It's a good thing "eating healthy" wasn't one of my resolutions, 'cause I think I've eaten more refined carbohydrates in the past three days than I did during all of 2007, except for when K-Lilly got that coffee cake that one time and then went back to Nevada, leaving me alone with the coffee cake.
Sooo ... I'm OCD about completing self-imposed blog writing projects but June's kinda making my head hurt. The YIR's intent is to review the year, but it's like when people ask me what my Dad "does" -- they're intending to initiate a nice convo about the Business School, but they're gonna get a convo about death. Right now, my intent's to review the year of fun and feelings, but we're gonna get what's essentially a convo about death. On a scale of 1-10, much of June is just too loaded for right now. At the time, I wrote as if what was happening wasn't happening, and I don't wanna just do that again, 'cause that'd be retarded. As Angela Chase so wisely noted in the classic television program
My So-Called Life, "And I mean, this whole thing with yearbook, like everyone's in this big hurry to make this book, to supposedly remember what happened? Because if you made a book of what
really happened, it'd be a really upsetting book."
But -- this is the thing about time: it just keeps going, therefore increasing our distance from the past, like we're in a boat sailing away from a seagull on the horizon on a nice greeting card. Before you know it, I'll ask: "June? Where are you?" and then a bluebird will land on my windowsill, warble some Frou Frou and inspire me to smile, giggle like a schoolgirl and post June.
Sooo obvs ... I thought I'd just skip ahead to July, but July makes Firefox crash on my computer. I think it's got something to do with the cruise video. Clearly I could read each post one by one, but I'm already in need of an Excedrin/Vicodin from debating June, so
July! July! will happen when it happens. As Jordan Catalano once said on the classic television program
My So-Called Life: "So my feeling is ... whatever happens, happens."
This is pretty interesting so far, I'm sure. You might think: is there a point to this, or is she just stalling while she tries to think of something to write about?
Wellll, I was surfing the 'net, drinking my Coca-Cola, thinking wouldn't it be WILD if I just started posting random shit. Like every day something new & random: a video of Haviland dancing with a dolphin, Limericks to Ilene Chaiken, a movie review, a postcard with my real secret on it, an interview with Lozo, a recipe for coffee cake, a recipe for disaster, a side order of life, an adorable photo of a cat with a caption related to mixing meat and milk (which you can't do if you're Jewish, because of G-d) ... and so on. It'd be like a Philip Glass concert, but on a blog. Then I thought I'm probs not smart enough to pull that off, like
Philip Glass is waaayyyy smarter than me.
Then I remembered: this is what I created segments for, like the Carousel of Progress! (other "segments," mostly abandoned, include Great Mysteries of Life, What I Learned from The TV, Deli-Guy Blogging and The Best of Not NYC) Whee!
Previous installments of "Carousel of Progress" have included a look at advancements in transportation (Fan of: Lexus(es), Not a Fan of: Airplanes), bottle cappery (Fan of: screw caps on wine bottles, Not a fan: the new Poland Spring cap), the internets (not a fan: myspace, fan: bartleby), small hand-held electronics (fan: i-pod, not a fan: cell phones), etc.
What I attempt to do is evaluate advancements in technology, life, society and etc., separating the "really an advancement" from the "really annoying." The Poland Spring water bottle is a primo example of this phenomenon: when something is debuted to be new & improved but actually just sucks a lot and then makes your whole bag wet. This is a Very Special Carousel of Progress, because it's the New Year, and thusly, I will evaluate developments in areas of popular New Year's Resolutions (discovered via internet research, obvs, I don't talk to many "real life people.") Much to my surprise, celebrating President's Day was not on anyone's list, I don't know why. I guess that means the party's at my place! Holla! I'm going to be JFK, 'cause he was the cutest and got all the ladies. You can be Abe Lincoln or the guy on the wheelchair.
w/: Things I'm happy to do with.
w/o: Things I could do without.
Drinking Alcoholic Beverages
A lot of people decide to quit drinking for the New Year. I've never tried to quit drinking, ever. I mean, it's only recently -- after years of practice -- that I've really perfected my alcohol consumption skills (proper combo of sleep, enthusiasm, nutrients and drink) and! since moving to this apartment, I've only gotten super-sick from drinking twice -- an all time record for me. I think I probs threw up at 115th about 40 times. No lie. I had a lot going on. Obvs.
