a thought

Well, that was interesting.

hopefully-not-a-fluke

Sunday is when the crazies come out, my co-worker says. And usually, I agree. But I didn't have to close today, it was busy enough that I was never bored but not so busy I was overwhelmed. Not a single customer annoyed me.

What the hell? Maybe I was well-rested from my count-them, one TWO DAY BREAK, oh-my-God, the feast of relaxation and free time!!!

I even opened two, no, three, credit cards for customers (a total fluke) and was awarded a cheap plastic bag with the company emblem on it with a matching water bottle, neither of which I will ever, ever use, but still - a tiny spot of accomplishment.

Callooh, callay*, October is in the air. You can smell the cold, the scent of burning wood. Drive to the lake and stare at the bruised blue-gray sky after the sun has set. Feel the autumn sink into your skin, for soon the leaves will change.

Merry October! Weather, you may now turn cold, for October is the month for autumn. Anything before then is just a sad death of summer.

This week: Get laptop BACK, dammit. Call sources for two freelance stories. Attend and write story on school board meeting. Let this good mood stick.


*Attachments, by Rainbow Powell. Read it.

weekend

Friday. C's birthday. I don't want to go, I say 5,000X. I don't know anyone. I won't have fun.

Of course I have fun, because alcohol is a social lubricant, and my favorite drug. And a girl from work shows up so I have someone to talk to, and the boy who I've drunkenly made out with before is there and giving me attention and that, with the alcohol, is making him a whole lot cuter.

Is he really a good kisser, or was that the late hour and the alcohol? Who knows. I still have a memory of the old one floating around, though....kind of kills the kissing buzz. (Unfair.)

I never get hangovers (I remember ever getting one in college), and I wasn't bad this morning, but not good. Was so glad I didn't have work. Didn't eat anything til 2. Took a 3.5-hour nap. (Lazy! Sloth! Whatever! It was my day off!)

Saturday. K. makes me dinner. Mac-and-cheese, mashed potatoes, lemon chicken, veggies and crab-stuffed mushrooms. (Sorry, gents, she's taken.) (I am so blessed.) I did bring the wine. I'm not a total mooch.

Pick up N. and go for a drink. We're both tired. The liquid poison feels good. Maybe I did drink way too much last night, if some hair-of-the-dog is soothing at 10pm.

Another weekend. Work tomorrow. It was a nice two days off.

forget it

Irony: an outcome of events opposite to what was expected

Is it "ironic" that it is difficult to forget someone who has forgotten you? Or does it just suck, in its own non-ironic way?

Forget: to cease or fail to remember

Maybe "forget" is the wrong word.

"Ignore."

"Cease to contact."

This is not a break-up. It was not a relationship. It was barely a friendship. You meet someone, you kind of like them, you spend a lot of time together for a few weeks and then.... where did he go? No texts, no phone calls, nada, zilch, bleh. He's just not that into you, apparently. Clearly.

You're just left to wander around, being zinged by random bits of memory floating through your conscious. Zing! Ouch! Ka-pow! They come at inopportune times. Lame. Pathetic. Stop dwelling. I'm not dwelling. I just need to keep busy. Find something, or someone, to occupy my mind and time with.

This proves difficult when you'd rather stay hidden inside, watching crappy TV (old re-runs of the Kardashian sisters taking over Miami. All the sisters are married now, damn these episodes are old).

Have to make phone calls for my freelance stories and grocery shop and shower and clean out my car and get my car inspected and find out what the hell is taking Best Buy so damn long to isntall the damn motherboard on my laptop and ask my mother for help with rent a-damn-gain and get the check and figure out how the hell to make an extra $500 a month to pay off my credit card when the interest-free period ends in December and....shit. I will accomplish none of that.

life

A new, tiny, miniature goal of mine is to write something every day. Every.single.day.

From a single sentence to a novella.

Here goes.

Life is crazy. News to no one. Things change slowly, and they change fast. Our minds twist and bend in exotic ways until we read a journal entry from tne years ago and roll our eyes, blush with embarrassment and, hopefully, chuckle. Christ, I'm only 22. I'll probably roll my eyes at this tomorrow, because I NEVER feel like I adequately express emotion with words, spoken or written. And I'm a writer. Or, I want to be. I'll always write, even if I'm never paid a dime. I freelance! Does that count? Sure! Stream-of-conscience, A.D.D.....The rain stopped!

Oh, yes, I'll be rolling my eyes at this.

Tuesday I took my mom out for her (belated) birthday dinner, and we both realized the last time we'd been to that restaurant was last year, for her birthday. And while some things have changed, too many things are still the same. Which is a tired old broken record I am sick to death of singing/hearing.

Change: I moved out!
Same: Same job. Same person.

