Live from Jackson, NJ 2008

I'm at my parents' annual Labor Day party. I'm having a really good time! I'm a little drunk right now; nowhere near as fucked up as last year though. Thank god my one cousin didn't come in from Vegas. I love him, but yeah, I can't "just say no" when he's around.

I've been texting with a guy from OkCupid all day. All week in fact. I like him, but I sort of don't want to meet him. I went out with two other guys before I left for Seattle. They were nice, but definitely didn't do it for me. As a result, I'm a bit discouraged about meeting this one.

Let's hope he doesn't suck.

Unless it's boobs.

My boobs.

Hmmm.

I guess I'm drunker than I thought.

Fat Analyst

I am so sick of being a fat slob. It’s getting worse and worse. The scale isn’t moving, but everything else is. I can hula without a hoop.

Eating habits aside, I know if I just went back to the gym I’d be fine. My body responds really well to exercise, yet I refuse to do anything physical.

The truth is I’m scared shitless to try. I’m afraid to lose weight because I’m afraid of gaining it back again.

Four years ago I lost twenty-five pounds. In 2007 I put fifteen of them back on. Fifteen pounds in one year. Disgusting. I am a complete failure.

Here are my thoughts:

~ Why should I bother? It’s not like I’ll keep the weight off. I might as well be a miserable whale for the rest of my life.

~ I don’t want to spend money on a gym membership or on new clothes.

~ Say I lose weight. Will I live in fear of gaining it back for the rest of my life?

~ Say I lose weight and gain it right back. Will people judge me? Will people start calling my Carnie?

~ I don’t know if I have the mental or emotional strength needed to risk another failure. I am a delicate flower…a 180 pound delicate flower.

~ Why the fuck can’t I be positive about this? If I keep saying I’m going to fail, I really will fail!

~ What happens if I lose the weight and feel so fucking good about myself again that it NEVER comes back? Would feeling good about myself be so bad?

~ What happens if I lose weight and still hate my body?

~ I gained the weight back when the shit hit the fan at Company. How will I stop myself from emotionally eating the next time I’m under a lot of stress?

~ What happens if I lose weight and still can’t get a boyfriend? Being fat is a good excuse for being single. I think.

~ My parents are mean to me about my weight. They always have been. It’s worse when I yo-yo…do I want to even deal with their shit again?

~ I spent $350 on The Dress that doesn’t fit me anymore. It would be nice to wear it again.

~ It would also be nice to wear a bathing suit without shorts. I’ve never had nice legs; I have no idea what it feels like to have them.

~ Am I afraid to look good? Am I afraid of the attention I maybe, sorta, possibly would get?

~ Do I even WANT to lose weight or do I feel like I SHOULD lose weight? It’s like paying off my debt. I don’t really NEED to do either of those things. Why do I feel like I should? Because life will be better? I have an active imagination, and I can’t even fathom being thin and debt-free…

~ Is this my real problem, that I can’t visualize myself on the other side? I daydream of jet setting off to London for the weekend without regret and wearing a bikini without fear, but do I really believe these things could happen?

WAAHHH!! I hate everyone.

Aller-Geez!

Ugh...I am dying a slow painful allergied death.

I started feeling the stuffy fuzz the minute I walked back into my office yesterday.

The "stuffy fuzz" is when it feels like the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland is chilling out in my nostrils and blowing his hookah smoke right up into my eyes causing them to be ridiculously itchy and watery.

My body must have put its guard down out west and forgot to put it back up again when I got home.

Damn fresh air! It's killing the visiting New Yorkers!

And I wonder...

An OkCupid guy asked me, "If you were reincarnated, what would you come back as?"

My answer?

Well, I have a sneaky suspicion I was a black overweight ex-baseball player who liked to cook in my last life, so I'm guessing I'm due to be a petite Asian man who is really good at calligraphy in my next one. (I think I read somewhere that your sex changes with every reincarnation.)

And I wonder why I'm single...

I should have just said a freakin' butterfly.

Seattle Trip Pics

It took me forever to figure out how to resize photos on a Mac...can't they replace the "straighten" button with a "resize" button in iPhoto??

Anyhoo, check out my Seattle pics.

They're boring, but I like it that way. I rarely take pictures of people. I think it's because when I went to Europe in high school the only pictures I took were of my friends. I barely have any photos of Italy, Germany, and Switzerland, but I have a bunch with people I don't talk to anymore. Boooo!