W/O: Parents' Liquor Cabinet, Mad Dog 20/20, "Jungle Juice," Smirnoff Ice, Boone's Farm, Natty Light
My early high school friend Stacey's parents were Jehovah's Witnesses and drunks. I feel like those things aren't supposed to go together, but they did, so anyhow, moving on: I don't think I ever saw them awake. It was like they were robots with jobs and directly following said employments, their systems'd power off and they'd collapse immediately onto their beds to recharge for work the next day. Therefore, Stacey's home was always blissfully supervision-free and her parents didn't keep tabs on the liquor cabinet. Her basement quickly became public high school debauchery central and thus, at the tender age of 15 (I believe I was 5'9 and about 120 pounds), I got drunk for my very first time in her basement. Gin & Mountain Dew. Obvs I ended up throwing up all night. Stacey's bathroom had this huge wall-sized mirror next to the toilet (random?) so I could watch myself throw up as it was happening, which left quite an impression.
'Cause early alcohol consumption isn't about preference or taste -- it's about "what can we get our hands on?" So I didn't really drink much in high school or early college 'cause Sunny-D & Rum didn't really appeal to me, nor did stale Dr.Pepper & Triple Sec. At 19, the corner store accepted my fake ID but didn't sell liquor, so we drank A LOT of Mad Dog 20/20 and Mike's Hard Lemonade and 40s of Mickey's Ice -- all of these things are gross. Now I just drink vodka-tonics and wine, 'cause now I'm a grown up and I can do whatever I want. AND to this day: I cannot handle gin or any lemon-lime flavored beverages, it makes me barf, hands-down totes.
W/: Public Transportation Enabling Additional Drinking
Because of the subways and the taxis, we can all get trashed w/o risking paralysis, death, or paralysis followed by death. When I was in Ohio a few weeks ago, I was carted on a family field trip to the local lounge to view a concert apparently involving a contestant from a show called
Nashville Star, which I've never seen. Apparently I looked so ridiculously uncomfortable (tight posture, shifty eyes avoiding contact, panic-stricken every time another human dared to make physical contact) there that my brother actually asked: 'Wow, you really
are crazy, aren't you?" I responded: "Yeah, I get nervous around other people. I mostly like to stay in my room." Also, I was plotting as to how I could use my Blackberry w/o seeming like one of those neurotic blackberry-addicted New Yorkers (therefore increasing my reputation within the fam as a pretentious and slightly psychotic asshole). Someone said something about how it's probs lame to be at this bar in Wilmington -- like to explain my weirdo behavior -- and I was like "Oh, I'm like this everywhere. It's not Ohio, it's that it's a room filled with other humans and I'm sober." Why was I sober? 'Cause I was driving. Why was I driving? Because I'm a weirdo control freak who doesn't like to give up control of her ability to come and go from a location as she pleases. This is why I live in New York and I never go out sober. I can't take social anxiety medication 'cause my body's already confused enough about what disorders it has, I can't do that to it.
Social Networking
Apparently a lot of people feel they're "addicted" to facebook and/or myspace and must stop. I've never felt addicted to either of these things, which's good, because on top of crack rock and the smack and carbohydrates, that'd be a lot of addictions, very expensive. Except for the crack, I hear that's not expensive.
w/Facebook:
I love facebook. It's clean, simple, easy-to-navigate, uniform and pure. Although, as Hav & I discussed in
this vlog -- "enough with the applications already." If you want me to evaluate your personality or play trivia games or bite you, then say it to my face. I don't wanna dig through multiple columns of animated What South Park Character Quote is in Your Entourage Sandbox Quiz Game to get to the good stuff, like photographs of their ex-girlfriends. (sidenote: I actually have two rows of applications, which is more than enough, and trust me, I hate myself for it.)
Here's the only updates I'm interested in: Any activities whatsoever performed by people I've dated/made out with in any capacity which includes "casually" (read: not much conversation) and "seriously" (basically married). Yeah. EVERYTHING. I don't even mind knowing if you're the number one
L Word trivia master 'cause that's good information for me to twist around in my demented mind and think: Without me, you're so bored that you just took an L Word trivia quiz for ten hours, you're probs miserable in your sweatpants eating ice cream right now, crying and thinking about me. Just like I am also crying and thinking about me in my sweatpants. Other things I'd like to know: if my friends become friends with each other, if you've just received your auto-gear, if you've joined the Automatic Winners or added "My Books" because that's my favorite app, obvs. Everything else I am not interested in.
w/o Myspace trying to be Facebook:
Myspace: YOU MAKE MY HEAD EXPLODE. I don't prefer facebook for its status updates and the other features you're attempting to bring onto your site, I prefer it for not making my head/browser explode. Once you start letting people design their own templates, it's anarchy, it's out of control. Music starts playing, flashes start flashing, colors glitter and gleam and scroll and burst, graphics dance, slideshows pop up and freak out, and those fucking ads about shooting George Bush or whatever dance over my head like an annoying ad about shooting George Bush. Think of it this way -- would you let a 15-year old design your website? No, unless it's a genius kid, like I was. I'd like to delete my profile but I suggested that to Haviland and she went "NO," right away, like I'd just suggested that we all go eat some babies for breakfast (Haviland has a Snacks-4-Life cookie and a yogurt for breakfast). I deleted my myspace profile last year but then revived it during a particularly dismal week of life from that nasty month of June, and I'd like to have my old profile back, but I just love facebook now, myspace gives me a headache.