Occurrences: I went to Iceland! And Harry Potter World! I lived a summer in a basement with one of my most favorite people! I did stuff!

...But I'm still the same. I'm still me. Sometimes, I think, I haven't changed at all.

And the sad stuff. That I can never bring myself to mention outright to friends and acquaintances, so I tuck it into a tiny box, hoping to forget.

Why is it that when you're alone, the sad stuff is all that you think about? My head always writes the sad story. It dwells, it takes forever to let go. My head is a bitter old person, harping on the past and how she was wronged. (Yikes. That was a terrifying sentence.)

I'm struggling with the idea that who I want to be and who I am are drastically different, perhaps separated by an uncrossable chasm. I am impatient and unsympathetic with others because I am impatient and unsympathetic with myself. I am stuck. So stuck.

I know life will get better eventually, and I also know that it will happen when I make it happen. It's just the when. When. When. When will I get up off the couch and change myself and my life. When will I demand better for myself? When will I make things change?

traffic court

I’m driving my friend home after a cheap dinner at Denny’s. We’re almost to her house, but still in the middle of conversation, so she suggests we keep driving. One block later, siren lights swirl in the rearview mirror. Shit. Pull over.

“Are you aware your taillight is out?”

Yes, the last officer who stopped me told me.“Oh, really, it is? I had no idea.”

“License, registration and insurance card, please.”

I pull the mini folder out of the dashboard compartment. Is this it? No. Is this it? Expired. This? Expired.

“You know what, don’t worry about it,” he says, and takes my license and registration back to his squad car, only to return fifteen minutes later with two summons in hand. One for the taillight, one for not having insurance. Excuse me, sir, what exactly does “don’t worry about it” mean to you?

I’m pissed. My poor friend, who listens to me yell. My poor mom, who I call up and scream at her having the audacity to not know the insurance status on a car she never drives.

I get the taillight fixed the next day (as instructed, because I am an obedient lil’ citizen), and obtain a letter and current insurance card from the company. Mail and stamp all documents and……..........…receive a letter for a traffic court date.

The hell? Then why did I have to mail anything? And spend $10 on getting Certified Mail?

Court date: Apr. 26th. Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.

Last night. Show up. Judge is friendly. A.D.A. confirms the car is insured and taillight is fixed. She confirms this not by looking at any of the documents I brought with me, but taking me complete at my (honest) word.

Alright.

Charges dismissed.

Fist pump.

or so they say

Happy Easter.

A celebration of life, a resurrection, a parent’s love for a son being usurped by His love for all humanity. Or so they say.

I’m deep in the black trenches of The Black Cloud, or whatever they call it. It doesn’t really need a name, that swirling. It’s like a vacuum, sucking all the energy from you, and you can only stretch out and stare at whatever brightly-lit screen compels you. Forget reading a book – at the end of the page you won’t remember what was on it.

But laptop, O Glorious Laptop, with links and videos and short, condensed paragraphs. Games to play and pretty pictures to see. Why, I only rarely tire of you.

This time last year was different. I had just returned from my week-long trip to London, visiting my friend studying abroad for the semester. A week of sleeping on the dorm room floor and showering in her flip-flops, too small on my size 10 feet. A week of trekking through London taking pictures of Big Ben and his sister, the round, spinning Eye. The Tower of London, Millennium Bridge, Tower Bridge. I flew across an ocean to meet my friend I hadn’t seen in more than a year. I stamped my feet down foreign streets, through sunshine and drizzle. I came back to a New York spring.

I came back to optimistic dreams. I came back to possibilities. Or so I thought. Really, I was blissfully pulling the blindfold over my own eyes. I had no plans for the future, no interviews, no job prospects, only a faint idealistic dream that an apartment and well-paying job would magically present themselves to me. Wrapped up neat. In a shiny bow.

What have I learned in the last year? Things don’t happen unless you work for them. “Wishing” is just about the lamest thing you can not do, because it really accomplishes nothing. Travel will always be an excellent salve on unhealed hurt. People can disappoint you, also, people lie. This includes you. Nothing ever, ever turns out the way you expected it to. Honesty is usually the best policy, but it turns out, being honest with yourself can be incredibly difficult. You don’t always know the right answer

You are but one tiny person in a sea of billions. Our lives are so small when put in context.

I say I’ve learned things, but have I, really? Sure, I crossed some milestones, but if anything, I feel just like the girl I was in high school, who hid behind the crowd and was too afraid to do anything, let alone raise her voice. The girl who didn’t know who she was. Lost. Maybe the biggest ‘learning stone’ is that we can DO anything, cross off everything on our mile-long bucket list, and still be the same person, not having learned a damn thing.

It is a curse, and sometimes a blessing.

Maybe we can all start over, cleansed of past misdeeds and sins. Maybe we can all resurrect ourselves, if we recognize that we hold that power.