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June 27th, 2005
06:33 am - the latest and bye
I suppose this journal is defunct. I stopped writing in it for many reasons, not the least of which being that it is about the past. I now write in a real-life journal with real-life pages. I'm trying to improve my handwriting.
I'll add a final update before I stop posting here. I've been out of school for six months. I have a job that I love (I do research & policy work for a corporate research firm in Washington) and I make a lot of money. Sean and I are more in love everyday and we'll be married in about a year and a half. We spend our weekends in western Maryland, walking along the Potomac River and drinking Bailey's on the porch of the motel where we stay. I am the happiest I've ever been.
I was in Manhattan this weekend on business and then I went to a funeral outside the city. I had lunch in Bryant Park with my boss and our consultants (all retired school administrators) and I spotted Julia Stiles at the table next to ours. She is normal-looking.
I remember my first conversation with Sean; we talked about John Steinbeck and I was dating Sean's friend. Remembering the most important person in your life when he was a stranger is a funny thing. A related item: three of my colleagues are former principals and superintendent in Montgomery County and one was the principal of my high school. They know the vice principal who fucked up my life for a short while and they were eager and fascinated to hear the story of his atrocious denial of my civil liberties. One thing I've learned about former Montgomery County school administrators is that word gets around very quickly :)
Those are the highlights. Every day is good.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/aliens/happy.gif) content
Current Music: Lyle Lovett - In My Own Mind
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January 4th, 2005
01:27 am
You are Deb. You have an entrepreneurial spirit,
plus you know the right way to wear a pony tail
and fannypack without looking like an idiot.
Which Napoleon Dynamite character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
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12:06 am - eight-ball sinking double-fisted drinking son-of-a-gun
This is going to be a very long entry, but I intend to keep your attention the whole way through. If I don't, please let me know and I will try to make my life more conventionally interesting. I am working on that, seeing as CMT (Country Music Television) has seized control over my life this week. I hate that--following the most brain-strenuous semester of college and my graduation--I have been seduced by endless, redundant music videos of men in driving old cars, cowboy get-up, beautiful blond women, and pastoral scenes of rural life. But this excess CMT has brought me to an important conclusion: after spending the next several months in Ohio, I am moving to Nashville.
So, to sum up my life since my last update: I finished my senior thesis about women's tattoos, I graduated cum laude, I have fallen in love, I have had the best New Year's of my life (last year runs neck to neck, seeing as I got to spend it chilling with Jen & Rachel, watching Fried Green Tomatoes and brooding :), my first friend to get married got married last week, and I spent a nice Christmas with my family immediately following my father's return from Korea.
Tonight I found yet another reason to take the job I've been offered at the Cove (campus bar) and NOT live in the Washington Metropolitan area. See, as I have gotten my drinking more under control, I have somehow cultivated an addiction to Trivia Whiz machines at bars. So, instead of drinking my wallet empty, I play Trivia Whiz until I'm broke and I start asking strangers for quarters. Anyway, I hold the #1 place in the general trivia category at Uncle Jed's and Willie and Reed's (both in Bethesda), whereas I consider it a miracle to make the top scores list on the machines in Ohio. The campus bar will pay $50 to whomever can beat the top score. This once again proves that: a) Bethesda people suck more than most people, and although they make a shitload of money, they're pretty much braindead and worthless, and b) Ohio is a great place. It may be full of conservatives, but I like how open-minded Republicans are.
I have a tendency to fall for blond female professors or blond female country singers, but I have recently decided that I am so straight it's shameful. I decided in early November that I was a lesbian, I wasn't going to get involved with anyone, especially guys at Kenyon, and that relationships were vacuous abysses. Then I met Sean. I am proud of myself for knowing I should break my rules. He came here for New Year's and he left yesterday. I miss him more than I need sleep, and only he would really understand that what I mean by that.
I am crazy-obsessed with country music lately, but if I had to be trapped on a deserted island for the rest of my life with only one genre of music, I would pick Motown. This is one of the things that I think about when I'm waiting in the notoriously long lines at H & M.
I'm too tired to make this the detailed entry I promised.
Current Mood: glued to the fucking TV
Current Music: Nelly feat. Tim McGraw - Over & Over Again
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December 4th, 2004
08:40 pm - if the bright lights don't receive you...