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Reading:
I like to imagine that everyone has resolved to read more books this year. I also like to imagine things about unicorns and time travel.
w/: Online Booksellers
I heart online booksellers 'cause now people can buy really embarrassing books sans embarrassment. Like you know how the first time you got condoms or tampons you got super-nervous, wondering "what does the cashier think of me?" when in actuality the cashier was probs thinking like "1 plus 1 equals ... hmm ... I wonder which episode of
Grace Under Fire is on tonight ... I should paint my nails hot pink next time ..." but at bookstores, chances are the clerk really is judging you, which's why it's a good thing they don't sell tampons at bookstores. This affects me directly 'cause it means there's no excuse w/r/t ordering books I'm in like
Dirty Girls AND 'cause I've been known to read YA novels & queer theory books and, once upon a time, tried to read erotica so I could learn how to write it. I found erotica to be 95% boring, so I just winged it. Winged? Is that a word? Not that there's anything shameful about queer theory, and I've bought most of my books at The Strand, but I don't think I could've handled making eye contact with anyone when I was doing book research via classics like
Same Sex in the City: When Your Prince Charming Turns out to be a Cinderella and
The Straight Girl's Guide to Sleeping with Chicks. See, I can write about it on the internet, but can't handle buying these books in front of a stranger I'll never see again and have never seen before. Why is this? I don't know. There are many things about life I do not understand.
w/o: the gradual closing of every independent bookstore everywhere
I feel like we're just holding our breath
before they all disappear, which puts major decisions about our reading choices -- e.g., front table selections -- in the hands of a few very rich & powerful people, and ultimately the entire culture will spiral into apocalyptic mass destruction. The number of independent bookstores in America has decreased from 5,200 in 1991 to 1,702 in 2005. Some of my favorites have shut their doors just since I moved here (Ivy's Books, Gotham Book Mart), and NYC is one of the best cities in the world for independent bookstores. That's bad news, guys. Here's a list which includes
the remainders.*
Work Less, Play More:
w/: you guys who have jobs where you never have to do anything
I've come to the official conclusion that at least 75% of you read this blog while you're getting paid to do something else. I don't know how so many of my peers landed these lesiurely dream jobs of leisure that enable constant g-chat availability, facebook addictions and blog-reading, but it works to my advantage, clearly, and to the advantage of all people with blogs everywhere. Without boredom at work, there would be no blogs. There was a
survey about this in '05 and
Advertising Age did a story on it that you can't access w/o registering and paying, so I'll just tell you what it said: one-quarter of the American workforce reads blogs -- an average of 3.5 hours a week spent reading blogs at work. It's probs more than that now, 'cause I didn't even have a blog then. [No. Really; there's just more well-done blogs out there now than there were and it's become more mainstream too.]
w/o: the constant work-related communication via handheld devices
I love my Blackberry 'cause I like the keyboard and its cute little interface and the fact that it informs readers that I'm writing from a blackberry -- my Dash didn't do that, so people probs just thought I didn't know how to format paragraphs, use punctuation, or change to a more aesthetically pleasing font. Howevs: this is clearly bad for us like -- as a society. It's hard out here for a hermit, you know?
People really are working all the time now, and you're always expected to be on top of your shit -- work is bleeding into life and we accept this -- and somewhere along the line it became acceptable to use your Blackberry in social situations, like all the time. I do it too, but you started it.
The trick, as I've mentioned before, is to establish yourself as an unavailable person. For example, I haven't looked at my Blackberry or my email since about 1 P.M. But really the only person who calls me is the outsourced Indian girl who's in charge of harassing T-Mobile customers about overdue bills. And Natalie.
But I know working all the time is one of my problems, too. But I don't really care.
I've always been (to a fault) totally at peace with my vices -- and with yours, you know. I don't judge. Life is hard, I say. Here is something. Have fun. Have a drink. Go tanning. Smoke 'til your lungs turn to ash and crumble. Try to laugh. Everything is fleeting. Lose yourself. Let Go. There is Beauty in the Breakdown.
