What I learned in therapy

can be very well summed up in a quote at the end of TB's rambling post (it's full of crap that surely only four or five people, of which I am not one, will understand, you can skip that stuff):

So, note to self, take a dash of icewater with your salt and pepper. and remember that not everyone is or needs to be on the same page with you.

Deeeeep breath. We don't have to agree. It's cool! We don't even have to pretend to agree! AH, GREAT RELIEF! I can let those things go and concentrate on more important matters.

Like getting to work, now. Bye.

hasn't anyone else noticed

how weird those new commercials are?

time and temp

All this week in Chicago it's going to be hovering about in the mid-forties, early fifties.

All this week in San Francisco is sunny, bright, hovering in the mid-seventies.

I forgot today that it's actually November.

Then, when I remembered, I realized that I am not walking around with the heavy-hearted dread that accompanies the crisp fall days in Chicago. I'm not steeling myself for negative windchills, frozen ground, feet soaked in dirty, icy water from three-day-old snow drifts. No mornings scraping frost from the windows of the car, or, worse - standing on a frigid train platform, huddling in the futility of a down coat, scarf, hat, and gloves. No cursing at the frozen air and asking myself why the FUCK do I live here?

Instead, a month or two of foggy, wet, 50-degree days surrounded by plants that never stop flowering.

No long months of early spring sure that winter will never, ever end.

The freedom from worry is exhilarating. I hardly know how to accept it.

After ten years of frigid winter hell, I'm free.

Fuck. Yeah.

the seventh cell

I got a new cell phone today.

It flips in different directions so I can be super sleuthy with the texting.

It's the seventh cell phone I've carried (not including the several blackberries and subsequent despided Q I use for email purposes).

Seven -- crazy. Where am I, anyway?

"you can't take a picture of this, it's already gone"

First, it was the friends getting married.

Then, the friends having babies.

Then, the friends getting divorced.

And honestly, for me, the second and the third happened at about the same time. Almost at the same rate. (Eventually, I hope the babies will prevail over the divorces. For now though, they're almost neck and neck.)

Then, it starts getting weirder.

There's the unexpected milestones. The ones you have no idea are coming, that you really couldn't have been expected to anticipate during your endless, immortal, infallable late teens/twenties/late twenties).

Your friends all stop smoking.

You start avoiding certain bars because everyone is way too young.

The hipsters in your neighborhood are suddenly emulating a completely different look than when you were a young hip kid. Instead of every dude at the Empty Bottle looking exactly like Beck, the dudes at the Sidewalk Cafe are all sporting the dyed black hair and pseudo goth style of the more recent Bright Eyes phase. I'm thinking there's probably some new hipster/music idol/look combo but, frankly, I don't live in the edgy 'hood anymore.

You end up in some kind of senior-ish position at work. You make a ton more money. So do your peers.

Everyone buys homes.

Your friends buy second homes.

Even though you don't have kids (if you're me, anyway), you start identifying with the parents more than the kids.

Most recently, I reflect upon my post-college early twenties as the distant past. The 22 year old girl from a decade ago seems as sweet and innocent as the twelve-year-old sixth grader. I've had a whole other lifetime of growing up.

I don't feel old as much as I feel richer, smarter, calmer, more confident. I am so grateful for the things I've learned.

And no way in hell would I want to go through it again.

I am still shocked and dismayed as I watch American Beauty again, for the first time, since it was in the cinema. And I identify with the middle-aged parents more than the teen-aged kids.

Dana Quote o' the day

While planning a south-bound day trip and being snippy: Long Pause. "Remember when I got Big Surly?"

Banks's Blathering Brings Bullshit From Becca

So, I know TB is trying to make some sort of point here about the nature of god and the ways in which we internalize religion in our youth. . . you know, the way we form our spiritual cores and shit, when he writes:

not that anyone asked but i was baptised lutheran but we rarely attended services after grade the second. i first remember thinking of god as someone who was watching me all the time. all the time. all the time. watching. watching all the time. this later morphed into the idea of me being able to sit down and watch my life as a movie with god once i had died. i was really into this scenario from about 1975 to 1981 or 2. sure, it would take a lifetime, i thought, but, hey we'd have eternity. we'd watch my life repeatedly.

But what this really speaks to me about is the way we create narrative from our own experiences.

I have this theory that those of us who are drawn to write things down on pages spend a lot of time framing our own lives inside our heads. Sometimes, this takes the form of an internal novelization. A lot of my brain is taken up with the pasttime of picking out phrasing for everyday experience.

