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.