Awkwardly Social

Over the weekend I’m going to try and get all my posts from the T and A archives over here, so that… I don’t know why. Anal retentive I guess. So occasionally you might see a random old post up at the top. Which is because typepad, in all its magnificence has some problems with the back dating of posts. It’s a pain in the hoo-haa. And yes, hoo-haa means vagina. So… there you go.

Did people actually like Walk the Line? Because I started watching it and at hour 1, I was restless and bored and confused about Joaquin Phoenix’s shoulders. What is wrong with that man’s body? It bends funny. And while Reese Witherspoon gave a fine performance, it wasn’t really something so amazing that we should be giving her awards for it.

Is there a story? Or is this a concert movie? Because even after he overdoses, I’m just like, eh. And why didn’t I know you could take heroin in pill form? I would have been all over that shit in high school if I knew it didn’t require needles. Heroin looks awesome!

I’m kidding. Sort of. I was always of the “I’ll try any drug” school, as long as it doesn’t require needles. Amazingly enough, I never did acid. Or mushrooms. I think the reason is, my imagination is pretty vivid without hallucinogenics making me believe the shit crawling under my skin is actually real. Heroin would have probably been a good fit for me. So it’s good that I didn’t know it was so easy to take.

I guess it’s never too late to become a junkie. I shouldn’t give up hope just yet.

I almost died in the bathroom this morning. I accidentally inhaled a little toothpaste water, and started choking, and gagging, and wishing I’d put on clothes, because I didn’t want someone to find me dead and naked and foamy mouthed on my bathroom floor. I guess that person would be Louie, but still. This is what I’m thinking about when I’m at death’s door? What is wrong with me? I’m so vain, I bet I think this post is about me.

After the near death experience, I started thinking about the old diaries from middle school that I have held onto. And that someone will happen upon while their cleaning out my closet and then those people will read those diaries. At some point I’m going to have to glean what I can from those diaries, get the most comedy possible out of them, so that when someone finds them, they’ll have already read the most embarassing stuff here.

It’s important for me to have this blog. Because my paper diaries always end up reading like this:

Dear Diary,
I hate so and so, because of this, this and this. I love so and so. He looked at me in the cafeteria today, and I think he thinks I have a big butt.
Tomorrow, I’m going to wear a sweatshirt around my waist.

And so on and so on.

Finally, I have to stop (unknowingly) plagiarizing bad movies, as Jennie pointed out about my last post. I’m so lame.

oh man. It feels like the last week of school. I’m dying for my four day vacation. I wish it was three months, but a girl’s gotta eat. Every morning I get up later and later, stretching my alarm clock to its snooze limits. Squeezing my shower that much shorter. I’m so excited to sit by ‘the pool’ and watch Deadwood Season 1, and read some chick lit, and clear the Alias off the Tivo, and ooo and aaah about fireworks, and finish my short story, and maybe try a few of the pasta salad recipes I’ve been too scared to make, and just generally be. I love summer vacation.

When I was a kid, besides wanting to be a horse trainer, a truck driver and a rodeo clown, I wanted to be a teacher so I could continue to have my summers off. Now I have the equally ridiculous dream of being a writer so I can go on ‘hiatus’ for the summer.

I’m also a little homesick for Arizona right now. A huge wildfire was raging in Sedona, AZ, the first place we moved to when we came from Minnesota. The place we were dragged to for piano lessons after we moved to Camp Verde. The place where my aunts and uncles lived. It’s a weird town inhabited by super rich retirees and super crazy hippies, and I’m sort of aching because Oak Creek Canyon is such a beautiful place and now it’s going to be charred and black, and kids won’t be able to enjoy Slide Rock, and I just want to go sit at the Hideaway Restaurant on the deck in the shade of the white sycamore trees but that restaurant is long gone. And I am too. I’m one of the old folks that comes back and marvels at the changes. Looks at the developed hillside and remembers when we used to go hiking there, miles from civilization. I can’t go home anymore, my parents aren’t there anymore, my friends are gone too. I’m homesick for a place that doesn’t exist.

(I wrote this in my tiny notebook. I call it my land-blog.)

Two things.
First thing - a ‘does it mean I’m old’ question.
I was watching Gilmore Girls and it was Laine’s wedding. Laine and Rory were drinking (this is starting to sound like I’m recounting a dream I had, but I assure you, just my boring way of recapping an episode). I tsk-tsk’d the screen because those girls are way too young to be drinking. Then I found out they were supposedly 22, and I wondered where all the time had gone. Does that mean I’m old?

Second thing.
Do you have comedy bits that you roll out when (for example) your tech person is doing ‘diagnostic tests’ on your computer? My old standby is the “Eye Doctor” (this? or this?) bit. But today I broke some new material on my tech guy. (It totally killed.) I made fun of the guy who designed the particular test wherein (I surmised) he put some of his own “Lord of the Rings” drawings in. Let me tell you, tech guys love “Lord of the Rings” and fanfic references. I think I’ll add it to my act.

My sister and my boyfriend are awesome. Sometimes you need people to tell you everything is going to be ok, after you tell them the problem. Louie thinks it would be best to write about it, because it is actually funny, but I am of the ‘crawl under a rock, get drunk and eat pizza, wait 2 years, then write about it school’. His way is probably healthier, the ‘write about it, get it off your chest and then forget about it school’* but no one has ever accused me of being healthy.**

Since I have a few years to wait for that entry, I guess I should talk about something else. Instead of just coming here every day and giving you a fake entry.

This morning (because hurray! the insomnia is back!) I woke up 30 minutes before my alarm, and wondered, should I get up now and use this time for good, or should I hide under the covers and use this time for sad thoughts. Sad thoughts!

