I Love My Feelings of Displacement

Lou Reed said once that "music is what bothered me, what interested me." Like the things that we want, the things we're good at, the things we crave, are at some point also a little bad for us. A little of an obsession. A love affair of self-loathing.

Lou Reed would be the perfect person to point this out, naturally.

Two days ago I sat on my bed, right in the middle of it, with my knees drawn up, holding them to my chest, feeling a weird sense of emotional nostalgia. This is what I did in high school, in college...I was listening to my iPod, because sometimes listening to music that way feels like it's being whispered to me...

Some songs should only be reverently whispered instead of yelled into stadiums, I've decided.

I'm not sure what brought me to this point, staring at my journal, the one I really write in that no one ever reads (and, I destroy the pages more than I keep them), the pen next to it, my head full of things all the time, obsessed, and I wasn't able to do anything.

By the time Jeff's lips parted and he took a breath to sing into my ear, I resigned myself to be uninspired and still.

Yesterday I read a 600 page book. This is not helping.

My point is that in all this 'quiet time' I've had recently I'm not only totally aware of how completely bored I am when every single second of my attention isn't filled (working is especially helpful when there's something to do...oh! a job!) but the things that push through my head are louder and louder when I'm not being distracted. There isn't a second of my waking day when I'm not composing, dictating, narrating, proseing...words are what bother me.

In my head they are tangible objects and I can touch them, throw them, kill them, eat them, create them, paint them, hide them...they tuck around me and give me invincibility.

I was just asked in an interview, "What would you do if you could do anything?"

I answered, "Be an editor for Rolling Stone." I thought I was being funny, but she took me pretty seriously and wrote it down. I felt a little guilty for not saying something appropriate like "Data-entry and project management," but she said anything...

Duck, Dive, Dodge, Desire to Avoid

When you are staring Almost Thirty in the face-yes, I think about it all the time, therefore it gets to be proper noun-and you live in a town as small as the 'Lene, it seems that there is no where you can go without running into someone you don't want to see. Or, sometimes, someone who doesn't want to see you.

They're everywhere. Ex's. Friend's ex's. Flings. Friend's flings. Ex's dumb friends. Just plain old dumb people you know and would rather not talk to...

Ev-Ry-Wh-Er-E.

Even Wal-Mart isn't safe. Lately it seems like everytime I pick up my phone there's a text message reading "You'll never guess who I just saw."

So, how, as adults, do we react when we see people that we don't want to see? What do we do when the anger, frustration, annoyance, attraction, or friendship has dissapated? I think it depends on a few factors: mobility, location, and desire to avoid on the Desire to Avoid Scale.

1) Mobility: if your hands are full, or you have a cart full of things, or you are wearing three inch heels, this will determine what you can do.

2) Location: the location can determine your actions as strongly as any other factor, being as it literally holds your escape route and actual physical things to aid you if you so chose, i.e. shelves, people, trees, cars...

3) Desire to Avoid Scale: this ranges from 1-10, 1 being an awkward moment with that person that refers to you as one of their best friends but you don't really even know their last name and you always get stuck listening to their latest cat story, to a 10 being the guy you just broke up with and makes you want to crawl under something.

Once these things are determined, the appropriate action can be decided. So, let's say that your mobilty is medium because you're at the grocery story (location: shelves, isles, people, noise...good for hiding and avoidance) and you either have a cart, one of those hand baskets which are better for these situations because you can feign fatigue, or you're juggling milk and tampons which makes anyone who runs into you uncomfortable. If you're dealing with someone higher than a 5 on the scale, it's best to just walk past them. Lower on the scale and hiding will probably be nessasary, as people on the lower end of the scale normally do want to talk...

In places where mobility is more of a challenge, say, a bar-heels, the only thing you're holding is a drink-the best defense is a good offense. Be in a big group of people. If you aren't just duck into one and start laughing like you know them, at least until the person goes away. The best idea, if the person or persons rate over a 6 or 7 is to either leave or watch how much you drink.

In the cases of failure, when all attempts at avoidance have failed, and you find yourself right next to that person you've been managing to dodge for weeks/months/years, then what? Do you open the conversation by saying, "Hey, remember when you hurt my friend?" or, "Remember when we were roomates and you smoked lots of crack"?

Or, do you just take the elevator ride in silence, walk through the revolving doors with no eye contact, wave across the bar, give a half smile and switch your milk to the other hand while trying to tuck the box of tampons under your arm...

