employability

I'm still looking for a job. The odds of finding a job in the Bay Area seem pretty good at first glance, since there are approximately 500 new job postings every day on craigslist. But, upon further inspection, of the 500 new jobs listed:

-150 are for Java/PHP/Linux developers, none of whom are actually looking for a job
-75 are paid studies for (a) crack addicts, (b) migraine sufferers, (c) mommy bloggers
-50 are ****DO YOU LOVE THE ENVIRONMENT????**** street canvassing jobs
-another 50 are not actually anywhere in San Francisco, but are telecommuting positions for shady startups that pay on "commission"
-30 are for extremely specific positions like "Cantonese-speaking Paraplegic Paralegal" or "Queer-friendly Attack on Mars Pinball Technician with 1985 Ford F150 Pickup"
-20 are for upper management positions
-100 are for service industry positions, of which half are for bartenders/servers with "fine-dining experience"

The remaining 25 positions are various office positions that I could be qualified for, depending on which areas of my resume I feel like padding.

This morning I attended an "open interview" session at a cafe downtown for which I'd received a call-back from an application I submitted one or two weeks ago. I filled out a three-page application that didn't contain any information they didn't already have on my resume (except my shitty handwriting), and waited alongside seven other women, half of whom were dressed in SUITS. After waiting for almost an hour, the owner came out, asked me my name, paperclipped my written application to my email that she'd printed out, and told me today was purely a "matching faces to names" day and that, if selected, I would be called back the following week for a second round of time-wasting!

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heart::broken

caffeinated and weary

It was a beautiful weekend in San Francisco, filled with friends, surprise guests, and gazing into the loving eyes of Marido. I have been drinking a ton of booze and coffee in true SF form, and now all I really want is to sleep for three days. But at the same time, I just want to be constantly talking to the people who know me best, and to ask them:

What should I do?

I have been pitching back and forth between Back With a Vengeance and This Place Will Kill Me. Sometimes I look around me and think I'd have to be fucking insane to not want to settle in here for a bit, be with this Man I met, and some of the people who are most important to me in this world. And then there is this part of me this is thrashing around in my gut, kicking wildly against this proposition and whispering in my ear that the Beautiful Unknown awaits for me far away from the Bay.

When I was back in the midwest last week, I hung out with the family dog, the happiest little girl on earth. Seven years old now, she is still smiles and licks and excitement, but she doesn't like to go on walks in the neighborhood anymore, and when visitors leave she gets depressed. My mother told me that she seems bored going on walks now, and the only time she gets really excited is when the sound of jangling keys promises a car ride somewhere.

I have been thinking a lot about her this week, and how I would like to kidnap her and take her places, just to see that crazy spark in her that I always adored and envied, that joy she had that was infectious and and exhausting that I thought would never die. I never thought I'd say this, but I think life is too short to just be content. Maybe I have too much; maybe I'm addicted to suffering; maybe I thrive on extremes; maybe I am afraid of the responsibility of this new acquisition--Marido's heart. But in my clearest moments, I can't explain why I just want to be far away from everything I know and love. I am willing to suffer for six months to have two months of bliss.

I have a very bad feeling that I am going to break this man's heart.

suburban mindfuck, or, life as a freelance journalist

So, last night I was lying in bed with the window open, listening to the crickets and such when I heard a man cough and do the phlegmmy EKKRRR...ECK! thing with his throat. I didn't think too much of it for a few seconds when I suddenly realized "I'm in the middle of the woods! WHO THE FUCK WAS THAT?" You know, still in the NYC mindset of being okay with sirens, beatings, drunken shenanigans and car crashes going on within earshot. But in the suburban woodlife, a man clearing his throat outside your window is BLOOD-CURDLING.

Oh I miss New York. I've figured this out, that in order for me to live in New York as a freelance writer and photographer, I need to sell about 4,000 words a month for a dollar a word. That should get me one bedroom in six-bedroom house in Flatbush, health insurance, a MetroCard, incidentals such as replacing equipment I break when I am drunk, and just enough food and beverage to stop my gradual transformation into a Fat Girl. I currently have fucked up teeth and it turns out that even if I buy dental insurance right now, I'd have to wait 18 months before having the work I need done. So fuck that, my parents are going to pay for it because I carry their genes and they know that no quality gentleman wants to reproduce with a toothless girl.

