it's been a long time

i know that no one reads my posts or missed me at all. nonetheless, I'm back.

I'm not willing to let go of the idea that I am a writer, therefore, I'm back.

I'm the same boring, nonchalantly self involved person that I was before, the only difference is that now I really miss writing.

I have things to say and they merit saying. Even if just because I feel that way.

So get ready people. There's plenty of self-loathing, parent- blaming, anorexic, alcoholic meandering to come.

I love anyone who's reading this by the way. That's how much I need validation.

on being laid off

It's interesting how much I want to exercise and stop eating. For the most part I've been able to put it out of my head, but the need to restrict is just RIGHT there, gnawing at me under the thin layer of skin I've grown over the past year. It's like a scab, but instead of picking at it from the surface, my need is picking at it from underneath. The hamster is still in it's cage, but it's running in it's wheel 24 hours a day now. I keep hoping that he will drop dead, but he hasn't yet. He seems to have simply improved his cardiovascular endurance.

It's clear that this will never go away. It's a part of me in a way that I didn't understand before now. I guess it is a good thing that I know this now. I can stop fighting it. Maybe I'll finally be able to accept myself now. It's a little ironic. Maybe all I ever needed to do was just stop trying so hard. I should be nice and thin for my trip to Mexico, which will be nice. Maybe I'll finally be able to acknowledge it too...I probably shouldn't hope for much.

I'm not really sure....

I have no idea why I'm even posting today. I haven't had anything to say in weeks. I'm completely caught up in my own self-defeating thought processes and have no reason to even try to articulate my feelings in actual words. Maybe I'll just resort to making a list of the things that have happened that may or may not mean something.

1. I started looking for a new job.
2. I got nothing but negative responses to my resume because, as I expected, I'm not qualified to do anything but what I'm doing now.
3. I'm still not a very good friend.
4. I still think I'm so fat that I shouldn't be allowed in the general public.
5. I'm still scared shitless to actually write anything that means something.
6. I got drunk and made an ass of myself.
7. I'm still not special in any way and I still can't bring myself to accept it.
8. I need to trim my bangs.
9. My ex-best friend that broke my heart into a million pieces wants to be my friend again and I'm not stopping her.
10. I'm running now instead of doing fourteen different workouts...this week.

So - that's about it. This list makes me very depressed. I shouldn't have written it. I should never write anything again. I don't know why I can't just articulate my fucking feelings. My husband says I'm hiding from my feelings by trying to articulate them all the time, but he doesn't understand. I think the only thing I'm capable of is articulating things. If I can't communicate, I have nothing. It's literally the only thing I'm good at, but sadly I'm never good enough. Everything I do is to try to connect and communicate with other people on a level that always seems to elude me. The only time I've ever really felt the connection that I'm looking for is when people eat something I've made and I can see it, in that moment, that I've reached them. We're sharing something really special in that moment, something that transcends the base reality of the situation. I think that's what I'm not able to do with my writing and it's such an important part of who I am that I can't bear to try and fail. Essentially, at my core, I'm scared that if I have to give up the dream or the ideal that I can reach people on a deeper level, I will fade away and become a ghost.

Sometimes I think it might be better just to give in to my urges and just write everything I know. Everything, all the time. Maybe I would see myself better that way. Maybe I would be able to finally accept that I either AM capable of achieving what I want to , or that I am not. Maybe I'll be better off if I just let it go. I feel like so much of who I am is wrapped up in the effects of the bad things that have happened in my life that I have no chance to be anyone else. I'm obsessed with self-improvement, yet unable to fully embrace it because I don't want to let go of the past. My honesty and openness has trapped me. I have learned to be "myself" through painful exploration and confession, but now what? Do those confessions have to keep being true, even if I'm moving on? How do you move on from something that stays with you all the time? Is self-acceptance really the answer? How often does it have to happen? Can self-acceptance and insecurity co-exist? What happens when the people who have created and fostered your insecurities over the years don't change? Is maintaining a relationship with those people irresponsible? Is responsibility overrated?

Uggh. I'm so fucking confused.

I'm at it again...

So the only news I have to write about is not so good.

On the one hand, I've decided to give up being a vegetarian. Not that I won't eat veggie dishes, just that if I want a freakin chicken sandy I'm gonna have one. I really thought it was going to be a lot harder to go back to eating meat, but NOPE. No stomach aches, no headaches, not even any guilt. I guess the fact that I'm willing to admit that being a vegetarian for me was really a symptom of my anorexia is a good sign. I don't think that every vegetarian has an eating disorder, but I certainly do. This is not the bad news by the way...