Oh Christ Almighty, I need to finish these fucking research papers by Wednesday. I'm so fucked. Post-Wednesday I will be no longer be sinking into a hell of my own creation. I may even start answering my phone again.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/aliens/working.gif) working
Current Music: Matchbox 20
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December 2nd, 2004
07:04 pm - pertinent lyrics
"This time when kindness falls like rain
It washes her away and Anna begins to change her mind
"These seconds when I'm shaking leave me shuddering
for days," she says
And I'm not ready for this sort of thing"
-Counting Crows, Anna Begins
Current Mood: taciturn
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November 26th, 2004
12:56 am - thanksgiving
I am trying desperately to write my comps--6 pages so far, 19 to go. It's difficult to focus, and it does not help that something really nice and distracting happened last Wednesday, and it also doesn't help that I love a bunch of people in the Washington metropolitan area. What does help is the smoking ban, as much as it violates the fundamental laissez-faire principle of capitalism, because it makes me not really want to go to bars. I truly want to write my comps and nothing else, but I am setting too high a standard for myself and thus feeling like every sentence I write is completely stupid.
Thanksgiving was far more relaxed than usual, except I'm kind of on cloud 9 these days; I was off in my own world and I think it may have come across as rudeness. We played dice at my aunt & uncle's house and ate a lot--your average Thanksgiving, except it lacked all of my uncle's children and my other aunt and uncle and their children. I didn't drink at all, because I didn't want to be sleepy when I got home, but of course, I'm exhausted. Random side note: apparently several of my cousins have worked at Hooters. Interesting.
Also, here's the down-low for all of you who have been waiting in suspense for me to reach a verdict: I'm staying in Ohio. At least for the next semester. I want to be around my friends for their last semester, and I want to be around my new boy, Sean. I like him waaaaaay too much, but that's kind of my schtick. We've been talking on the phone every night for hours...it's disgusting enough to almost make me nauseous. And hey, if it doesn't work out, I can pack up and go back to DC after several months--come home to delicious meals and free housing. No harm in that.
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November 23rd, 2004
November 17th, 2004
04:34 pm - euphoria
"Ginger, can I just say, seeing you walking towards me, dressed all in black and drenched in rain, you are momentously beautiful." --Ted
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01:49 pm
Me: sleepy, unaccomplished, slightly jaded. Totally in the bell jar.
Current Music: Merle Haggard
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November 15th, 2004
12:04 am
*The new Eminem album is dope, i.e.: "Jessica Simpson looks oh so temptin' / Nick I ain't ever seen an ass like that / Every time I see that show on MTV my pee pee goes / Da doing doing doing / Mary Kate and Ashley used to be so wholesome / Now they're getting older they're starting to grow bum bums..."
*I got stung by a bee on my hand today and it hurts about 10 times worse than getting tattooed. And I've been typing all day.
*Discovered $5.25 all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet in Vern on Saturday.
*R.I.P. O.D.B.
*Head caving in, metaphorically.
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November 12th, 2004
12:13 pm - This is what I have learned.
Self-pity is the most dangerous of emotions.
You know, almost everyone who has significantly hurt me was/is someone who feels deeply sorry for his/herself. I suspect that self-pity was the basis for whatever other things led to their being hurtful--whether it was frustration, jealousy, insanity, or resentment of women. I find myself being especially bitchy when I feel sorry for myself. Self-pity turns you into a parasite.
Clearly there is something wrong with me that I usually date abusive losers. I have been trying to figure out what it is that attracts me to them, so I can condition myself--Pavlov style if I have to--to stop being attracted to them. I think it's the self-pity factor. Like I want to save him from some personal hell he's locked himself into, refusing to acknowledge that nobody can save anyone else like that.
My ex-boyfriend--who felt endlessly sorry for himself and took his problems out on me until I was this tense crying mess of docility and self-loathing--is now sleeping on the streets of Oregon. I worry about him constantly. Part of me is thinking: "You fucking loser you live in a neighborhood where people have fucking heated driveways so they don't have to haul their wrinkly WASPy asses out and shovel the goddam snow themselves," but when I think of the things he told me real late at night, when we were closest, and he decided to trust me for a second, I can see what he's doing and why, and maybe he'll be okay.