I’ve been doing research about query-ing (I guess I should figure out how to spell that…..) magazines because I believe I have two dope stories that magazine readers will just die for!*** I like it when they say, we’re so busy, don’t bother, all our writers are brilliant and we don’t need you. Because that gives me a challenge! And I love a challenge! I am always up for a challenge!****

Man, I should have used my extra time this morning for good, not for sad thoughts. I need to get going!*****

*Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were two schools with these names!
**I was accused of being healthy while training for the marathon, truth be told.
***Imagine me standing in a black dress slurring with a martini glass that keeps spilling on your shoes and you’ll get the picture here.
****I’m never up for a challenge! That was a complete and total lie!
*****Seriously, what is up with the exclamation points?

I woke up this morning in an unusually good mood. I was actually smiling on my commute. An event so rare, that I actually thought to myself, wow, I’m in a good mood. Unsurprisingly I had an instant sense of foreboding, a feeling that something bad would happen to ruin my good mood.

I hate when I’m right. I was really off the mark about what it would be. So amazingly off the mark. But I’m still haunted by the feeling that I knew something would happen, and it did.

I also can’t believe it, but I’m too mortified to talk about it.

I’ve learned to never, ever say no to a comfortable couch. Even if it means lugging said couch up an awkward flight of stairs and smashing your fingers.

I am so blessed to have the friends I have. They make me laugh, they make good dinner, they have interesting ideas, and sometimes, they give away their awesome furniture.

We were gifted a most comfortable sectional and coffee table this weekend, and I can’t tell you how much it makes our living room look like a place that grown ups live. And that makes me undeniably happy.

We went to see Ali Waller’s comedy show again last night. All the comics brought their A game, or if they didn’t, they at least made it look like it was their A game.

After the show, I watched Deadwood, and the running joke in our house is every time the title sequence comes on I look at Louie and ask if this will finally be the episode wherein we learn more about the horse. If this will be the magical horse episode. Which, if you haven’t watched Deadwood or sort of don’t pay attention to title sequences you don’t really know what I’m talking about. But, I’ll try to clear it up for you, there is a show called Deadwood. It takes place in the olden times. The opening title sequence is reminiscent of Six Feet Under, but instead of the crow it has a horse. Now, Louie argues that in Six Feet Under I never worried about the presence of the crow. I never asked when the magical crow episode would be on. The point is, crows signify death, so I never really had a hard time separating the two. His point is, for most of the country, horses signify the Wild West. Which is where I have to wonder… am I the only person who is bothered by the magical disappearing horse in the opening titles? I grew up in the so-called country, I had a horse. I was definitely a horse person. I can understand symbolism as much as the next English major, I just think they got it wrong in this case. Now if they had a horse running around with a saddle on… and a ghost rider (? maybe ?) then I would stop asking about the magic horse. At the end the horse’s reflection appears in a puddle of mud then disappears. I DON’T GET IT! Why is the horse disappearing?! Why is the horse running in the creek? Why does the horse get featured more heavily than panning for gold?! I’m way too invested in this title sequence.

And these are the discussions we have on our new (gently used Waller hand-me-down) couch, while kicking our feet up on his coffee table (also gently used) watching his sister’s (super big) tv. I think it’s safe to say, Louie and I want to be adopted by the Wallers. And as it so happens, I think we kind of have been.

I have slightly squashed the idea of buying things in order to nest, but I still feel the need to feather our apartment. No one told me that as soon as I moved in with my boyfriend I would want to instantly have certain bits of information at my fingertips. Like, how to make the perfect brisket, how to clean hard to remove soap scum stains, how to tidy the living room without disturbing the ‘lived in’ feeling of the place, how to convince Louie to get rid of the milk crate book shelves… It has me wondering if all the years of watching day time television as a kid somehow set a small switch in my brain that would only go into the on position when I had a ‘man to take care of.’

I just spent the last 2 minutes looking at recipes for pasta salad. Which is a slight rebellion against Louie because he claims he’s never met a pasta salad he liked. On one hand, I want to prove to him that my pasta salad will convince him that he just had never met a girl like me before and on the other hand, if he doesn’t like it, I can pretend that I was just making it for myself all along. I only spent 2 minutes looking at the recipes because they were starting to freak me out with the talk of cups and cups of mayonaise required for “the perfect salad.” I have in addition to the hidden homemaker switch in my brain, a fat switch. I think my lack of cooking skills might have something to do with the fact that when I know exactly what I’m putting in something, I’m too afraid to eat it. I like to eat things with complete nutrional information on the side, so I know how big a serving is and how much I can consume before I have to go for a 2 mile run. But if I make something, god forbid, and I go ‘off book’ and make the recipe my own, I’m sure that I’ll gain 20 pounds and no one will love me and I’ll have to be carried out of the apartment on a sling that they use to move injured horses. Oh, I’m crazy. Don’t you worry about that. I never really knew how deep the fat fear went until I rejected three recipes in a row because of the 2 cups of mayonaise requirement. Also, in addition to being afraid of mayonaise, I’m a hypochondriac so now I’m pretty sure my cooking fears are in some way related to an undiagnosed eating disorder. Which, if you saw me shoveling chips and guacamole into my face on Wednesday night and pouring choclate syrup directly down my throat last night might make you think I’m a little more crazy than you previously suspected. There’s something to be said about women and control and how it relates to eating and cooking and homemaking and how all of it is somehow programmed and tied together and making us shitbag crazy.

I guess what I’m really asking is, if I substitute Miracle Whip for mayonaise, do you think the pasta salad will still taste delicious?