The bad news is that I'm counting again. All the time. I'm even writing it down. I can't quite figure out why, but I think it might have something to do with the fact that we're going to Cancun in a few months, but it's probably more to do with the fact that I'm scared shitless about leaving my job. I'm not really scared to leave as much as I'm scared that the problem isn't the jobs...it's me. Of course that's a complete rationalization and I'm totally full of it as usual. I also really want to do something great, and I'm afraid I'll never have the balls to do it. I feel pathetic, useless and totally undeserving of the great life that I already have.

I guess that's why I'm counting again. I can focus on staying below the line and feel a sense of accomplishment. Unfortunately, it's never enough. It doesn't solve my problems. Right now I can't help it. If I don't do it, I won't have anything to give anyone. I feel like I'm letting everyone down all the time and there is nothing I can do about it. How can I give people what they want if I don't have anything for myself?

Just so you'll know...

If you're ever my boss, I don't find it motivational when you spend most of the day in a back office talking to the ex girlfriend of the guy you've been cyber-fucking for the past month and a half. I also don't find it motivational when you blow off a phone call from YOUR boss so that you can keep talking to her.



In addition, arriving an hour late every day is not that motivational either.



I have a new job every 2-3 years, so you could end up being my boss. Just FYI.

Quote for today

At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily.

- Flannery O'Connor

List of good things

I always used to do this when I was a child and it made me feel better on days when I lost my smile. It's a list of thirty things that I really like that I can have right now.

1. Great friends
2. A pretty sweater
3. A good haircut
4. DVDs starring Jenna Jameson
5. A good looking husband who is an excellent lay
6. An adorable dog
7. Clothes to dress my adorable dog in
8. Cute shoes
9. Cake
10. Comfy yoga pants
11. A cool phone
12. A borderline creepy addiction to Facebook
13. Books
14. Nice perky breasts
15. Lots of bars to drink in
16. SpongeBob SquarePants
17. My SpongeBob SquarePants thermos
18. Beer
19. Wine
20. Absinthe
21. Torchy's Tacos
22. East Side Pies
23. Beauty products
24. Small feet
25. Making people laugh
26. New (to me) records
27. My wicked cool record player
28. Virgin Island Water by Creed
29. Back rubs
30. Oral sex

I do feel better. Maybe I should just do this every day.

Am I the only one?

Does all this talk about steroids and eight babies and domestic abuse among young Hollywood really surprise everyone but me?

I had experience with all these things when I was in High School. Are eight babies really that different than four, or conceiving them in an old uterus? Are we really SHOCKED that the most famous athlete in baseball, who has incredible amounts of pressure put on him all the time, resorted to taking supplements that guys in my high school used to take? And come on, we've all known (or been) that couple that gets drunk and yells at each other and then calls the cops, right?

Maybe I'm out of line, but it seems like a slow news week to me. If we would just learn to accept that adoption is an option, leave government out of major league sports and stop expecting rich 19 year olds to act differently than regular 19 year olds, maybe we could focus on the important things: that Lil Wayne was like totally ROBBED at the Grammy's. Whatever.

So....

I changed the name of my blog to more accurately reflect the way I currently feel about myself and the world.

For anyone who might be reading this, I'll explain a bit.

The Sun also Rises was Hemingway's first novel and it tracks the exploits of a group of expatriate friends from Paris to Northern Spain and back. The central event in the story is a bullfight. I won't go into the plot details too much, because I think it's a pretty important read for anyone of our generation. This particular quote comes from a minor character who is quite drunk. Like any literary quote, it can be taken a variety of ways.

The character who says this quote is very very drunk at the time of its utterance, and I am often drunk, so I like that about it. I also think it's a very succinct way of expressing disappointment in something on a very deep level. Bulls, more than any other animal, are supposed to represent masculinity, virility and power. They are also a worthy adversary. Only by fighting and conquering a worthy adversary can one be sure of one's own competence level, and by extension, the purpose of one's existence. This takes on an added dimension when considering the whole driving force behind the novel itself is the journey to see the bullfight and experience true passion (or aficion, as Hemingway describes it). Without worthy bulls, the whole journey becomes an exercise in futility.