On to other things...GREY GARDENS is an amazing movie and y'all should see it. My favorite of the friendly neighborhood bartenders lent it to me. It's a documentary about Jackie O.'s reclusive aunt and cousin who lived in a dilapitated and crumbing 26-room mansion in New York, arguing all day, dancing, feeding squirrels, etc. If you are fascinated by Zelda Fitzgerald or you liked The Bell Jar, you will like this movie. They're two certifiably insane, speculative, agoraphobic women who somehow make you feel very cozy in their home. You must hear Edie speak these lines to appreciate their profundity, but here's a sample nonetheless:
Edie Jr.: You can't have your cake and eat it, too in life.
Edith Bouvier Beale: Oh yes I did. I did, I had my cake, loved it, masticated it, chewed it and had everything I wanted.
Edith Bouvier Beale: Oh, look. That cat's going to the bathroom right behind my portrait.
Edie Jr.: Ughh, how awful.
Edith Bouvier Beale: No, I'm glad. I'm glad somebody's doing something that they want to do.
But I am ruining it, so SEE IT.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/aliens/sleepy.gif) tired
Current Music: Mandy Moore - Crush
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November 11th, 2004
03:02 pm - "sammy, if we can get two women on the supreme court, we can get at least one one you."
So, Bush replaced Ashcroft with someone who sucks approximately as much as Ashcroft did. Big surprise there. I worry that Ashcroft will be appointed to the Supreme Court following Rehnquist's inevitable retirement. So lame. I mean, if we have to have staunchly conservative right-wing lunatics on the Supreme Court, at least let them be from New Jersey! Scalia is a gaping asshole, but at least he has that Italian-American Mafia Don From Jersey flava.
In other news, I'm getting fat. This sucks. And I'm wasting inordinate amounts of time drinking & getting fat. And now I have to spend all weekend working. Go me.
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November 7th, 2004
12:36 pm - more drinking
Last night was great fun, but I think I need to drink less often. It's making me feel unhealthy and fat. I went jogging this morning for the first time in a while and I feel great. I also say lots of embarassing things to bartenders when I'm drunk. Oh well, Jess M. said I'm her grain of salt, and that's cool.
Current Music: Lucinda Williams - Righteously
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November 6th, 2004
05:10 pm - write it down but it doesn't mean you're not just telling stories
Sometimes I feel the wind against my face and I see the sky at this point where the sun is setting and everything around me is golden and I get a feeling of contentedness that is so overwhelming that I am actually discontented. Sometimes I cannot grasp what I'm feeling and, although it is nothing like this, the sensation is reminiscent of of my most depressing memories. No wonder so many people like the beach. There's something about the undulations of the waves, or the sound of a song you like, or the rumble of the engine when you're sitting on a Metrobus, that is calming. I think of this past winter, when so many strange things happened in my life and in my mind and in my heart and I cherished the nights when I would sit upstairs in my neighbors' house, rocking their baby to sleep and singing him really depressing songs that made him sleepy--like Tracy Chapman's "Telling Stories" or Bruce's "The River"--and it would seem like for a half hour, everything was simply perfect.
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November 4th, 2004
10:10 pm - THINGS THAT ARE GROSS
1. Diplomacy-style phone conversations with your ex.
2. Listening to Bush try to say something intelligent and cohesive.
3. That senator guy from the South who thinks that middle school girls should not go to the bathroom together because lesbianism is "rampant" in the public schools. Wow, someone has a hankering for little girls...
4. Monistat 7. Yogurt & garlic. Fucking gross, I tell you!
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/aliens/okay.gif) blah
Current Music: Tracy Chapman - Telling Stories
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November 3rd, 2004
02:16 pm - it's not the devil's land, you know it's not that kind
The ambivalence I'm feeling is overwhelming. I had to go for a music-blaring, chain-smoking drive down country roads this afternoon to let it all sink in. One one hand, I am so proud. My college has made international news today for having record-breaking voting lines. I waited only 5 hours to vote yesterday--many of my classmates waited from 7-10 hours. Kind people provided donuts, coffee, fruit, and other snaks since we were missing meals. The line snaked through every room in the community center and far out the door, into the pouring rain, and everyone was more awe-struck than annoyed. We were on the BBC, in the NY Times and the Post, and students were on the Today Show and CNN this morning. Ohio fell to Bush and thus closed the election, but I love how hard we tried--how everyone in this nation had to wait until this afternoon to find out who wins because the people I go to this tiny little school with insisted on exercising their right to vote and refused to fill out provisional paper ballots for fear that they would not be counted. I am so grateful to classmates, to 48% of this nation, to Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and all the women who eighty-odd years ago made sure that I could stand in the longest voting line in history.