Anyhow. My first story was published yesterday, and I was paid about fifteen cents a word for about 800 words. So, in terms of survival skills, it looks like I have enough to jump into a well wearing wearing an oily lead suit.

Or I could just live here with my Mom and Dad, which means I smoke less, drink less, and experience some sort of mental deterioration that I can only liken to adult onset retardation, with tendencies toward violence.

move date posted

Due to lack of foresight, my plans of taking a 2o-hr train home on Sept. 6 have transformed into me renting a fucken automobile and driving home on Aug. 22, approximately 8 days away. Strangely enough, this hard move date is kind of comforting, and the idea of driving back to my parents' house with a car full of shit is soothing. Had you asked me a year ago what this kind of plan would have done to me, I would have probably kicked you in the face for even mentioning it. But somehow, moving back in with my folks and kicking it for a little while sounds like the greatest thing in the world right now.

I've completely been unable to take care of my life lately, even though I'm no longer in school and unemployed and on the dole. This means that all of my bills are past due and my shower has been unusable for a month. I'm sure there are more symptoms of my degenerating systems, but I can't think of any. I push these things out of my head; that's why they don't get taken care of. I like to blame not getting these things done on lack of internet all summer, but I know that's bullshit. I don't do it because I just don't fucking care.

I'm glad to be getting out of New York. I'm having a great time and I feel like something is about to happen. Realistically, I am going to get home and it's going to be suffocating that I'm going to hightail it out after three weeks, max. Who the hell knows where I'm going? Tell me how to get there. I'm listening.

wanderings

I don't know how to describe the past fifteen-odd days with my family in the motherland, but it's been an incredible mental extravaganza. There was a week in the middle where I hardly spoke, mostly because of a combination of the close proximity of my sister-in-law and the patch started to make me extremely ill. I was also spending an inordinate amount of time in speeding vehicles, which make me very very very very nervous, particularly when they are being piloted by my father, who gets distracted by his many gadgets while driving.

I've learned a lot about my family on this trip, and in a way it makes me understand myself more and feel less fucked up. My father is descended from the Hakka people, a Chinese subgroup he says was kicked out of northern China. Hakka means "guest family." My mom comes from all sorts of weird family drama and is now speaking to aunts that she hasn't spoken to in 40 years. She's still not really allowed to talk to her only brother, nor are we allowed to see him. I wonder if I'm going to be a wanderer like my ancestors, and kind of deranged and fixated on the past like my grandmother. If so, I have lots of genes to blame it on.

I have many fond memories of Malaysia and Singapore, most of them having to do with eating and prancing around in tropical weather. This time around, I'm struck by how homogeneous the population is, and how much time we actually spend indoors, hiding from the heat. Singapore is aiming to be a largely indoor city. The malls here are the size of entire city blocks, and are connected underground. Yesterday I went to a city exhibit to see the master plan for Singapore and I thought of how funny it would be if I came to work for the city planning department of Singapore, to live as an expat in a country where everyone assumed I was from, and where my parents were from, but I have spent a total of about two months in. It would be totally bizarre. Even though English is one of the official languages spoken here, I am greeted in Mandarin in most of the smaller establishments, and am at a complete loss. The last time I was here, I felt very at home, and now I feel so strange here.

I was going to buy a pretty batik dress the other day when I remembered that it will be winter when I get home, and also that in my real life, I don't really wear batik prints. It was a sobering thought. A couple of reality thoughts struck me since returning to Singapore from Malaysia. The morning we left was my older brother and sister-in-law's fourth wedding anniversary. I can't help it, but they really depress me. I was chatting online with Joe one morning and he was telling me that he was really looking forward to jury duty, and possibly subletting his room and moving home for a month to save some money. I found this depressing, too. Then ACLU emailed to say he would be coming through New York next week. I kind of told myself I was going to de-complicate things and focus on Joe, but there is this restless part of me that just can't focus one one person, one place, one thing, even though I do miss him and like him a whole lot. I just can't do it right now. Little Brother says I should be careful of older men, that ACLU is probably married, and that I am not being honest with myself about what I want.