This speaks to me on many levels. I sometimes feel like in order to define my own purpose, I must find a worthy cause: a bull with balls. Other times, I think I am the bull in question and I wonder what Hemingway would say about me, about the state of my affairs. I wonder if rescinding my power to an amorphous concept like "purpose" is just another way of rationalizing my cowardice. After all, if I saw a bull with balls, would I even know what to do with it or would I run in the other direction, throwing off any red clothing along the way, then go to the local bar and get shitfaced on local wine, only to comment later on the apparent problems with the bulls I had in my sights?

rainy days and mondays

I feel empty today. This is not so terribly different from any other day, but usually the empty makes me feel sorry for things that aren't my fault, or it causes me to try to fill it with something.

Today my emptiness is causing everything around me to resonate really loud inside. Even the sound of voices is echoing loud in my head and making it hurt. The rain woke me up last night and usually it soothes me back to sleep, but not this time. Something is off. Something is wrong. I'm either getting a migraine or I'm getting ready to figure something out. The last time I felt this way, it was right before I found out that everyone in my family had been lying to me for years.

If I told my husband all of this, he would say that I am just trying to rationalize away what I know to be true: that I should quit my job because I hate it. While I have no affection for my work, I don't actually know that I should quit. My husband is sure that I should quit because he's tired of me having a reason to be irritated. He thinks that if I can simply eliminate all of the negative things in my life, then I can focus instead on doing things that will make us happy. That might be true, I suppose. He's trying to be supportive. He knows that I wish I was talented and that I wish that I could produce something really great. He loves me, so he thinks I should really try. He doesn't understand that I don't really have what it takes and that the emotional investment I would have to make in order to produce something with merit could destroy the brief and fragile sanity that I am clinging to these days.

He really does love me so much. He says I'm too hard on myself and that he actually does understand what I'm going through. I think he may have some insight into what is going on with me, but at the same time it is so difficult for me to believe that anyone could love me if they really knew me. I feel like there is a deep chasm inside me and I am afraid that if I let the people I care about get too close, they will fall in and be lost to me forever. I don't know why I feel like I have that kind of power. Maybe it's all that untapped potential my Dad used to tell me I was wasting. Maybe I am just rambling. It's a good thing no one is reading this.

New project

So in an effort to attempt to cleanse myself of all my negative energy - I'm going to write down all the terrible things I think about myself in a little red notebook and then tear the pages out and throw them away - or possibly light them on fire.  The idea is to see how long it takes me to get through the notebook.  There are 70 pages, college ruled.  I have a feeling that if I force myself to fill every page, front and back that it should take me about two weeks.  

I have tried to use this blog as a way to do this, but I don't think therapeutic blogging is really for me - after all I can't even bring myself to post my name or tell anyone I know the name of the site.   It's actually kind of pathetic.  I tell people I have a blog and then tell them it's anonymous so that they will search for it.  If I wasn't such an ardent self-loather I would call myself a narcissist.  Sadly, I don't think anyone actually wants to read what I write.  I think it's because I'm completely self-deprecating at all times and probably seem so utterly ridiculous that people think I couldn't possibly have anything to say.  I'm ridiculous.

I'm not sure whether the notebook is a good idea or a really really bad one.  I guess we'll see.  I just don't want to feel like I need to wear a caftan to the lake and/or start starving myself again.   I am already kind of starving myself - that doesn't even make any sense.  Starving yourself HAS to be all or nothing, you can't "kind of" starve.  I guess I could more accurately say that I'm thinking a lot about starving myself.  I am getting to the point that I'm pretty sure it would help.  I think if I could get all this negative out, then I might not feel so full all the time.  I might feel hungry for things that will actually sustain me instead of consuming me.  I hope this new idea won't cause me to consume myself even faster.  I suppose if I can't feel good about how I look in a bikini, at least everyone else can enjoy it.

ice ice baby

That is a ridiculous title for anything, much less a blog post. I'm so embarrassed that I even typed it that I'm going to force myself to leave it as a punishment.

The title is inspired by the ice here in Austin today. It is already a memory, with only the horrible traffic as a reminder. It's funny, I've seen a six foot tall transvestite with rainbow colored hotpants walking a goat in broad daylight and she didn't cause the kind of uproar that a little freeze did. I suppose it's all what you're used to.

I have nothing to do at work right now. It's making me feel flaccid and worthless. I need some kind of performance enhancing drug...that would help me lose weight AND feel better about my job performance.