Seattle Trip Deets

I have such vacation-head right now. This means I want to jump out of my life and start a whole brand new one. It usually takes a few days for this feeling to wear off, so in the meantime I'm doing some soul-searching, trying to figure out what the brand new life would be...more on this later.

Seattle was so incredibly fun! A big thanks to Janeypants, the JP family, and Techno for showing me around town and allowing me to invade their weekend. I love that no matter how much time has passed between visits, we can always pick up right where we left off. Heck, I hadn't even met JP's husband and kids yet but I feel like I've known them forever! What an incredibly generous, kind, and welcoming family. JP, it was obvious Doll hit the jackpot when you went out there...it's great to know you did, too.

The trip was everything I wanted it to be and more. I spent time with my friends, caught a Mariners game, took some nice pics around the city, drank some great microbrews, and spent a lot of time enjoying the outdoors. The weekend in review:

1. Thursday night Techno and I walked around downtown for a bit. We ate dinner at the Crab Pot, a fun seafood restaurant by the water. They dump the food right on the table!

2. On Friday JP and I walked around downtown again, then hung out in the Seattle Center. I must be the luckiest person ever because it was the perfect day for sightseeing. The views from the Space Needle were amazing; I still think all of the mountains (Rainier especially) are paintings.

3. Friday and Saturday afternoons were spent in the fake mountains. (Yes, they are still fake even though I was on them.) We went for a 16 mile bike ride down one and a 6 mile hike up and down another. It was surreal. I still can't get over the beautiful scenery. From the blue skies, the trees, the streams, and the waterfalls, it was all too much for me to wrap my head around.

4. Saturday night we headed off to the game. Our seats were in the upper deck above home plate, which is one of my favorite places to sit. There's no better way to take in a new stadium and I must say, Safeco is a great one. It's a shame the Mariners aren't doing well; the stands were empty and the crowd was sort of quiet. Then again, I've never visited a team with fans as obnoxious as NY.

The other reason why it's a shame the team isn't doing well is Ichiro. He didn't get much action in right field, but the plays he did make were outstanding. It amazes me when a player exudes talent even when they aren't doing anything. Ichiro is no exception.

5. I spent Sunday morning by myself taking some more photos around town. It never occurred to me how much I need alone time, even on vacation. It's nice to be aware of it now.

I don't think I've ever written about my love of Jimi Hendrix. My list of favorite things has always been random and a bit vague, I guess because I was afraid of picking the "wrong" thing for so long. Jimi was probably the first musician I allowed myself to love without fear. I mean, how can anyone listen to Castles Made of Sand and not "melt into the sea?"

The Experience Music Project was pretty cool, but it was his statue over in Capitol Hill that got me. It made my heart sing.

You know what? I'm going to end here...I'd like to hang with Jimi for a while.

SUCK IT MONKEYS!

I'm off to Seattle tomorrow morning!!

Lots of pictures when I return!!!

Exclamation points!!!!

Fear of Dating

Being afraid of both dying alone and commitment isn't working out (DUH), so it's time to get over myself and start dating.

Since I'm also watching my budget I decided to give the free OKcupid a try. I figure it will be a nice practice ground before I pay for eHarmony or Match again, both of which I didn't take too seriously the first time around.

It's only been a week so far and it seems promising. Of course I just have to accept the fact that writing in my profile that I love comic books and Star Wars is going to attract somewhat unattractive men-folk (double DUH), but whatevs. I need to be with someone who believes in both.

Know who I DON'T need to be with? The guy who wrote me this message an hour ago:

hi im phil and i really liked your profile...want to talk to a rich well hung man??


Look, I love money and DDA, but do I want to be with someone who writes this? Nope, and frankly if I were him I wouldn't want to date a girl who'd respond "Yes". Even in my whoriest days I'd say no.

Guys if you're rich and hung like a horse then keep your mouth shut. Let me or any other girl be pleasantly surprised later on.

Weekend Photos

This one was taken from my bedroom window last weekend. I played around with the filter on my camera. I call it Lilac Dreams.



I went out the past two nights, so I decided to lay low today. I realized I left my umbrella at the bar yesterday, so instead of being my usual spendthrift self and automatically buy a new one, I went back to go see if it was still there. It wasn't. At least I tried.

I decided to walk around the city for awhile. There is a church up in the 50s I wanted to take a picture of, so I thought I'd hoof it uptown the thirty blocks or so to find it.

At one point I was headed west on 32nd and saw the building below. I LOVE this building. Or is it an annex? I have no clue what it is (if anyone knows, do tell), but I've wanted to take a picture of it for years. I'm glad I finally got the chance to!