And then I got this weird email from The Ex that was an attachment of a Weekly Report I used to make him read when our relationship was on the rocks. I'm not kidding. I used to write him a weekly newsletter, lay it out in InDesign with photos and such, with different columns and icons, print it out, and give it to him every week for him to read, because I am clearly a psychotic woman who is obsessed with her relationships. The report would tell him every fucking thing I thought about every fucking thing, summed up neatly because he had a short attention span, and it gave me a chance to weed out all my mini-hysterics throughout the week and just tell him at the end of the week what was still pissing me off. I wanted everything to be out in the open.

And now, I can't even date one single person at a time, because I am clearly a psychotic woman who is obsessed with her relationships. Multiple relationships. They are just as addictive as The Cigarettes, The Booze, The Drugs, and The Caffeine. Sister-in-law said: Wow, you sure need a lot of substances.

Honestly, what do I want? I still wish things worked out with me and The Ex, even though I know they could not and will not. I wish that I were innocent and virginal and uncomplicated, even though I find those people terribly boring. Little Brother and I went to see the new Miyazaki today, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. It was beautiful. I am into fairy tales. No, I CANNOT accept reality. Isn't that obvious?

mania in motion

I am writing this post at 9 pm, somewhere outside of Richmond, Virginia. I’m almost in my eleventh hour on the train, and we are running horrendously late, so we’ve got almost seven more to go. I stupidly got on the train with a small bag of snacks and zero cash or booze, so it’s going to be a long ride that feels even longer.

Can I tell you what transpired in my last night in Charleston? After having a homemade lasagna dinner with the parents of my CS host at his childhood home, we zoned out and watched television while I pounded vitamins because I wasn’t feeling well. But I didn’t want to deal with more rejection, so I briskly hugged him goodbye and walked out into the night. Charleston is not a big place, and I ran into several people I’d met during the weekend. That was kind of nice. A little before midnight, I decided it was time for my second dinner and a game of pool, so I paid my tab and went to migrate to another bar, when this old fortune cookie fortune fell out of my wallet: Everything is coming together.

At the bar I met a sweet guy who works as a lawyer for the ACLU and we bonded while waiting almost an hour for the food he ended up paying for, and talking to a big white guy who doesn’t believe that mankind has any impact on climate change. I thought ACLU was charming and intelligent—everyone knows I have a weakness for Southern boys—though he was not a boy at all, probably a good fifteen years on me. When we left the bar and he invited me back for a nightcap at his place. This led to an hour of the following inner monologue on repeat:

I shouldn’t do this. Stranger. Rental car. Hotel. Not my city. Makings of a disaster film. But that’s not reality! This is reality. This is a nice, sweet man who works for the ACLU. I’m not afraid of him at all. I actually really like him. I trust my instincts. Or are they really my instincts? Am I just drunk? I don’t think I’m drunk. I’ve only had seven drinks over as many hours. See, that complex sentence structure shows just how lucid I am. But what if I regret it? What would I regret? Am I just being paranoid? I hate not trusting someone who seems totally trustworthy. It makes me feel like a paranoid, crazy freak. Seriously, you should just go home. But where’s the fun in that?

He was staying at a fancy hotel downtown, and hadn’t even checked in yet. It was two a.m. and I looked like hell, and when the concierge asked us if we needed one key or two, I suddenly felt like a prostitute. Hotels do that to me. We went upstairs, had a brandy, and I started to leave because you know how I feel about hotel sex…

So I am thinking about dissolving this blog because I think it’s gotten way too personal and I feel like it’s apt to cause more problems than it solves, mostly because it doesn’t really solve any problem other than the satisfaction of my gratuitous, self-obsessive impulses.

After a few hours of sleep, I suddenly woke up and realized I had to leave right then if I were to get done what I had to get done—buy cartons of cigarettes, get back to my host’s apartment to pick up my stuff, and get to a café to download some work files—if I wanted to make my train. When I got to the lobby, I was greeted by three staff members, and for the second time in several hours, I felt like a whore and was so flustered that I ran out the wrong exit, cornered myself in the hotel garden, and had to pass them all again on the real way out.