I'm listening to the gayest John Mayer song ever (the gayest one that I like) "Neon". I am profoundly uncool. (I know it's wrong to use the word "gay" as derrogatory, but sometimes there is no other alternative. As an aside, John Mayer once told people that "Your body is a wonderland" was "written for a dude" as a joke, so clearly he understands.)

Wow - the next song on the playlist is ACTUALLY gay: "filty/gorgeous" by the Scissor Sisters. I always feel a little naughty when I say their name.

This post is totally pointless. If I wasn't making an effort to post everything I write, I would totally delete this and pretend like it never happened.

I'll use one of my favorite poems to salvage this post.

For your enjoyment: "Drunk as Drunk" by Pablo Neruda

Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.

he's back!

My husband is back from his trip. It's wonderful, he got back just in time. I had pretty much exhausted my ability to be aroused by internet porn and I got a note from my vibrator asking for a sabbatical.

He tells me he did such a good job on this trip, they are rewarding him with a three week version in March. EXCELLENT. He's very worried about me because I lost weight and got sick while he was gone. In his heart he knows that he married me because he needs someone to take care of. I try to tell him that even though I'll miss him, I will be completely fine. He doesn't believe me and he probably shouldn't. I AM fine while he's gone...but I forget to eat, I don't really sleep and I drink too much. I do all of those things when he's here as well, but on a different scale. It hurts me very deeply that he has to worry about me this way. It hurts me even more that he honestly doesn't believe I could live without him. I don't think he sees the difference between not being able to do something and really not wanting to do something.

I wish I were a better stronger person. I wish I knew how to determine whether I'm moving in the right direction. I guess I just have to trust that as long as I'm examining myself, I'm improving. I think I'm going to have to start ordering home delivery porn. I also need batteries.

On being friends

I've never been that good at being friends. Growing up, I always felt wrong and strange and out of place. I envied loners and their seeming ability to detach and self-sustain. I lack any such ability. I'm consistently over-attached to everything, people, places, things and even ideas and perceptions. I am the opposite of self-sustaining: I am self-consuming. My inner voice tells me to starve myself physically so that my being will feed on itself - the only thing that is leftover. On the other hand, I know that the consumption of my spirit will bring about only more of me, perhaps in a more concentrated form. I become obsessed with transformation: ANY transformation be it physical, immaterial or imagined. I have a need to constantly change. I used to think that I was just using a trial and error method to perfect myself. Now I think the need to perfect is really a need to transform and, ultimately through this process, nourish myself with myself. Living with this vortex inside my heart makes it difficult to share myself with other people. The vacuum inside sucks everything in, but doesn't keep it all. The rejected parts and pieces of my consciousness swirl around in my head so quickly and quietly; the light of my true nature is obscured, like the stars are obscured on a cloudy night. The map of my internal sky is lit brightly, but I am confused by it, because it looks so different to me from moment to moment.

This same cloud covers me when I am trying to make friends and build relationships. I desperately crave authenticity, but because I am unable to decipher my true feelings, I also deeply fear the unknown inside. The desire to know my personal truth makes me seek out people who resemble the image of myself that I cannot see and the fear of that same truth makes me avoid openness with those people. Because my own mirror is smoky, I look for reflections of myself in others and their perceptions of me. This makes me a dutiful, caring and affectionate companion; ultimately, though, when I fail to find what I am looking for, the relationship simply fades away or escalates into conflict. Once the satisfaction of creation wanes, the need for destruction sets in.

None of this is to say that I intend to hurt people. I don't even believe I really intend to hurt myself. This cycle of creation and destruction seems to be inevitable for me. Even as I begin to understand myself and why I may never have true self-knowledge, my past experiences and behaviors make it difficult for me to trust myself in relationships. I am protecting myself from disappointment, but part of me doesn't feel qualified to be in a relationship. The emptiness inside me cannot be filled, but also cannot be stopped. I WILL hurt the people I love, no matter how hard I try.

Even as I write this, I feel that it isn't true, or isn't the whole truth. I can see that I am rationalizing to an extent. I see that I may have imagined this emptiness to explain away the hurt and disappointment the people in my life have caused me. Even that fact, though, proves that it's all true: no matter what I do, it's never enough. Even if I accept that other people are also responsible for my pain, it brings me no relief, just the desire to try again. The cycle of creation and consumption continues. I am a second-rate Shiva. I cease to create because I fear that my own creations will consume me in the end or I will consume them and have even more power to create and destroy.