I'm not just drinking coffee, I'm taken with the creamy texture of my latte, and suspecting that the barista may have used full fat milk instead of the skim I requested.

As a child, I spent a lot of time framing the shots in the movie of my life. Picking out songs to include in the soundtrack.*

This had less to do with god, and more to do with my conviction that, of course, someone would some day be compelled to actually make a film of my life. A biopic of my fascinating youth in southern Indiana.

I wrote in my diaries and I was pretty sure that someday, people would pore over them, searching for my gems of wisdom and marveling at my clarity of thought and marvelous insights -- in awe of what perfect, rosebud-tight gifts each page of the diary of my fourteen-year-old self held.

Actually, that's still probably going to happen. I know audiences will be positively riveted by my adventures at Eastland Mall on Green River Road. What is the significance of the purchase of Best Friends half-heart necklaces with Donna Gunnels? What symbolism is held in the intense struggle over curfew times (10 PM? Really, Mother? REALLY??) and chores? Those, my friends, are the stuff of life.

The difference here is that TB was raised with GOD, and I was raised with TV, so instead of a divine interest I had the world watching.

I've always been shallow that way.

Isn't this fascinating, Internet??

*Note to the future director of my Very Important BioPic -- Every Rose Has Its Thorn should probably play over the end credits.

Drunks.

Okay, so, if you're going to drunk chat, totally do it with Luc.


Luc: hey boobies
me: hi, penis
how are you
i am reading blogs
me: you think someone could love me, right?
like, someone
somewher
out there
Luc: Of course
me: IE: I'm lovable
Luc: Quality #1 - "You can call me boobies."
me: that's true. Huge. Literally
Luc: What else is happenin'?
me: I'm in nyc
just got drunk
hence the gutwrenching q's
otherwise it would be all
are my boobs really the biggest?
which I already know
they are
I met a scotsman
who taught me to say
realistically
last focking drank

RILO

OMG. . . the madness is up on Youtube, y'all.

Real Ass Bitch In A Fake Ass World

James Cameron Mitchell plus some pack a day black NOLA smoker with a little dash of crazy equals Chris Crocker

What I did with my evening

Johnny and I just realized we can video chat. This involves:

Sending each other youtube videos and watching each other react.

Playing Sleater Kinney songs

Pretending to bum smokes off each other (super hilarious)

Of course, ending it all with a singalong (everything that keeps us together is fallin' apart. . . ) tribute to 2002.

Picture from the era (note to self -- kickass highlights)

I visit these mountains with frequency

So, night before last, I had this crazy, vivid dream.

I'll spare you the dreamy, confusing details (vegas, dive bar/hot tub, bathing suit bedraggled, run into some annoying people from college, blah to the blah). Bottom line is that I suddenly, out of nowhere, had this weirdly emotional dream wherein I found out that my (significant) ex boyfriend was engaged.

The truth is, he probably is. And, if so, I'm really happy for him. I didn't marry him.

But it was one of those dreams that stays with you all day and has you wondering, "What made that happen?"

Then, in what seemed like an unrelated event, I saw Rilo Kiley last night in a sold out show at the Warfield.

Which was incredible, and I guess Susan and I hadn't really realized how popular RK has become -- because we were kind of taken aback at the pure volume of raging fans surrounding us. Susan turned to me and said, "Last time we saw them, it was during the elections. In 2004."

At a pub.

And then they played this song and it was like a massive anthem. This is as close as I could find on YouTube, but it doesn't capture the volume. Imagine this times 100:



And the crowd played and I might have been a little stoned, and this was the song -- the song that really encapsulates for me that whole relationship, and it was clear why Craig was suddenly so present in my head.

D'uh.

In other news, Rilo Kiley is suddenly at rock god status! Who the fuck knew?

We're so very proud of them.

Daily Winehouse, etc.

Okay, first off, STILL loving the Winehouse -- latest is that the singer and the chav are on vacay. Unlike the little jaunt to fantasy rehab island, however, this trip doesn't require them to be clean.

Which, apparently, isn't going over so well with the chav's parents, who went on BBC to encourage people to boycott AW's albums in order to choke off their supply of drugs.

This approach seems a little ass backwards to me -- kinda like, I don't know, Leo DiCaprio buying carbon offsets to keep his private jet from contributing to global warming. Fucking stupid and all for show.