I thought about him in the back of my mind all day, and regretted only one thing: running out on him this morning. He looked so confused. I don’t know where this flight syndrome comes from, but I find it very hard to fight. Then I convince myself that I was in love with them, and I feel tragic and infantile and pathetic. It’s one thing to want what you cannot have, it’s another thing to prevent yourself from ever having what you want.

abuse of all things

I have spent the week largely hungover. I don't know how it happens; it just does. Friday night I canceled all my plans and nursed myself with pot and the excellent film Manhattan. It's kind of nice to be a pothead because halfway into the movie I realized I'd seen it before, so it was vaguely familiar, but still awesome. I get to rediscover the things I like, all the time.

I have decided to stop dating everyone simultaneously. Friday was a healing day. I woke up because John was biting me and I had a headache. He was whining that he hadn't seen me in so long, even though I'd seen him last week. When I left he said in a snarky way, "So, I'll probably see you in what, three weeks?" I said, "If you're lucky." As soon as I got out of his apartment, I knew I'd never go out with him again. I went to lunch with my friend and tried to text break up with a boy I've only gone out with once but somehow he's convinced he's in love with me. I was hoping to just let it slide away, but his text messages were getting increasingly impatient, so I told him to leave me alone. This put me in a bad mood regarding all things male-related, so I canceled my date with Joe for that night. Then his messages got really dramatic and desperate, culminating in a four-page text sent at 6 a.m. that read:

Hi its me again. Yes i know, i am bothering you again. Sorry for that, i cannot seem to get you out of my mind. For the first time in my life, i want something so bad. Dont mean to scare or put any pressure on u. I know u have so much on u right now with school and everything. All i am asking is that u give me the chance to get to know u better. It dont have to be right now when ever things slow down with school. Like u a whole lot for that short time i know u. Just want that opportunity. Its up to u anything u decide i will respect it. So text me your thoughts, want to know what you think.

I'm not kidding! I thought I'd made it clear by saying I was too busy, which everyone knows is clearly just a gentle no, because no matter how busy a person is, if they really like you, they will make time for you. I was actually awake at 6 a.m., having gone to sleep at 9:30 Friday night, and I answered him immediately: This is ridiclous. Please stop sending me messages.

It made me hate everything, myself the most. I feel like every girl in my life this week has said the same thing that I've been saying to myself all my life: how can this person possibly like me?

I titled this post "abuse of all things" because I was going to detail this week's adventures in booze, but now I don't feel like it. It's the same story, over and over again, of ritual self-abuse that is slowly killing me but I honestly don't know any other way. And it can actually be quite entertaining in the meanwhile.

"C'est l'histoire d'un mec qui tombe d'un immeuble de cinquante étages au fur et à mesure de sa chute il se répète sans cesse pour se rassurer: jusqu'ici tout va bien, jusqu'ici tout va bien, jusqu'ici tout va bien... mais l'important, c'est pas la chute, c'est l'atterrissage." (La Haine)

"It's the story of a guy who falls from the fiftieth story of a building and while he's falling, he says to himself over and over again to reassure himself: so far so good, so far so good, so far so good...but what's important isn't the fall...it's the landing."

serious questions

Things have been quite serious lately, because Mom was in town last weekend, and Little Brother just left about an hour ago. Serious Family Time. I've also kicked it into high gear lately with $chool, and using $chool as a distraction from the boys who are driving me insane. My brain has been chugging, tweaking, exploding, and twisting itself into uncomfortable knots that make me think that it's working, that I'm learning, which is both exciting and overwhelming.

My three dates in three nights a week ago was a little intense-o, and the exchange I wanted to have with John didn't work out Tuesday. It did, however, work out that way with Joe, who ended up spending the night Wednesday, and in the midst of our heart-to-heart/reunion, I sent a text out to three friends saying that I couldn't tell if I was in love or just drunk. Their three responses were: (1)Drunk! (2) Different! and (3) I think they are somehow related.

All three of these responses were true, which leads me to some serious questions. When I drink, I am flooded with intense feelings of love, particularly for other drunk people. Although when I drank with Moms and Little Brother these past two weekends, I definitely loved them too. But why is it that lately my level of love/engagement seems directly related to my BAC?