Fashion (Turn to the Left)

Today is Vogue day, the day that my mail slot sounds a little different when the mail carrier-man comes stomping up the walk (seriously, my whole apartment shakes), but the magical sound it makes as it floats...I swear, it floats to the ground....

There is no way to explain to you how sad I am when I realize I no longer buy clothes for a living. Not that it was much of a living. Or, apparently, that I was that good at it.

But I will give you a run down of what I have noticed just from this month's issue, and this is from the first run through, no reading, only quick page turning:

Jewel tones, metallics especially in shoes and bags, black nail polish (again, Thank God, because it I rock it out), graphic prints, chunky belts, any belts, tights not leggings, chunky heels, gladiator shoes (still), mixing prints-florals with stripes ala S.J.P., Katherine Hepburn-esqe trousers (see, I told ya), fedoras, and my favorite thing, red lipstick! whew.

Aren't you glad someone reads in this family?

Science Belongs on TV

Last night, partially in celebration of the fact that I have a job interview-yeah!-and that I feel completely better except for being really bored and really scared about impending homelessness and/or starvation and possible careers in illegal avenues for a time (it's amazing what you don't concentrate on when you're thinking about a break-up...I'm kind of an idiot, right?) and because Frisk just really wanted a beer and for the summer she gets off early enough to have one, we went out. I say that like it's something new.

NOTE:We must sound like such lushes. We aren't. Really. Because if you use your brain, and I'm going to help you, if you get to the bar at 11, and last call is 11:45, you have time for maybe two pitchers of beer. And a pitcher is optimistically five beers, usually split between three or four people. So, in conclusion for the peanut gallery, we do not go out and get tootered every night.

Anyway, I was getting ready to go out, and I realized that something was very very off. Nothing was fitting. Even my old stand-bys felt wrong. Lucy was standing there waiting for me to get ready, quality bar time ticking away, and I start having one of those outer body experiences where I can look down and see myself throwing a fit like a two year old over what to wear to a bar that I've been to a bazillion times, and I just want to say to myself, "You're acting like a jerk," then the real me, who isn't looking down on myself, says, much to Lucy's confusion "I know I'm acting like a jerk!"

We all know what's going on here: it's the PMS monster. Something crazy happens to your body that you cannot control and although I'm sure that many, many, women have written about this, I'm going to do it too. Because not only is it funny because it HAS to be, but I've noticed that the closer I get to thirty, the more and more my body is trying to sabatoge my happiness.

I should be put in a lab and studied. I am a Science Experiment.

First, I am losing hair. I learned yesterday that this is due to surges of testosterone that can cause male hair growth-a.k.a. beards, mustaches, nipple hair (no, I do not have nipple hair), as well as male pattern baldness. While I have not noticed actual balding, I have noticed that my hair is always all over my bathroom. I'm hoping that this is just due to damage and not that it hates me and is making the choice to jump off my head. It would rather die than be attached to me. That's so depressing. Stupid hair.

Second, the boobies. I've lost a lot of weight recently, and I've come to accept that I'm never going to be a free-wheelin' A-Cup like I've always dreamed, but do they have to swell up a full cup size right before Aunt Flo shows up? Last night I reached down to pick a napkin up off the ground and one of them fell right out of my bra. Right. Out. I have no control over them. Not to mention that when I lay down now, they like to slip off over to the side a see what my armpits are doing. Hey, boobs, nothing interesting is going on in the armpit's except for aging, according to Dove, who now makes ANTI-AGING antiperspirant. I have it.

Then, we have my skin, which is simultaniously drying up and breaking out. I have more zits during PMS Magic Week than I ever did during puberty, but normally I am almost crackly I'm so dry. Then, before I know it, I wake up and I see my nose in the morning light, and it looks like an oil spill. How can I moisturize to combat the wrinkles that ARE happening and prevent the breakouts? Why do my legs hurt after I shave them? Why are my eyebrows extending farther and farther down my face?

Another point, in my defense, I'm allergic to exercise...it actually makes me cry and wheeze and hallucinate. But I mostly eat really healthy, and there is no reason why certain parts of me (weird belly shelf and arm wings) should not go away, when other parts of me (boobies and legs and face) dissappear very rapidly. Soon I will just look very disporportionate and malnourished. Teeny head, no chest, no legs, big arms, big belly...like I stepped in acid, basically.

