So I'm drunk, left work as early as I could and now the bottle of champagne is gone,
and I'm watching fucking High School Musical SING ALONG EDITION AND

There's an ad for some new Disney movie, where they're interviewing the cast and asking them what they would do if they could go back in time, and this guy who is NOT MORE than seventeen said he would totally go see the first couple COUNTING CROWS concerts.

The name of the movie? THE MINUTE MEN.


FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

Also, this movie would be way better if Troy and Gabriella ended up dead at the end. Do they?

You know, the whole "magic" of Romeo and Juliet was that they died, and you didn't have to worry about what kind of people they were after they became a couple. They could have been the "lets get together and watch American Idol" kinda couple. I have never felt bad about them dying, like EVER. People in love SHOULD die. Its our proper place in the world.

Quote of the Day

"A junkie is someone who uses their body to tell
society that something is wrong." - Stella Adler

I just don't have the energy for longer posts these days, in between the holiday crap and drinking and hating going to work.
But just a few thoughts...

One: Last night I saw an advertisement for a show called ID: Investigation Discovery.
Let that sink in.
Now say that ten times fast and it still won't be anything but the work of the Dictionary Devil.

I wonder if police departments across the country are trying actively to come up with cooler names for themselves in the vague whitebread hope that someone will make a tv show or a Court TV movie about them.

Two: Nick Lachey wins EVERYTHING. I know I'm late on this one, but Dancing with the Stars AND Clash of the Choirs? He's a reality competition MACHINE. I'm crossing my fingers that Top Chef is next. Or the Broadway rendition of No Country For Old Men.

Three: Who the hell needs Tivo when Bravo plays the same damn two episodes of every show they've ever aired at least once a day, and sometimes twice? Was there not a new Project Runway this week? Also Bravo? I know you can do better than the Housewives of Orange County.Fucking MTV's The Hills is better than that fucking show. And they don't have your legions of design fashionistas. I mean they do, but you have better ones. Your fashionistas have better coke, classical taste, and Tim Gunn to guide them along the path to enlightenment. What does MTV have, that weird greek girl on the Pantene commercials? Puh-leese.

Four: If I had money, I would buy Scifi Channel and make it over. It is an insult to scifi fans everywhere that our genre should be associated with a channel that doesn't even have the rights to Star Trek Next Generation or Buffy. At 1 am I should be able to watch something decent, not more Stargate Atlantis.

You know whats jolly about today? No traffic! No cops! Parking spots EVERYWHERE! Working on holidays gives me a new appreciation for population control. Empty roads, deserted streets? That's my Christmas Miracle.

Oh, I MISSED Nate.

You know how there are some friends that you have that just feel like family, even if it's family that you don't talk to for a while? Long distance relatives?

That's how I can define people who are worth being friends with, people who feel like family...in every dysfunctional sense of the word.

Nice.

Addendum: also nice? My new pots, my new bowl, my new slippers and boots and everything else, thanks guys! Also nice? The neighbors got a Wii. Its awesome. And? I got Sean a Rainbow In My Room for Christmas, and its way cooler than I thought it would be and I want twenty of them to suspend from the rafters.

Turns out there are 6 species of giraffe! They won't mate with each other in the wild, at all! They separated a million years ago! It was the Great Giraffe Riff!

But when you put them in a zoo, they "mate freely".

Discuss societal implications over cheap wine later today while fucking up the wrapping of my Christmas presents.

So yet another reason why work is unhealthy for me, besides the confinement to cubicle, constant smiling, and overabundance of electric light....

I had a dream last night where I was in high school, and I was running late to school, but in fact I was running late to work.

There was more to it than that, but that was the really disturbing part. School was a place where I only did well when in direct competition with other people. Where I was definitely a teachers pet. And where I failed to connect to all but a few of my peers due to a sense of inflated superiority, but most people liked me outwardly because of deftness at shallow meaningless bullshit. I say outwardly, because I was probably not giving them enough credit, and chances are a few of them recognized it and thought I was a condescending bitch.

And all of this is true again now at work.

But Bridget, you might say, you don't need to "connect" with your co-workers, and having the managers like you is a good thing, and competition is what corporate America is all about.

Be that as it may, those are not my best qualities, and I don't want to be in high school for the rest of my life.

