Friday, February 18, 2011

resistance is futile

First off, movies. Saw two great ones this week:

The Man From Earth is a heady piece, the final work of noted sci-fi writer Jerome Bixby, who wrote some of the most beloved installments of Star Trek and The Twilight Zone. It all takes place in one room, making me think it would be perfect for a stage adaptation.

Mary and Max is a claymation loosely based on a true story of a pen-friendship between a young Australian girl and an old guy in New York with Aspberger's Syndrome. It was silly, funny, emotional, and altogether awesome. I can only watch movies with compartmentalized sadness these days, and my crying in this movie was limited to two brief moments.

With the rain, I am in full-on hibernation mode. I leave the house for about an hour each day, to exercise or run errands. When I'm hibernating, I like to cook and eat. And eat. And cook. And cook and eat some more. But being inside doesn't mean things can't be exciting! I keep things fresh by eating expired food. I think of it as an in-house consumer challenge. I really broke some personal records this week, eating yogurt that expired in November and canned beans that were, by Marido's estimate, "at least five years old." I cooked them first. I also pickled vegetables.

I've been sleeping deeply, with vivid dreams, averaging nine hours a night. I never thought I could sleep so much. And despite the nothingness-quality to my days lately, the sleep is not a depressing, escape-style sleep, where you wake up groggy and confused. I wake up feeling refreshed. This is a new thing for me.

Earlier in the week, I felt depressed. I weathered another lukewarm job interview wearing my newly purchased adult clothes. Following last week's interview, I went to Macy's to use the bathroom and, catching a sideways glimpse of myself in a mirror, mistook myself for a salesgirl. Further proving to the world that I am not cut out for corporate (or in this case, nonprofit--) America, I was able to bring up both drugs and incest at my interview this week.

Sometimes the days seem so thoroughly bland that I get extremely disoriented, as though I am in an all-white space with no walls, no ceiling, just your feet touching the white floor. The fact that it is white is important: it doesn't feel oppressive or claustrophobic--in fact, it is infinite, endless. The routine sometimes gives me a somewhat euphoric feeling. In the evening, when Marido comes home, I like to put my head on his lap and just experience his warmth and life. After a long day of me rolling around in these three rooms with only the ants for company, his presence can feel overwhelming--but in a good way. Things feel meditative lately: peaceful, happy.

Related: A Life Less Ordinary with Ewan McGregor, Cameron Diaz

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

advice

The email I sent to my friend today:

Hey C,

congrats on the packers' win! Must have been a helluva weekend for
you. And I bet you were both happy to be able to drink...and then oh
yeah, the hangover. that is always great.

how are things coming along? i like to hear about what you are up to.
i have realized that i just don't understand social media. like i have
accounts on facebook and twitter, which is pretty much all i can
handle, but i never seem to get any news out of them. I want to get
better at it but it overwhelms me, so I just resort back to primitive
one-on-one emails and such.

i am trying to get better at social media too because I am about to
e-publish something completely ridiculous, and I want to get the word
out. I wonder if you have any advice for me on how to build a
following, and how to get the word out without being annoying. then
again i'm not even sure that i want it really publicized.

OK jeez, i'll just tell you what it is. I'm writing ROMANCE. that's
right. my cousin approached me about providing content for this
e-publishing start up and i kind of just tossed the idea out there, as
a joke, because i refused to write what he inittially proposed. now
i'm staring at this contract and i wrote my first sex scene today and
in less than a month--depending on how the illustration team goes
(yes, ILLUSTRATIONS, it is all really weird) i am going to have
something published online for which I get 50% of royalties. it could
be nothing, but it could be a big deal, seeing as the romance novel
market is really big. we've created a character destined for serial
greatness, sort of modeled after the comic Brenda Starr (you're from
the midwest so I figure you would know?---the redheaded girl reporter
who goes out and has romances with men who wear eyepatches? yep!)
anyhow I have to admit I'm pretty uncomfortable/dazed by the whole
concept. I haven't told my folks yet and don't really want to (i even
feel weird telling you, how fucked up is that?). I am going to be
using a pen name. I am sort of worried about my family being really
upset about the material but at the same time I want people to buy the
book so I can join the ranks of the paid.

do you have any advice, things you learned from promoting [your magazine] and such?

s

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

recidivism



I like this word, "recidivism." I looked it up to see what it meant, and it means "a repeat offender," and be used both as a noun and an adjective. I don't know why it popped into my head, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that it is Groundhog Day.

Marido and I have been at each others' throats this week. I blame it on not enough sex and too much time on my hands. This week we have argued about (a) god, (b) astrology, and (c) Shepard Fairey. Neither of us believe in these things--particularly the Shepard Fairey--but we argued until both of us were pissed off.

I said some things to him the other night that felt like a breakup; it was like a reversal of what happened in November, when he said some things to me that felt like a breakup. It is hard to be happy and comfortable in a relationship when you're constantly feeling like the other person is going to break up with you. I hope we can get through this. I don't know what to do about it. I don't like it.

Yesterday I went out with a friend I've known for a long time, and I was asking him for his unbiased opinion on the situation. He doesn't know Marido and I haven't spoken to him in more than a year. He basically repeated back to me what I had said to him, and somehow it made all the difference in the world. I suddenly understood that I was unhappy and uncertain, and was transferring all of my dissatisfaction with the world onto him--just the way I had done with Ex many years ago. It's not so much blame, it's just exerting some semblance of control over what is the most obvious and important to you.

It's not Marido that I'm mad at, it's other things. It's my lack of direction, it's my frustration with this joblessness. It's the feeling that my life is going places and I don't know how or where to fit in, if I should try to steer things in an arbitrary direction or just see where they go? These questions are hard enough with a career, but what about with another person? I suddenly felt like I was carrying his expectations as well as mine. I didn't know if I could do that. I resented his perceived expectations on top of mine. I began to feel contemptuous toward him, and I wanted things to end.

It's never easy to know when you are ending a bad relationship or bailing out of a perfectly good one that has just fallen on rough times. But Karim asked me to think about the good relationships I know and what defines them, and I think it's an ability to grow together, even when things are hard--not only to support someone else when they are feeling down, but to be supported yourself when you are down.

That, for me, is hard. I don't like anyone to see me when I'm down. I'd rather leave and be down by myself than be a burden on someone else.

Karim also said to me last night: nobody ever said relationships were easy.