Couldn't find the church though.

Biopsy came back fine!

Yiiippppeeee!!

No credit, no problem!

I have a confession to make. Or maybe I already confessed it. Whatever.

I am a charge-holic. A plasti-holic? A secretly-wishing-someone-will-pay-off-my-debt-for-me-until-then-I'll-keep-buying-things-I-can't-afford-aholic?

I'd say I suck with money or budgeting, but I've never tried to manage my finances before. If I run out of cash, I charge. No biggie, right? WRONG. Really wrong.

I have excellent credit, just a lot of it. I've had a balance on my card since I first applied. That's going 12 years. 12!! Sure it's not the same debt (I think), but it's still debt.

So for the first time in my life I WILL NOT BE CHARGING CRAP ANYMORE. "Crap" means food, beer, clothing, comics, housewares, anything other than classes. And I shouldn't even be charging them either, but I'm allowing myself to do this by viewing it as a school loan rather than an impulse buy.

I haven't gone out all week. Thank god for two things. One, I get paid on Friday and two, Freaks and Geeks. I never watched it before and holy fuck it's awesome. At first I wanted a foursome with Jason Segel, Seth Rogen, and James Franco. Now? Oh my gosh, I think I like Martin Starr best! I know it's totally weird, but Bill makes me crack up. He mumbles the funniest shit! Maybe I'll just make it a fivesome and call it a day...

Back to finances. Credit bad. Cash good. My goal is to have all my debt paid off by 35. Totally doable.

I can't believe how excited I am to do this. I feel like an adult!

WHAAAA???

080808

Imagine the last time you had de ja vu. Now try to imagine the last time you had de ja vu, without the de ja vu.

This is how I felt during Carla and Steve's wedding. I was reliving a memory of an experience I knew hadn't happened yet.

It was almost as if the night had been on loop through the universe for years and only the magic of 080808 made it a conscious reality.

Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. B. Thank you for inviting me to the real thing.

An explanation.

I didn't realize how much I disliked my job until the day after I wrote my Eye Deerunk post. I was completely shocked over how blunt I was about looking for a new gig. Only blogger shitheads write about stuff they could get fired for, which leads me to believe that I am in fact, a shithead.

The truth is I don't hate my job. I hate ME at my job. All of my favorite patterns are back.

I am the queen of questions. I enjoy knowing why we do something, where the data comes from, what is the purpose of the report I need to create, are we providing the reader with all the pertinent data they need to make a decision in a timely manner...the list goes on.

Pattern 1: I ask a question, no one knows the answer, I get frustrated.

I spent 8 hours last Friday doing data entry.

Pattern 2: I get paid well to do monkey work. A normal person would be happy by this. Me? I immediately jump to what this means on a larger scale. My assumption? Bad spending = mass layoffs.

I saw some ineffiencies and offered to work with IT to fix them. Two patterns come out of this:

Pattern 3: People are either uninterested or too busy to brainstorm and create a plan of action. I get frustrated because they don't seem to care that fixing it now will save time in the long run.

Pattern 4: The IT projects mean more to me than the job I was hired for, so I end up making a stupid mistake on my day to day reports. When I'm called out on it I get pissed off at myself for making the mistake. Then I get more pissy when I find out the mistake is on a report no one looks at (my boss said so). If no one looks at the report, then why are we even running it?? Guess what...frustrated.

I begin to feel like I have nothing to learn here and wonder if I should move on.

Pattern 5: I begin to feel like I have nothing to learn here and wonder if I should move on.

So what does this all mean?? It means I haven't learned a damn thing from my time at Company.

First of all, I still think I know best. I DON'T FUCKING KNOW EVERYTHING ASSFACE! (I'm talking to myself here.)

Second, I'm still getting frustrated over things that, at the end of the day, have absolutely nothing to do with me.

Third, as I try to work through my frustrations I tend to come off condescending and pushy.

And last, I feel like I'm not learning anything only because I'm not learning what I WANT to learn.

The real joke of this is that I took this position because I didn't want to care about any of this shit. I realize now that I don't know how NOT to care. I also don't know how to put my head down and do as I'm told either. And I want to be a freelancer one day?? Please, all I'll be doing is taking orders but it will be ten times worse because the orders will be to change something I actually created!

God damn it! I really don't know how to break any of these patterns and if I don't break them now, I'm just going to take them all with me to the next place.

Fuck me and my shithead self!

Jett Favre!!