The food cravings though, have to be the worst. The last few days I've been having total Rosemary's Baby moments. Of course I have no almost-raw steak available to me. So this is very fortunate. But when a craving takes over, there is no telling what you'll eat. Six tomatoes, eight potatoes, an entire jar of peanut butter, a pound of gummy bears, Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos with hummus...and for some reason, our stomachs can hold three times the normal amount. We can not get full, even though complete exhaustion overtakes us.

Of course, the relief is that once you realize why you are acting like a complete lunatic, everything sort of gets better. It makes sense to cry at the Dell commercial and yell at the mirror and drink salad dressing. So I just have to hold it down for a few more days.

Love to my sisters.

Why Are My Legs Collapsing?

When I finally became disgusted enough with my smell and decided to shower, I started peeling myself off the couch and remembered why we were not meant to be depressed or stationary. I have the Sad Sores.

First, I realized that my entire apartment wasn't shaking, it was me, because drinking an eight cup pot of coffee with only a potato and a banana in your stomach does that. Second, upon trying to stand and arrive at the shower, I realized that my muscles were atrophied from lack of use. The only thing they've done for the last five days is move my hand to my mouth and possibly support a coffee mug or a fork, and even that was dependent upon what position I could manage on the bed/floor/couch and not be in danger of choking or wasting coffee. My legs were useless. I had to sit on the bathtub while adjusting the water temperature for the shower. Third, while in the shower, clinging to the towel rack for little rests, I realized I have strange bruises on my arms and legs, probably due to the fact that I've been laying for far too long on them, and my laziness had reached points to where I would wake up, realize an extremity had fallen asleep, and not care enough to move because it would require moving my entire body. Then I had to get a new razor to tackle the beard-like growth on my legs that, had I been thinking clearly, I could have donated to Locks of Love.

The Sad Sores, I realized when I tried driving, also cause an incoherent feeling not unlike...well, you know. The sun is also really, really bright these days, I've observed. Some would say my lack of energy would be due to my diet, but I think it's because I've been oversleeping and only having twenty minute intervals of contact with other humans a day. Not. Good.

So how do I combat this? Get out of bed. Check. Shower. Check. Do a few laps around the apartment. Check. Cereal and soy milk. Check. Morning phone calls to friends. Check. Job sites. Check. Apply for jobs. Check. Take out the trash! Check. Clean apartment. Check. Get dressed...nah...it seems excessive...

But now I'm tired and hungry. I'm kind of ready for my life to get back to normal. I'm tired of being sad.

The 29th

There’s something about being almost twenty-nine that has put me into a tail-spin that I wasn’t expecting. Sure, my birthdays usually effect me, and yes, I’m a little dramatic and it gets worse the older I get, but the last one that really put me off aging was twenty-five.

I’m not really sure what it was about that one–it’s the one that means the early twenties are over, and the late twenties have started, but I didn’t really feel any more mature or together. The magic I expect aging to have over my maturity and quality of life has yet to actually occur. You would think I would stop clinging to it, but I’m very childish in my expectations of birthday wishes.

So, is twenty-nine finally my year? The magic year where I find the career I was meant to have, the man who won’t use me as emotional fire hydrant, a pair of three inch heels that won’t pinch my feet, and possibly contract some strange condition that causes my metabolism to completely change into that of a super model’s? Yes, I think those things are possible. As my friend Gina would say, "You have choices right now. You may not like your choices. But you have them."

I say ‘bleh!’ to my choices? What if I rebel and decide to not make choices but invent choices? That’s right. Invent. Because I see twenty-nine as a make or break year. I’ve had some time to think about this in the last few weeks since my life has gone through some…challenging changes…employment, relationship, digestion, hair…the usual…and I’ll be honest, since all I’ve been doing is staying in bed and watching court t.v. and reading US Weekly I really got a chance to think about my life and what is important.

So here’s the deal with twenty-nine. I understand that plenty of people make it with no problems. But a chosen few just can’t take it. Jimmy H. bit it two months before his 29th birthday, Janis was twenty-seven, Buckley made it to thirty-one, and Edie Sedgwick was twenty-eight. Ryan Adams wrote an album called 29. It had nothing to do with the age, but for argument’s sake, let’s pretend it did. It had to do with suicide. That’s pretty macabre. So, if I still don’t have a career, no kids, no family, where does that leave me when my friends inevitably aim a flaming cake of twenty-nine candles at me (that I will probably be viewing with one eye shut)?