Thursday night I had a couple birthday drinks and bumps with John before going to meet up with Little Brother. John in my mind is intertwined with cocaine, and this is somewhat troubling and begs more questions. Like why does he do so much coke? And why do I love coke so much too? And why is it such a bad thing? Are all of us who (ab)use substances just inherently unhappy people who just don't know any other way to make ourselves feel better? Because that's why I think I do drugs. (This kind of endears John to me in a way. I know that's fucked up, but I never claimed to be anything else.) Or maybe inherently unhappy isn't wholly accurate. We desperately want to feel a certain way, and we know that drugs will allow us to feel this way. I've realized that when I talk about stability, I'm not talking about a form of life, I'm talking about a form of feeling. Some people do things with their lives to effect certain structural and interpersonal changes with careers, locations, and relationships. Other people take a more chemist-like approach to their happiness through a combination of drugs, complex carbohydrates, and fried cheeses. I know that I definitely fall into this latter category, and whenever something feels amiss, I have several tried-and-true ingestives to which I can turn without many negative consequences. In moments of extreme sobriety, however, I can't escape the thought that I am slowly killing myself, but I don't know any other way to live. Attempts at self-preservation seem so fruitless and misguided.

Friends, lovers, and strangers, please tell me something: Why do we do drugs? Is drug use indicative of unhappiness and immaturity, a lack of a developed manner of handling all the rough spots in life?

up to no good

So...shit has been crazy lately, and not in a good way. Went to the CP and read to her. I read to my doctors when I feel like I am just going to go in a blather on unproductively because there's so much on my mind that I want to explode...

This is what I read to her:

I feel fucking terrible, tweaky, horrible, and I am just sitting here waiting to leave to go speak to the CP and tell her yes, I want to see a psychiatrist, I want drugs drugs drugs drugs drugs! I want Xanax; I want tranquilizers; I want to beat my head against the wall so I can pass out and dream about unicorns and oceans and clouds. It is bizarre. I have been on the verge of tears since I woke up this morning. There was a moment when I swore I could feel all these tiny pieces of ecstasy flooding my skull and soaking my brain tissue, and then I got the chills and felt very cold. I couldn’t believe it, but I wanted coffee and cigarettes despite feeling so tweaky tweaky tweaky and I had both and felt a little better. Maybe it’s just the force of habit that I find calming.

Yesterday I was a tweakfest. I could hardly sleep and when I woke up I felt like I was so awake that I could hardly breathe. Neighbor popped in and I think I scared her but I cooked her food and ranted about my borough tour the previous night where I somehow went from Williamsburg to Hell’s Kitchen to Park Slope and then to the East Village and still made it home by five. I was so tired and all I wanted to do was sleep but I woke up at nine. I tried to read boring things to sleep, but I was so tweaky that I had to go outside and run up the hills in Fort Tryon to try and burn it out of my system. Thank god Friend appeared on the scene and we talked about all our issues and lay on the floor of the Elifur Oliasson exhibit at PS1 and giggled at the mirror on the ceiling spinning around and around. Friend asked me what my deepest dark fear was and I thought about it for a long time and said that I fear that my mind will turn against me and destroy me. He said the same thing. Then we lay and laughed so hard that I cried. I felt so high and beautiful and happy.

It’s funny because if you ask me about my weekend I’d say it was great fun. I got some shit done at Strong and Whisper’s and I felt calm, good. Strong has a calming effect on me. I feel like my thoughts are in order when she is around, maybe it’s because she thinks she’s crazy and out of control. It’s when I’m alone that I feel the worst and most desperate. This morning I had the old feeling of wanting to jump into traffic and that’s when I thought I must see a psychiatrist and he must give me drugs and I must take them. I can’t shake the feeling that something terrible is about to happen. I know that it’s coming. Once again I think of K and that infamous line of his as he comes out of meth hell and probation: "It’s okay. I knew it was going to happen.”

The boys are driving me crazy, and I am letting them. John texted me Saturday and we are going out on Tuesday. Fucking JOE called me last night and I was drunk and didn’t know who it was and we are going out on Wednesday. Today Sohji, the beautiful Caribbean boy I met Saturday night texted me and left me a voicemail which I am scared to pick up, because I told him he could take me out on Thursday and I know I’m going to go and I hate myself for it and I don’t know why. Last night I found myself at Black Betty dancing with Model and Red and Red’s Brother and Curly, who makes me delirious with desire. I went outside and sat on the curb, all drunk and stoned and wondered what the fuck I was doing there, if Friend was right, and if I’m about to start hurting people, hurting boys by playing with them too hard. John has already been hurt by me. But it’s not my fault. As I was leaving, Model grabbed me and asked me what my deal was, why I don’t call him. I don’t understand why we are like this, why these boys think they can claim me, and they get angry when I tell them they can’t, and they still want me and I still hang out with them. It’s bad for everyone. I think this is what Friend was talking about. I feel like I’m about to destroy someone, and they are going to destroy me right back and I will have deserved it.

