortable sleep with our words

I've been screwing around for years now

with men who set my nervous system on fire

but not one of them knew how to talk

about ravens, the power of green things

or the relentless pull of the oceans

and I have been sucked under by the tide of life

rejoining the rest of the great salty water

that is family, cycle, everyone and everything

and it's shocking, this push and pull

of everyday emotion against the reality of the world

I have a hard time talking about it

and writing wasn't working

so I cut up a million little pictures

and glued them all together into a new shape

my room is a terrible mess

there's a pressure in my chest

but everything feels right

and I hope I can handle all of this

without screwing it up

the fear is pretty intense

but I'd rather fail because of trying

than fail because of fear.

Saturday, January 04, 2003

Workpartywork

Workworkpartypartyworkworkwork

Dust rode out of the mountains Monday night and took me off the night shift at Target. I had allready pulled 8 hours at the theater that day, and I faked sick at Target to meet him just after midnight.

The next day we laid around and read comic books for a bit, and I skipped my night shift all together in order to ride with him to Nashville for one of the best parties I've ever been too. There is nothing finer sometimes. than laying around and reading comic books with Dust. We can go for quite a bit without talking at all, and then discuss at length how JSA is more tied to the Vertigo universe than other DC titles, which quite naturally leads into a discussion of oh, anything - Irish politics or existentialism, or father's day.

I spent the night of the 30th with Dust, Kati and Callie at Christi's house. I was surrounded by people I love and am entirely comfortable with for hours and hours. We had a quote war over dinner where Keats was answered with Shel Silverstien, Dorothy Parker, REM lyrics, Emily Dickenson- the quotes bounced back and forth across the table like tennis balls, and I thought I miss these people, I love these people. The whole night I kept talking to Callie as if she were a younger aspect of myself, which is right and which is wrong. I don't know if she understands how much we all accept her and love her. All of us in that room that night were so comfortable and happy. It was one of those nights I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. Even if the magazine dies soon, which I'm afraid that here in its fourth year it will - Scribbling Mob will remain through my whole life one of the things I'm most proud of my involvement in. We made a difference. We made some our peers rethink what it means to be a southern woman. And along the way, we learned to love some pretty amazing people.

The next day we rolled out of bed to an IHOP breakfast, and I hugged the girls good bye. When I hug Kati, my body nearly doubles over her, reminding me how f%$@# tall I am!

I saw the Two Towers with Dust on my right and Winn on my left. They both jogged their legs. I watched a pretend world I lived in at age ten imagined by someone else on the big screen, and I had this sense of joy -

Over the last month or so I've been shattered into a lot of jagged pieces of glass, and it's like Dust came down here to Atlanta and gathered up all the bits and took them to Tennessee. And my writer friends shifted though the bits and said, we remember how this all fits together, and told me about it, and I got reassembled. During the movie with Dust and Winn, I could feel the glue setting. I'm not the same person I was a month ago, or two months ago, or when I moved down here from Boston. I'm very different now, even though I'm still made up of all the stuff that was there from the beginning. I know that makes no sense, but that's how it is.

After the movie, Winn and I went to see Tony and Andrew for New Year's at a party thrown by Paula. It was 2003, and for the first time ever I had a date for New Year's Eve that I actually bothered to show up for.

The next day I slept in preparation for my overnight shift at Target, and Winn dropped me off just in time. So the whole holiday was bracketed by double shift of work at the theater and Target. I'm a busy little bee, working for what I want out of life. But play is important. I'm so glad I got those two nights in Nashville, I can't even explain how good they were for me.

And at the same time, I didn't have enough time to hug all the people I wanted too - I missed Cairy, Skeet, Dinan, Ron, Jeff, and a ton of other people I really care about. I only got to hug my sisters and parents for just a second - I ran into the house, surprising them all, hugged them and ran away again, leaving them standing on the porch waving goodbye, startled and puzzled by my unexpected entry into the house.There was no time to explain to them that I work so much I haven't time to explain myself thoroughly at all.

No time to explain that I can't explain. At least my last overnight shift was worked Thursday, so soon I'll go back to my natural early morning self rather than overnight E. Happy 2003 everybody.