Anyhow. I did catch Sid and Nancy this weekend on cable. I know everyone is saying that AW and the Chav are parallel to Sid and Nance, but I gotta say that Winehouse would NOT be caught dead in the Chealsea Hotel.

That place is such a dive.

Though I have Never Listened To Her Music

I think I'm becoming obsessed with Amy Winehouse.

She looks like a suicide girl, which is a plus, and she's got a freaky-lookin' hubby, which is fascinating, and then there's the ANTICS, people!

Excellent stuff today:

Amy told Perez: "Blake is the best man in the world. We would never ever harm each other... I was cutting myself after he found me in our room about to do drugs with a call girl and rightly said I wasn't good enough for him. I lost it and he saved my life."

So, right -- one graph, and we've got self mutilation, prostitution, and drugs. In a TEXT MESSAGE. To PEREZ HILTON.

Meanwhile, she's walking all around clutching photos of her wedding.

I know all this is super sad, but it's just so very fascinating.

WAH! I wanna go to rehab.

So, I guess Amy Winehouse is now checked into some kinda fabulous island retreat/rehab center.

I mean, I guess she did have to get all strung out on heroin or, like, meth, or whatever it is that she and her chav hubby get all up in their veins on the weekends (and weekdays, I suppose).

(Do you even have weekends when you're a rock star junkie?)

But seriously, now she gets to go and escape it all at her sweet island retreat, where her days are filled with navel-gazing therapeutic pursuits, someone else cooking health foods for her, and a chance to concentrate on her ART.

That sounds totes divine.

UPDATE: Guess that this idyllic rehab thing = not working out for AW.

Sources said Mitch threatened to “crucify” Blake after he confessed that Amy had collapsed from “speedballing” — inhaling or injecting a mix of crack cocaine and heroin at the same time.

The source added: “This should be about Amy getting help — but too often it’s all about Blake.

“He upset people in The Causeway with his behaviour. It was the same when she was in hospital. He really upset the staff and wasn’t very welcome there either.

Wow.

Isn't so cute how they spell "Behaviour?"

So Glad I'm Not An Only Child*

I called my sister last night.

Me: God, I've been so down, for, like, three days, and then on Monday I just started crying at my desk, and I was thinking, 'What the HELL is wrong with me??'
Che: And then you remembered it was August?
Me: YES!!
Che: Yeah.

Stupid August. I seriously fucking hate you, bitch-ass month.

*Sorry, Susan and Christine and Jonathan and all you other fabulous only children who I love, I'm sure you also have many reasons that it is awesome to be solo, I'm just sayin'. . .

Quick Link

Later on, I'm gonna post all about my deep hatred for the month of August. In the meantime, I'm gonna send you here:

Five things you might do with “all that ass”
June 21st, 2007

1. open a modest home ass business
2. serve hot meals of ass to the less fortunate
3. hold a weekend “Ass Sale” on your lawn
4. make colorful ass gift bags for the holidays
5. give sympathetic testimony for recovering hump drunks

Poor Jane Adams

It's modern day film semiotics.

Any time you see this woman:



You know it's gonna be a sad, creepy fucking movie.

She's like some kind of warning sign before you hit the roller coaster: Pregnant women or people with heart conditions should avoid this ride," because there's inevitably some kind of pedophile undertone.

She totally needs a new agent.

She Gives Sassy Heathens Everywhere A Good Name

Dear Ellen:

I AM SO EXCITED YOU AND YOUR GIRLS ARE COMING TO VISIT TOMORROW!

That's all.
RJ

Sorry, Man.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rebecca
Date: Jul 31, 2007 8:42 AM
Subject: Re: Rebecca, We Want You Back!
To: ConsumerReports_Online@email.consumerreports.org

Hey CR:

I totally can't believe you won't give up on this relationship.

I told you when I broke up that we'd never get back together again, and I meant it. I can't stand that habit you have of slurping after every single sentence, like speaking makes you salivate or something. Yeah, I thought it was endearing at first, but now it just gives me the shakes, it is just so gross and completely unnecessary

Yeah, we had something there. I won't deny that. Sometimes (and I really shouldn't be encouraging you this way, but still), I miss the hilarious, sardonic comments you made under your breath at family gatherings. Even now, when Aunt Calliope brings her salmon ball on Christmas Eve, I think of you and smile.

But that's not enough to sustain a relationship, CR. I think it's time you moved on.

Sincerely,
Rebecca


On 7/31/07, Consumer Reports wrote:

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