My mother is coming on Friday for the weekend. I am terrified for her to see me like this. The thing is, she doesn’t have to. I can spend all weekend with her walking and reading and eating and telling her about cute boys and parties and my thesis and my novel and take her out with friends and never talk about anything. I don’t want her to worry about me. But more than that, I don’t want her to see that I’ve failed to recover from what worried her so much so long ago. I don’t want her to know, but I do. I don’t know if I should tell her what’s going on. I think she would want to know, but what would that accomplish? If she could have done something, she would have.

Blur of Brooklyn

A work session at Strong and Whispers's place Friday afternoon turned into an incredible writing retreat. We worked and partied with determination and vengeance; it was an amazing time. I love working with people. It felt great to be surrounded by really stellar individuals working and supporting in each other in our endeavors, and we all got a lot done. I'm hoping that we can do it again next weekend, though maybe not to such an extreme. My clock is totally fucked now.

We got up late yesterday after an evening of serious boozeness, had a gigantic meal around three, and worked until we had to go back out for dinner at 11 p.m., which is when things got a little weird. At dinner we were all loopy on productivity and I got a text from Curly, one of the two boys I'd met at keets' party a few weeks ago. Since I was in the burg already, he said he'd come meet up with us for drinks. I was pretty surprised to hear from him, and I could not finish my dinner out of excitement. I was so excited that I almost forgot that I hadn't showered in a while and I was smelling pretty rank.

Per my usual m.o., I swallowed two drinks before Curly showed up--yes, with the other boy, Red. This confused the hell out of me, seeing as Curly and Red were the two guys whose numbers I had gotten and then gotten confused. This shouldn't have been so confusing, because it's not like I was trying to specifically get with either of them, but it definitely threw me for a loop. I was even more confused when Curly disappeared, and Red ended up hanging out at S&W's until about six a.m.

Suddenly we found ourselves in a convertible hurtling on the BQE. It was sunny, beautiful, warm, and we wound up in Astoria, then in East Flatbush drinking rum at 8 a.m. with a former Gap model from the Ivory Coast. He tried to pressure me into a drinking contest, not even kidding, and for some reason I got all salty about this. It was a while before I remembered that I could Just Say No.

I finally made it back to my place at 1 p.m. and slept for a few hours, waking up to a text from Red inviting me to hang out before what I'm sure will be another night of The Booze. I go dry on Tuesday, so I'm succumbing to all of my alcoholic urges to do as much liver damage as possible before then.

What should I wear tonight?

*

(20 hours later)

I'm having one of those days where I alternately feel like a pretty princess and a crack whore. Such extremes! Such dualism! So much confusion. I want to talk to Girlfriend so badly that I can't call her. I just want to lie here and wait for it to go away.

Red's party was fun. I stopped by to get Lucho to be my escort, but he was sidelined by cute new neighbors. It was nice to see My Friend, whom I've missed and haven't seen all summer. As soon as I saw him I realized I'm still secretly in love with him, this after not having spoken to him since the night I peed on a car in Park Slope at the end of May.

Because I was so tired I decided to aim for a tequila-based BAC of around 2.3. Curly showed up with a girl. I'm so attracted to him it's ridiculous, but with his girl there, it was easy to be distracted by other nice people. I felt pretty princessy because boys were being sweet to me and crack whorey because I haven't added up to a night's full sleep in a few days.

I made the following note to myself on my cell phone: Some line of desperation carried me back to Brooklyn after little sleep. Commuting soothed me like sleep--purposeful, undisturbed. Something like work in respite and observation, the marriage of necessity and dreams.

What is this craze in my blood, this craze that needs to be tempered with booze and constant motion? It's a buzzing that I have to follow or it will tell me I'm sad, in both the pathetic and miserable ways. I follow it; since I have no choice, I try to enjoy it.