I am trying now, to create without fear, or rather to embrace my fears as part of the creation process. If I am able to truly connect with another person, perhaps I will be able to connect with my own self. Sharing consciousness may lead me to an acceptance of myself. I don't know how, but I feel compelled to try. And so the cycle will continue on: creation, consumption and ultimately destruction. Maybe this time I'll be able to skip the doubt and anger and just accept the process for what it is: necessary.

I'm afraid

Up to this point, my posts have been infrequent and superficial because I fear rejection and I'm naturally very guarded. I have tried to let myself believe that just the act of writing down anything I'm thinking would push my boundaries and make me a better person. It's total bullshit. Generally speaking, when I write for myself, everything I write is true and authentic. Something about knowing that people COULD read this blog (even though they clearly don't) made me tense up and feel all the insecurities and anxiety that have caused me to be disingenuous and lack emotional authenticity my entire life.

The truth is, I'm afraid: scared shitless that I will have to look back at these posts and really see myself. I've always been so afraid of rejection and not being accepted by others, but the real problem is that I can't accept myself. I don't even want to. I want to keep hoping that if I hold out for something better, I could change completely. Not like a caterpillar into a butterfly; I am not satisfied with my own potential. I want to become something completely different, to change species.

This inability to commit to myself and my own potential has created a myriad of problems for me. Not the least of which is my quasi-dibilitating eating disorder and my toxic relationships with my immediate family. I am writing this today because I am not doing all that well with managing my illness. My husband is gone on a business trip and I find myself missing him, but also pleased to have some time to myself so that I can openly self-loathe, not eat, over-excercise and take laxatives. It is not good. I don't know what I'm going to do. My life is too good to waste like this. In some ways it's better than before, but I don't know why I can't stop hurting myself. It's like treading water in the shallow end of the pool: if I could just put my feet down and stand up, I could stop wasting time and energy in an ultimately purposeless endeavor.

Turkey Day

I know it's been awhile since I posted....I've been very busy with important things like drinking and cavorting and pissing people off.

For anyone out there who is reading or who might care, I thought I would extend my best wishes for a day full of overeating, over-drinking and general merriment. Or perhaps your day will be like mine and will involve flying to a city you don't really care for to spend time with your in-laws who will undoubtedly look to you and your husband to distract them from their early retirement blues.

Right now I'm sitting in my office with nothing to do...damned economy...wearing a cashmere beret because our neighbors next door control our thermostat and they are also apparently polar bears. I feel slightly guilty about doing nothing, but not guilty enough to actually try to think of something productive to do. I only feel guilty enough to desperately want a drink. Perhaps in a later post I will explore the ways in which boredom, loneliness, guilt, excitement, congratulations, celebrations, television, movies and physical activity seem to make me want to drink, or perhaps not. For now, I'll just post a copy of something I found on the interwebs today.

For your enjoyment, with an eye towards the holidays.

Austin City Limits

Why, why, why did no one tell me that I would be coughing and sneezing up dust for hours afterward? Wonderful time, lovely music but I could've used a warning about the black lung.

A few thoughts:

Being EMO at an outdoor festival in Austin doesn't really work. Well, it might make you more angry and bitter, therefore more EMO so maybe it does work. In related news, someone needs to buy the Kills a map and then point out to them that Austin is REALLY far South and then tell them that their paying fans don't really care to hear their histrionics about their shoes catching fire. News flash - you're a fucking rock star and get paid to play your overrated music; get over it! All that said, they did look pretty miserable and the sun was shining directly on them.

Middle-aged women depress me. I officially vow to go straight from my mid-thirties to a decrepit, unseemly, crotchedy bitch in my late eighties. Even the 24 oz Bud Light I was drinking couldn't erase the images of potato-bodied ladies jiggling their arms and swaying their asses to Blues Traveler. I wanted to break out the brain bleach. Please note that I am not saying that OVERWEIGHT middle-aged women depress me. I am not discriminating. They are all sad. It makes me even sadder to think about their kids getting high without them or their husbands at home watching golf, too bored and worn-out even to fantasize about making it with Diane Lane.

Jack White is UH-Mazing. That's all.

If you haven't seen Gnarls Barkley or CSS - do it. You'll thank me. Saw them at Stubbs on Friday and it was, like, totally the best thing ever, or whatever. It really was though. Cee-Lo's voice is unbelievable and Lovefoxxx from CSS definitely knows how to put on a good show.

