The states I've visited. Counting states I've just driven through, because if you had stared at days of dirt in Wyoming or waving grass in Nebraska, you'd count them, too.
passing through unconscious statesLast night, I dreamed that I married the wrong man.
The wedding started out as someone else's. It was in my high school's gym, and all the guests were seated in the bleachers in strange garb involving headdresses and a lot of sparkles. Meanwhile,
Ben Gibbard was down on the sidelines serenading us, but for some reason he was tiny and malformed and wearing a yellow shirt.
Somehow, about this point, the wedding became mine, and I married a former co-worker with whom I have only a passing acquaintance in waking life, but who is hot and a great guy. And married. I don't remember the ceremony, but somehow we got hitched without rings, for which my mother scolded me in a parking lot before pulling mine out of her pocket. I put it on and discovered it had a setting for a diamond but no stone. The spot for the diamond was a giant rectangle that reached my knuckle. J.Lo couldn't afford the rock for that ring.
After that, it pretty much devolved into my being consumed with the knowledge that I had made a horrible mistake and dread about having to see my new husband again.
Funny that I should have these unconscious anxieties, considering I'm not presently in danger of marrying
any man.
Song: Death Cab for Cutie, A Movie Script Ending
Saturday, February 14
all of the good that won't come out of meI have a wretched, wretched case of writer's block. And I'm not talking about this blog.
It's headlines I'm talking about here. And if anyone tries to tell me that headlines are not writing, I'll be happy to drag you to work with me, sit you in front of my computer with several pages still to design and a deadline cackling in your ear and see how it goes for you.
Headline writing is an art, and I'm devoid of inspiration. My brain has become an evil black vortex of doom that obliterates all imaginative thought and leaves me with a big. bad. blank.
It sort of makes me want to bang my head against the wall until I shake something useful loose.
Song: Rilo Kiley, The Good That Won't Come Out
Thursday, February 12
i know how to get throughI haven't written about a single thing of substance since October. The weather? Yes. Football? Yes.
The O.C.? Oh, yes. A single, solitary statement about my state of being? No.
My life is just that boring.
Exhibit A: Today
- I got up at 10:30 after dreaming about work.
- I ate breakfast and checked my e-mail with Dawson's Creek droning away in the background.
- I went to the Y and got sweaty and tired for an hour.
- I took a bath.
- I ate yogurt.
- I went to Freddy's, where I looked at flower pots, CDs and clothing, then purchased an orchid instead. I will not share this information with my father, because the last time he visited, he looked around and commented that the next time I move, I will need a moving van just for my plants. He thinks he's funny.
- I went to Ace Hardware and purchased a cheaper flower pot.
- I went to Burgerville and got the aforementioned chocolate hazelnut milkshake, which was every bit as scrumptious as I remembered.
- The "empty" light came on in the car. I bought gas.
- I returned home.
- I re-potted a plant.
- I took out the recycling.
- I went for a walk through the park across the street because it's going to start raining again tomorrow. May as well preserve the memory of sun as long as possible.
- I watched TV.
- I warmed up leftover greek lemon chicken for dinner. It exploded in the microwave and made a mess that I am choosing to ignore for the present.
- I several times contemplated doing the dishes, which remain in a pile in the sink. And not a clean pile, either.
- I made tea.
- I called B to welcome her to the cult of 24-year-olds.
- And here we are. I presume you are bored out of your skull.
Really, things aren't all that different than when I wrote
this, the last entry of substance, in October. I just don't find an unextraordinary life aggravating right now. Maybe, deep down, without really thinking about it, I decided the only way to re-complicate my existence is to leave. And I'm not ready to do that yet. Not professionally, not personally. So, now as then, I don't mind that laundry list up there. I enjoy it. But it makes me wonder: Do you ever
know when you're ready? Or do you just have to take a leap, no matter how afraid you are that you'll fall flat?
Someday these sorts of questions are going to drive me to make a major life decision based on what I find inside a fortune cookie.
Song: The Eels, Love of the Loveless
everything is turning blueToday I thought spring had finally come. Then I remembered it's only February. But it was 62 degrees, and I wore shorts while washed my poor filthy car that I discovered really is white and not brown after all. And tomorrow I will go buy new pots for my suffocating plants and have a scrumptious chocolate hazelnut milkshake from Burgerville and get high on Vitamin D from sunshine so I can survive the next three months of cold and rain without getting so surly no one will want to talk to me.
That is all.
Oh, except this.
PS: Thank you, O.C. writers, for making Oliver go away (let's keep him locked up forever, eh?) and for sneaking in my favorite Azure Ray song.
Song: Joseph Arthur, Honey and the Moon