Keets advised me to stay away from a certain boy who was uber-focused on me, so I turned my attention to the sweet boy who kept sticking cocaine up my nose. I followed him home around 6 a.m. and let him love on me. He was amazingly endearing and softspoken for a boy with so much blow in his pocket. This morning we talked about the DSM over coffee, and I remembered that Gap model too had a strong interest in clinical psychology; it was the second time the DSM had come up in conversation in 24 hours.

I suddenly remembered the flurry of text messages Gap model had sent me while I was maintaining my target BAC on Red's roof. I hadn't said yes or no to him, and at that moment I told him no. I thought of the last time I'd boy-hopped with such intensity and a sick feeling of regret and desire filled me. This happens any time I say no.

I don't understand why the things I do sometimes feel so right and other times so wrong.

Tomorrow I go back to $chool.

bits o' blab

In my few minutes of working Internet, let me just holla from the rooftops that

I LOVE SUMMER '08 IT IS THE BEST!

Just got back from a lovely weekend in The Cape. Bet you didn't know I was so glamorous did ya? Well I'm not. I just happen to have glamorous friends who are okay with me showing up looking like vomit. The weekend involved many seafoods dipped in butter, cheering from the sidelines, feeling like an outsider, feeling beloved, and boating with the yellyfish. How did I find this life?

The better my life gets, the more afraid I get of losing it. And by "it," I mean both my mind and this awesome life. I know it's coming--this awesome life, not my mind--because summer is drawing to a close, and I am already thinking to myself "ohmygodnextyearihavetogetajobohgodihateworking!!!!" But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Right now I gotta concentrate on fixing the things I promised I'd fix when I got to The NY.

Some of this came up when I was in The Chi last week for my little brother's birthday. Moms likes to ask me what I'm doing with my life, which makes me sad because I don't know. Then I decided to unburden myself by telling her My Dirtiest Secret, that I'm still a smoker, to which she just sighed and said, "I know."

Talk about anticlimax. I told her partially because I was fiending and sick of lying about it, and then I was able to go and enjoy the company of my most cancerous friend. But then the rest of the time I smoked significantly less. I think I'm on the road to recovery.

My friend Knockout, who is swapping coasts this week, also has similar boozeness issues to mine, and we have decided to do a month of sobriety, starting the day after Labor Day. Oh hell! It makes me feel like an alcoholic because just the idea of it terrifies me.

I'm just chattering while I await my afternoon at the beach with The Ex, who is visiting this week around a job thingy of his. We hung out last week and it was...nice. And by nice, I mean it was wonderful to see him but also soul-crushing, which evens out to...nice. When I'm around him I just want to climb on top of him and lick his face. This was always a point of contention between us, because he's not into my clingy tendencies. I honestly have to fold my hands on my lap sometimes to avoid grabbing him. Either that, or I chain smoke to keep myself out of his hair, another habit of mine which he hates. All in all, it is good that we are separated by three time zones, because it keeps the sadness at bay. At the end of our relationship, my biggest take-away from it is that I promised him I would always be there for him, and I am trying not to make our breakup the end of that promise.

lady doctor says: up here is connected to down there

OK, I don't know if I let on how terribly anxious I was about today's OB/GYN visit. Well, I was. But it turned out okay down there, yet led to an intense line of questioning about what's going on up in my head that is leading to all of these woes. I spent more time answering questions than with my feet in the potholders, and strangely enough I felt more comfortable with her poking around my cervix than poking around in my head.

Questions like these I am okay with:
Are you sexually active?
Do you smoke?
How do you like New York?

Questions like these make me very uncomfortable:
How long have you been smoking?
How much do you drink?

Questions like these make me uncomfortable and concerned:
Have you ever injured yourself or others due to your drinking?
Have you ever tried to quit smoking?
So...you drink every day?
Are you concerned with the amount you drink?

When I remarked that it had been a very thorough questionaire, she said, "Well, I like to get to know more than just your breasts and vagina." Wow, I bet there are so many women who would long to hear that from someone about to stick something in there. Maybe that's the gynecological equivalent to foreplay.

She asked me if I'd ever been pregnant, sexually assaulted (in such a PC, roundabout way that I almost didn't understand the question), and if I wanted help managing my high-risk behavior. I accepted a referral for my insomnia problems, explaining that insomnia, more than alcohol, has prevented me from accomplishing everyday activities. The only thing she didn't ask me about was drugs.