So long to that slight chance that one day I could marry a woman if I so pleased, goodbye to an already-wounded freedom of speech, goodbye to the Constitutional amendment that made sure that women could safely get abortions (my opinion on abortion aside, I'd rather the women not die in the process), goodbye welfare, and hello EVERY Child Left Behind.
When I'm thirty-something and educating my children about American government and suffrage and all that good stuff (because the schools will have been adjusted as to permit no actual education whatsoever), at least I can tell them that I waited in the longest line in the country, trying to make right in my own small way.
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November 1st, 2004
04:28 pm - more tattoo narratives
I sat down at the counter in a restaurant off of I-70 in Pennsylvania and ordered some French toast and coffee. A man two seats away asks me about my tattoo. I tell him that the cross is for my faith in Christ and the lilies of the valley that coil around it symbolize a return to happiness because I've been truly happy for the past nine months and having this tattoo forever will remind me how I got there. I do not tell him about the myth of Philomel--that's the secret fold in the story. He asks me what it was that made me happy, and I tell him that after somebody broke my heart I realized that happiness is a decision, and intrinsic change of self, and nobody else can provide it for you. I decided to stop waiting for my life to begin and I've been almost euphoric ever since. I accepted that people will do the cruelest shit to you but often times it's because they have too much hurt of their own and are too weak to swallow it, so they spit it at whoever's nearest by, and I know that I must never be that kind of person, therefore, I must find happiness. He shows me a tattoo where a woman's name is inked out. We started talking about love, and he shows me a picture of his boss--a pretty blond woman--and tells me he is obsessed with her. He tells me that he cursed her out over his truck's CB when he was in a bad mood the other day. He tells me about how all of the little things in his life seem more difficult everyday. He says he's waiting for the apocalypse, and he thinks it will involve fire because of Revelations. I joke that I'd prefer another flood over fire, and he agrees. Then it's back to tattoos, and he asks me what the nautical star means. His 17-year-old daughter who he only sees from time to time has a nautical star on her lower back and the guy who did it is in jail for tattooing her and other minors. He says it's hard to talk to his daughter and he doesn't know what's going on in her life. He thinks that if he can figure out what the tattoo is about he may understand a bit more about her. As promised, I text-messaged him when I figured out that sailors would get nautical stars to bring them safety and guidance on their voyages.
The man I was with this weekend is tattooed on about 65% of his body. Sleeping with him was kind of Melville-esque, like Ishmael and Queequeg--the pedantic Christian with the mystery tattooed Other. He has a pin-up girl on his leg that says "The Girl Next Door" by it. The first woman he was ever nervous around--who he was attracted to--was his aunt who lived next door. As a kid he followed her around and gave her presents, and his mother later told him that she and his aunt totally knew it and thought it was hilarious. He confessed the tattoo to his aunt recently and she got a kick out of it.
Current Mood: lethargic
Current Music: Aimee Mann
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October 31st, 2004
04:33 pm - i wonder if anyone can tell
I went to a tattoo convention in Pittsburgh this weekend, in hopes of gathering interviews with women about their tattoos. Unsurprisingly, the convention had an elitest, exclusionary sort of feel and I couldn't get up the balls to approach these women who critically eyed my very un-marked skin.
Instead of getting interviews, I was seduced by a combination of my greatest weaknesses--a tattoo artist/cowboy/country music guitarist from Texas, gin and tonics, and air hockey. I forgot that "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" was the first song on my Mp3 player, but I turned it on this afternoon and broke into a giggle fit--making the people walking by stare suspiciously.
Now I need to figure out an excuse to tell my profs.
Much more fun things, too, but I'll save that for another day.
Current Music: Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy
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October 30th, 2004
02:22 am - so much for not drinking on friday
Hahaha, I got drunk at the Cove tonight--with Murray! The trustees party harder than anyone here.
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dysenfranchised's journal