For now, that is all...I'm very tired and I can't stop coughing up Zilker Park dust and weed smoke.

Oh - one last thing. A note to all you frat boys out there- rolling your weed in swisher sweets isn't gangsta...it's disgusting. Just smoke it straight like everyone else. It's like spraying glade on a piece of dog shit. Just a small request from a humble non-smoker. Thank you for your time.

Presidential Pagent

So I think we should have a Presidential Pagent instead of all these debates and boring ads. I thiink the candidates should have to put up or shut up. You want to be president, fine, but you better be prepared to model swimwear and sing "You light up my life" or arrange furniture.

Ok, I know what you're thinking. That's ridiculous and socially irrelevant. So we'll update it a bit. What about a cage match? A competitive hunt? Oh wait, I've got it....let's just Oprah, Michael Phelps, Miley Cyrus, Tiger Woods, Jennifer Lopez, Sean Penn and the cast of Gossip Girl decide. Sorry sorry I forgot a religious figure....so just choose between the reanimated corpse of Jerry Fallwell or Mel Gibson...it doesn't matter either way.

It's sad that our current political system is so convoluted that letting a group of silly, overpaid celebrities pick our president gives me more hope than trusting that the American public will make the right decision come November. I mean, I hate guns and I love animals and I would gladly sacrifice a few pheasants to have this whole mess over with. I have more faith in the organization that made Chuck Liddell a star than I do in our electoral system. Unfortunately none of these options is viable because Sarah Palin clearly has the edge...think about it - she's already won pagents, she is an avid hunter and she could obviously kick Joe Biden's ass. That guy is about as threatening as a Clay Aiken eating a cupcake. So I guess I take it all back.

a conundrum

So I know no one out there is reading this, but maybe writing it out will make me feel better and cause me to come to a conclusion.

I used to live in Los Angeles; more specifically, I used to live in a Northwestern suburb of Los Angeles filled with trophy wives by the dozen and Porsche Cayennes as far as the eye can see. It's the kind of place where 14 year olds carry large Louis Vuitton handbags and have $150 highlights and yet the patron of the local sushi restaurant refuses to tip the single-mother/community college student waitress because his sake isn't exactly 86 degrees. A place where 60% of the people don't need a steady job and yet still feel it's appropriate to comment on how homelessness is only a problem for people with no work ethic. All this isn't to say that it didn't have it's upsides. I spent many hours hiking it's lovely trails through the mountains down to the beach and enjoying the pristine, smog-free weather and beautiful, multi-colored sunsets.

I worked at a small recruiting firm (we used to say "boutique" although I can't think of anything about our tiny, one-room office with dumpster-dive recovered furniture and prime access to the outdoor restroom that would conjure the word) where we specialized in finding self-involved Financial types jobs that would give them "more upward mobility and opportunity for growth". Basically this involved convincing a bunch of boring bean-counters that they weren't too boring to change jobs. Why would I do this? It paid extremely well, I got to drink at work and I never had to wear make-up or a suit jacket. All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend three years and it supported my handbag habit ( I know, I know, I was just judging the poor tween girls for their handbags, but keep in mind, I'm nearing 30 and don't own ANY Louis V).


During my time there I worked with several interesting characters. Perhaps I will go into greater description of the 20 plus people who worked with and for me during my tenure, but this story only requires the description of one. We'll call her Midwestern Farmer's Daughter (or Miffed for short). She is from a corn-infested midwestern state where the only things to do are drink, fuck and operate meth labs (not necessarily in that order). She is nearly six feet tall with pretty blue eyes and a chip on her shoulder the size of a great lake. She has the kind of ashy blonde highlights and giant, torpedo-shaped fake breasts that only come with her brand of Midwestern insecurity. She gets absurdly drunk and shouts at strangers, but is hilarious and joyful in an almost childlike way. She is both articulate and inane: refreshingly abstract and tediously literal. No friend of mine has ever caused me so much laughter or so many tears.

When I met Miffed she hated me immediately. On my first day of work she refused to make eye contact with me and spoke about me in the third person when I was sitting right there. It took three weeks of achingly subservient courtesy to get her to even acknowledge my existence. When she finally did acknowledge me, it was to alternately boss me around and inform me that my position within the company was not even remotely secure.



"I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there is no way that you're going to last here if you don't learn how to document your activity more accurately. We just don't have time to show you more than once and you're clearly not getting it so I just think you might want to be a little more careful..."