So, I have been going pretty hard for the past two months now, but I don't really see an end to it any time soon. Let's face it; it's summer. This sun, after so much greyness and misery, is literally making me crazy. I don't know how I'm going to handle 22 hours of daylight in Alaska. Back when I made these plans, nothing could sound better than constant sunshine. But really, all that happy may damn well kill me.

What it comes down to is that I just need to get laid.

Dinner with Papagayo and Muffin was great tonight. I almost feel human again...though it had to be a nonalcoholic night. Papagayo made "mocktails," i.e., grape juice and seltzer. All this hurting is for good cause, though. I finished my stretch of 14+ hour-long days at school with a riveting studio presentation Friday, and commenced the assault on my liver immediately thereafter.

I went to meet my youngest cousin and his new boyfriend for drinks. Per his usual M.O., we ran up an almost-$300 bar tab in completely over-the-top surroundings, this time at the Hudson Hotel bar. His new boyfriend, aside from being 12 years older than my cousin, is French, and pointed out a "very famous French talk show host" sitting just next to us in the lounge. In his sexy English and my ten-year-old French, we managed a wonderful three hours talking about all the important things in life, including growing old, saving the world, conquering fears, finding love, and digital textile design in the fashion industry.

Although I didn't consider myself hungover yesterday, I did eat a leftovers for breakfast in bed, with a generous side of ibuprofen, and reflected upon the two current crushes in my life, both of whom share the same first name and equally unattainable status in the underdeveloped area of my brain reserved for junior high fantasies-cum-obsessions. But I'm sensing something weird with My Friend, and I think it might be sexual tension.

I don't think I fully grasp the meaning of sexual tension. Usually for me, sexual tension only exists in the four seconds it takes to open a condom. I guess that's more like sexual anticipation. When people talk about sexual tension, they're usually talking about the "will we or won't we" hanging in the air between two waffling individuals. I tend to make my mind up early on that we won't, so the uncomfortable tension isn't an issue. And just because my mind precludes it, doesn't mean it's not going to happen. However, I think that this foregone conclusion actually inspires the thought of sex. It's like they can sense that you don't want them, and of course this makes them want you.

I like him as My Friend. I hope the sexual tension is in my head. But if it's not, I'm sure it's probably pretty obvious to everyone else. Someone told me that I had this shit-eating grin on my face when PhD crush was commenting on our group presentation. I giggled and admitted that I had an eensy-weensy crush on the guy. He laughed: "Oh, you think? It's pretty obvious!"
(He also said, "Well, who doesn't [have a crush on him]?" But that's a different story.)

I don't know what it is that I do that makes me so transparent. In my writing it's different, because I say what I mean. But really, what is it that I do that just gives me away? I want to know. And, more importantly, if an outsider can tell, can PhD crush tell? Maybe I should just decide not to have sex with him, which will make him instantly want me. I think that's how it works, at least.

On another boy tangent, Love Affair called me tonight. I have paralyzed myself into inaction about whether or not to call him back. Call him back. Don't call him back. Don't write to him. Don't open his letters. He lives in San Francisco, for fuck's sake. I don't know why you want to keep dragging this out. Seriously, you gotta let this one go. Think of the last time you talked to him in San Francisco. Think of how he couldn't manage to make time for you. Think of how hurt you were then, and how much scotch you drank that night before you had dinner with him because you were afraid you would show him how you really felt. Think of how you were supposed to have coffee with him the day before he left and how he left you hanging, so you didn't even get to say good-bye. Even better, stop calling him Love Affair and start calling him Love Lost. I don't remember exactly what I wrote to him last month, but I must have said something along the lines of sometimes feeling like our affair didn't actually happen, that it was all a dream. If he had never written back, I would have relegated him to a world away.

I do this to myself. I'm a love junkie, and it's a sick disease. Part of me sincerely believes that love cannot exist without pain, and I hold onto those things that are the most painful, because those are the times when I felt the most love. I'd rather hold onto love and pain simultaneously, then let them both go. Of course, I'd rather figure out how to hold onto love and only love, and I'm working on this. This is why I want to call Love Affair back--not to recapture pain, but to replace lost love with friendship.

Hm. Does friendship involve less pain than love? Who can weigh in on this?


And now, this:

Online Videos by Veoh.com

I really identify with all three of the people in this clip.