Here’s where, and I mean this in the least sarcastic way possible. With my dang self. Don’t get me wrong, I love my friends more than I will ever love anyone, which frankly is kind of a problem for another day, but they can’t be my arms and legs when I decide to sit out while my life goes on around me. They would, without me asking, and so would my family, but they shouldn’t have to. Because they’re not going to be as good at being the twenty-nine me as I will.

The past two days I have done what I always do when I decide that my life is a big steaming turd of suck. It’s not that I take any more punches than anyone else, I’m just not good at getting through them. I just kind of shut down. I get a bizarre sense of power from not showering. I wallow and wiggle in sadness. I coat and saturate myself in it. It becomes tangible. And I start to get really smelly. But my friend Vanessa burst in last night holding staples of break-up/job collapse/family death survival (Tecate and shears) and told me right out that under no circumstances was I allowed to continue to be a big fat baby. When a single mother (a fantastic one, by the way) who manages to work full time, raise her great kid, and just finished school, and is younger tells me to suck it up, I kind of have to listen. It makes my no-job situation and relationship-drama seem really stupid. Then Frisk came over and told me I have until Monday to pull my head out. They love me.

I woke up this morning determined to be Bed McBederton again, no bathing, no communication with the outside world, enjoying the filth of my apartment, imagining myself with chin hair and cats crawling all over me…then, before I knew it, I was making coffee….dang it. Then, I did the stupid dishes. Cleaned my apartment. Made the bed. I’m craving a shower with all my being. I’m trying to remember what my face looks like with makeup…I did my nails. And then I started writing.

I have no idea what is going to happen in the next few months, but I know that I could sit here all day at my little iBook with no five key and write and write and write, for free, with no one reading it, and be totally happy. So whatever happens when twenty-nine hits, I’ll be ready for it.

That's How We (Stop, Drop, &) Roll

This little tale, the tale that lead to the raddest name for a blog ever, begins several months ago...with a baby shower. It involves black socks with shorts, a gigantic bar back, a bar constructed from horror movie set parts, and me.

Lucy and I went to Austin, our favorite city (let's face it, it's everyone's favorite city) to attend a baby shower. Because we had been gone so long the first inclination we had when we got there is to grab our lovely friend we were staying with and venture to one of the greatest places I hadn't been yet: The Mean Eyed Cat. Word on the street is that it's made from parts of the set of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So that's creepy.

The great thing about bars in Austin, especially ones off the beaten path of the college-white-hat littered 6th Street, is that you can go have a drink with your friends, hang out in a chill atmosphere, in this case a porch with heaters, and normally be left in peace. And we almost did it. We almost made it the whole evening without being bothered.

This was due to a few important factors: one, we weren't really wearing 'come hit on me' outfits. Second, our Austin friend knew the bar back/bouncer, and he kept checking on us and frequenting our table...and he's a giant, giant man. Third, there was a huge table next to us of very obvious 'come hit on me' outfit wearers, that had all obviously been drinking a really, really long time. To a certain kind of man, they might as well have been wearing targets.

We watched as a group of awkward looking guys wearing things like hoodies and shorts, black dress socks, and, yes, there was flannel and high tops, made their best efforts on the neighboring table with no results. The women stumbled out at last call, but thanks to our giant friend we got to stick around to finish our pitcher. Then, it happens. One of the guys realizes that there is another table of girls...dang it.

He plops down next to Lucy, tooter-magooed, and starts to attempt conversation. All I kept thinking about was the black socks flannel shirt tennis shoes shorts guy...and how this fine specimen of male now trying to engage in conversation with us was black socks guy's friend. Seriously, who looks in the mirror and thinks that is an okay thing to wear?

Don't even get me started on jean shorts.

Anyway, this guy asks us what we're up to, blah blah blah. Which honestly is the dumbest question ever, because if you're in a bar, and there's beer on your table, and you're with your friends, isn't it pretty obvious what you're up to? Lucy and I say that we are in town for the weekend, and he asks, naturally, where we are from...well, Abilene, we say...and then...

He stands up, looks at his friends and says "Yo, yo! These girls are from the 'lene! 'Lene town"

When someone says something like that, it's not like your never gonna use it to name your blog...