"I'm so sorry! I know it's a huge inconvenience, but do you think you could let me know exactly what you're talking about? I am just doing it the way I was taught. Thanks so much for your help!"

"UGGGH. Whatever. If you don't know already there's no point."

This continued for several months. After she saw that I was sticking around, we entered a more cordial period of detente. She explained to me that she had gotten so used to people coming and then going immediately that she decided not to "get attached" to anyone. This new phase of our relationship was characterized by her asking me to do things for her and me jumping at the chance to break my back bending over backwards to do them. I had workplace Stockholm Syndrome. I even began to empathize with her situation. I felt lucky that instead of berating me or criticizing everything I did, she would throw me a bone or two; even though she always reminded me of my place when I seemed too comfortable.


"Um, excuse me Miffed...I am going out to grab some lunch. Can I get you anything?"


"Sure, as long as you don't completely screw it up like last time...."

Eventually she came to see me as someone she could trust with more than sandwiches and we became REAL friends. Sometimes she was wonderful. She helped throw me an amazing birthday party, she listened to me when I needed to talk about my family and she encouraged me to find a therapist to help with my eating disorder. Without her help, I honestly might not be sane right now. Other times, she wasn't so wonderful. She was constantly competitive about everything. Looks, clothes, music, our husbands. It didn't help that we were in actual competition in the workplace. If she was having a bad day, she belittled me about everything. Whenever someone new entered our world she was insanely jealous of my attention and then immediately tried to show me how awful the other person was. Then when I agreed she would accuse me of being a petty bitch and tell the other person I didn't like them. She lied to me more than a dozen times about things that don't matter at all.


When she moved to Austin she stopped returning my phone calls and started telling coworkers lies about me. I really don't know why. She had previously gotten pregnant and had a miscarriage. I was angry with her at the time but I still visited her at the hospital and every day at her apartment during the three weeks she missed work. I also convinced her husband to stay with her (he told me this) and did her job for her while she was gone. The last real conversation we had was about a "going away" party she was throwing for herself. I attended and made food for this party, but was unable to plan it myself because I was going to be away the whole week prior. After I moved to Austin several months later, our boss called me and told me that he didn't want me working for him anymore. After some prodding on my part I found out that Miffed was concerned that I would be competition for her in this small market and that she had lied to him about my performance and integrity and had basically gotten me fired.

Now, in the end, being rid of my job and association with this crazy man was a good thing, but I was still terribly hurt by her actions. This was about four months ago. Ten days ago she texted me wanting to reconnect. I haven't responded. I don't know what to do. On the one hand, she was a conniving bitch that used every trick in the book to screw me over. On the other hand, I do care about her and she was kind to me at times. Part of me is so curious about why she would contact me that I want to text her back. The other part of me realizes that no good will come of this.

UTI

So I know I haven't posted in awhile - primarily because no one is reading this and I'm very fragile and need constant validation in order to put myself out there - also because I've been very busy with Fantasy Football.

I think I started off these posts on the wrong foot - thinking that I would create a persona that reflects how quirky, original, neurotic, compulsive, but ultimately loveable I am. Clearly that isn't going to happen. I'm not that talented. I have had a few things happen in the past few weeks, and it may be cathartic for me to share, so here goes.

My in-laws were here for ten days. They stayed with us in our one-bedroom apartment. It was a very nice visit. I drank several bottles of alcohol and didn't exercise once.

My job is fantastic. Clearly someone with my predisposition to inferiority complexes and anorexia would think that sales is a "good fit" for my personality. It is leading me to drink heavily and eat cheesy food.

I am such a good writer that I can't even write an original speech for my sister's wedding. I am borrowing it from Pablo Neruda. Neruda's dark, skewed vision of love should go over perfectly with the Nascar-employed, Bible-belt wearing, FBI agents that will be there. (I know that you can't actually WEAR a Bible Belt, but then again, I AM preparing a Neruda poem for a wedding toast at a wedding where there will be no alcohol so my intelligence is clearly in question here).

My Fantasy Football prospects are dimmer than an eco-friendly lightbulb in Matthew McConaghey's beach hut. I'm 0-2 and I have Tony Romo. Way to go Hank Baskett. Fortunately I had SEVERAL beers on Sunday to ease the pain.

All of these things are leading up to the subject of this post - UTI.

My pee is red and I'm still in horrific pain. Well, at least I get to go to my awesome job. That should at least distract me.