WOW.

The Gayest of Days

As I was walking down Broadway in Astoria I overheard:

Guy 1: "...and I said if ESPN wants to expand their network to..." (stops and looks at friend real quick) "You know what ESPN is right?"

Guy 2: "I'm not THAT gay!"

About 15 minutes later I'm sitting on the train at the Lexington and 59th Street station. A guy gets on carrying two long boxes. What's inside? Track-lighting.

I got off the train a couple stops later and ended up walking behind a very fashionable male talking on his cell-phone. He said, "Shut UP", "ohmygod", and "gay" like eighteen times in the three minutes I was within earshot.

The Gayest of Days I tell you. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Normally Abnormal

I wasn't going to write about this, but fuck it.

My pap came back abnormal. I took off today to have a colposcopy and biopsy. The doctor said everything looked fine, but we'll have to wait until the biopsy results are in.

I never really get upset about health stuff. My mom taught us at a very young age to always go for regular check-ups, follow-ups, and follow-follow-ups. If anything was wrong we'd deal with it together, so there was nothing to worry about. Well nothing for ME to worry about; she'd worry enough for the both of us, and then some.

I gotta be honest though, I was pretty nervous and upset this morning. Part of the reason is because I addressed so many annoying health problems last year that I guess I thought I'd be fine for a little while. Apparently I was wrong.

Another hiccup, the day after I was told I'd need a biopsy I found out my thyroid is out of whack again. This really isn't a big deal (they'll probably just increase my Synthroid dosage), it's just come on already. Why can't proactive people automatically get a good-health gold star??

Alright, alright. Enough of the whine. I am a very healthy and fortunate person. Lately I've had some issues, but they were relatively minor and manageable. I guess if anything HAS to be wrong, common ass and cervix colds are easy to deal with. Let's just hope they stay that way.

Strategic Sunburning Gone Terribly Wrong

Read my previous post first, then read this, then laugh your ass off.

And I said, "it worked." Yeah, I probably should have waited a few hours before doing a post-mortem. I look like I'm ready to guest star on Alien Nation.

Blonde Moment #137 brought to you live by my idiotic self. Go me.

Strategic Sunburning

Since I'm the Queen of Tank Tops I always manage to get the dumbest looking Irish tanlines.

MJ and Steve-O's wedding is this week (WOO HOO!) so to avoid looking like a zig-zagged candy cane in my dress, I decided to strategically burn myself to cover the white stripes on my shoulders, chest, and back.

This requires more work than one would think. I spent a good ten minutes carefully placing SPF 30 on the already sunburned parts and then spent another five minutes pondering if this was a good idea or not. I mean really, am I so shallow that I will risk skin damage to look not even good (because no one looks good sunburned), but to have a consistent coloring??

Yes. Yes, I am. And it worked. I am now a solid carnation from the cleavage up. Yaay melanoma!

Trigon Kid

Rip has this linked on his Myspace page and I just had to steal it...




Is it just me or do you get the feeling this kid owns a jet and is awesome in bed, too?

Here are a couple more ads to enjoy...hot damn do I love good marketing!

Trigon Commercial 1

Trigon Commercial 2

Breakthrough No. 11: 'Angsta Rap

A friend of mine said he enjoys reading this, even though he can sense the angst in my writing.  My initial reaction was, "Angst? Really?"

The word was stuck in my head all last week. Angst. Angst-ridden. Angsty angst.  (Oddly enough the more I write the word the LESS weird it looks.)  It never occurred to me to use it to describe my emotions, but it's true. I am Madam Angstalot.

It's amazing how one simple idea has the ability to dissolve a complex layer.  The moment I accepted my angst is the moment it started slipping away.  By defining this one emotion, my memories already seem different and the feelings associated to them manageable.  I'm not sure why, but it's good.

I'm beginning to wonder if I ever grew out of my teen angst years.  I have felt the same heaviness in my heart for as long as I can remember.  Sure things are getting better and better with age, but I know the hurting 10 year-old and troubled 17 year-old Mes are still in there longing to be saved.

It's interesting that angst is socially-acceptable for teenagers, but not for adults. If angst is related to the stress of having too many choices and the fear of making the wrong ones, wouldn't a 30 year-old be more susceptible to feeling it than a kid?

Maybe the volume is just turned up in our youths because we had so much other shit to figure out back then...eh, who am I kidding? All of my emotions are set to 11 and I'm STILL figuring my poop out.

At least now I know why I related to Claire from Six Feet Under so much!!