My Year in Review: a rollercoaster. Non-stop action, all-consuming denial, disarming reaction ... and sometimes vices were all I had because vices and habits are something, they are just
something. They are something or something else. Maybe my blog is a vice.
Last year -- for two weeks of Depressing June and for much of September, October and November -- I indulged my psyche ... indulged the crash, the aftermath ... in a way I haven't done in years and years (though it used to be standard, daily, when I was an adolescent). I liked the silence & La Triviata and the sharp erect curve of my hipbones in my palms as I lost my appetite for all things concretely nourishing. Depression is like that -- it's a friend, it's full and satisfying and terribly entirely enough and I think that's the best part, is how self-sufficient & fearless it is. It's satisfied to only relate to substances or things or private action, it doesn't need anybody. Sometimes you can find someone else to destruct with you, and sometimes that makes it better, or at least more fun, less lonely. It doesn't have to be lonely, but it can be. It's a snap: your brain is here, in the world, and then something happens and your brain snaps again and you're Darkness.
I've had many Dark Ages, but never have I had a Dark Age that I spoke about as immediately as I did last year ... but there's something to be said for time before hashing it all out again in "Year in Review" format. There's insight, I think, in sailing a distance from the act, for not just
seeing the light but like, chilling in it,
nesting in it for a bit.
When June happened, I was "blessed" to be phone-less, since it'd just been stolen, along with other things, and I had no desire to replace it or anything. So when she wasn't here, I was alone and still and getting through to me was so complicated. I felt fifteen again, skinny & wry & elizabeth wurtzeled out to the max. I read Kathy Acker. I drank. I starved. I smoked cigarettes. I listened to my house phone ring. I would've walked into traffic if it hadn't required leaving my room. I lay on the bed. I pondered the colour of my walls, I stopped breathing, when I stood up all the blood would rush to my head and for a moment I'd pray to faint. I felt gutted, violent & quiet & small, I felt an emptiness so thick it broke into pieces, it had shapes: emptiness like spades, cleaving to my gut and simultaneously poised for attack.
And by the end of June I was the opposite of that. I was all action, all drunken and oblivious and during the daytime just productive -- at the writer's table with Carly and our index cards and new music and our teevee show and meeting new! people! and the summer, the hot hot summer, and then the cruise running on the docks with Heather and dancing at night with strangers who didn't feel like strangers and an august of revisions and refinements and job searching and working and sitting and freaking out and not sleeping, really, hardly, ever at all, and then there was September and I crashed back to that elemental state and then I started to crawl out of it in late November just in time for winter and it's respectful hibernation and now, I'm here, I've crawled out, ta-da! I'm ready! Watch me go! I've got a Blackberry! Contact me! Whenever! Hoo-ha! Processing Fees! The past six months! Just! Happened! I don't know what happened. I wouldn't've guessed that October would feel so much like June, but I'm glad to know that before I really wrote/"reviewed" either of those months.
I'm glad, for one thing, that there were times I said nothing, or that I waited 'til the very
end of August to even address June, let alone talk about it.
So. A break from this look at the year. To see how the past plays out in this bright present. A break from my self-imposed decision to Review the Year. And talk about myself. To myself. Memeememememememe. blablabalabla. ( I sound like I actually think what I'm saying is important. That's a mask, it's totes not, you should read
The New York Times.)Because now it is 2008 and I can't say that there's any vice or habit I feel I oughta break right now, there's nothing I need to get rid of or add (nothing wrecking me more than memory) and so I guess, ultimately, my New Year's Resolution is less rollercoaster, more coast. Less false starting, more follow-through. I think: this is possible. This is already happening and this is everything/something. Things change, people change ... and circumstance, ultimately, hasn't prevented every person I know from becoming an even cooler person than they were last year. So.much.hope.
And then maybe, just maybe, in a year or two or ten, I'll get to that imaginary future I've been banking on all this time while I forgive myself of smaller sins. This place: where everything is stable enough, good enough, real enough, fulfilling enough -- that I can afford to let go of cancer-causing agents or devote myself to the physical evolution of various neglected muscle groups. Because when I think about the word "future," I think about
rides in Tommorowland -- spaceships like seashells, people like machines with teeth like microchips -- I don't think about memememe getting old and still and satisfied and stable. But maybe I will. And then -- in this stable future I'm spinning and progressing towards, because that's how time works -- I will breathe.
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we must pass
through solitude and
difficulty, isolation and silence
to find that enchanted place where
we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our
sorrowful song. But in that dance, and in
that song, the most ancient rites of conscience fulfill themselves
in the awareness of
being human
(Pablo Neruda)
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Spice Up Your Life! Seriously, Go For It!