I know I'm jumping on the bandwagon late, but what else are top viral videos of 2007 lists for?

I take it back. Sometimes the other person has absolutely no clue what you are thinking and feeling. Talking still doesn't fix it though. Then they have to believe you, and nobody ever does that. They try when they want to, but really all we have is first impressions of each other, and if we like that first impression, we can spend insane amounts of time ignoring anything that doesn't jive with that. It gets to a point where two people are living in such different worlds, they can't even communicate in simple sentences. All that comes out of their mouths is frustration. Which makes a very strong case for love at first sight, because if you can't make it work in the beginning, its never ever going to work.

Or maybe two people understand each other too well, and become unable to hide any disstisfaction, boredom, or unhappiness from each other. An essential skill in any long term relationship. Any one where egos are involved anyway.

Perhaps somtimes its better to just give up on your reality, and be what they say you were all along. At some point, one of the lies has to win, doesn't matter if its his or yours. The word reality has to take on mutual meaning again, or there is no resolution.

Repeat: talking sucks.

Everyone knows the old cliche about guys not wanting to talk about their feelings. Well, did you know that people think you're an asshole when you don't want to talk? Or they assume you have nothing to say that they don't already know, which usually means you're an asshole too. In fact, generally speaking, people are going to think you're an asshole whether or not you tell them what you're thinking. If you're in a relationship, then the other person already knows what is on your mind, and they just want you to talk so they can convince you otherwise, or argue you into an emotional scene that has a far greater chance of leading to unreconciled reconciliation than the current state of stoic silence. In fact, this is true outside of a relationship too. People just want to get a rise out of you, because that's the faster way of winning.

So yay you! Let's all not talk about anything ever again. Let's just keep our fucking mouths shut and talk about non-personal things, like the drought in Georgia or the elections in Pakistan. Let's be English, or Chinese, or any other kind of person other than what we are right now. Talking does not solve anything on an interpersonal level. It only serves to make muddled what is already quite clear.

Talking sucks.

Christmas Wishes for My Sister

Please Carrie, of Carrie Callahan,

Please do not become this woman.....or do.....depending on your life goals.

I mean, I am linking to her. And she is pretty funny.

Okay, I guess I just wanted to post this for you, and I tried to make it snarky, but I'm not very good at that.

I am spoiling this plot because it is spoiled and rotting already

I did make it out yesterday to see the Golden Compass...it was a horrible mistake.

Now, the two people I went to go see it with did not share my viewpoint. And so far, lots of reviewers thought it redeemed itself in certain areas...they are wrong. It was IRREDEEMABLE.

Let me preface this vitriolic rant by saying that I am, in fact, VERY TOLERANT of movie versions of books. I understand that you have to cut some stuff out, and lots of character development will be lost. Fitting a book into a visual extravaganza under two hours can be hard. HOWEVER

Why would you bother to even make the fucking movie if you are going to rewrite EVERYTHING so that it doesn't resemble the original story except in the most skeletal form?

1st mistake, (and where I probably should have walked out of the theater because I really felt like it): The opening intro of the movie, where they swirl around the gold "dust" (an absolutely awful and unnecessary special effect) and tell you that there are lots of other worlds, dust binds them all?, and people in this world have daemons which are really their souls. Ta da! In one foul swoop they completely took any charm or mystery out of the book. Would it have been so hard to demonstrate that daemons felt the same thing as their people, or to SHOW us that adult daemons didn't change form? Nope, we'll just tell you, because you're so stupid you might not GET it otherwise.

2nd flaw: I knew from the moment they had Fra Pavel (in the books he's some insignificant character we don't even hear much from till the third book) as the main evil Magisterium guy, and HE tries to poison Lord Asriel? I knew I was going to hate this movie. There was no reason for this. There was no reason to not show that the Master of Jordan College was trying to keep Lyra safe from him. In fact, Lord Asriel is shown as a sympathetic character the whole time, which is bullshit. I can understand not having a severed head of Gruman for time constraints. I do not understand why they have to screw with EVERYTHING, right down the Master having a DOG daemon, like a servant. They couldn't have thrown a bone to those of us who read the book? Just like they had to have the witches flying by themselves, they couldn't be flying on cloudpine broomsticks for some unknown reason?

In fact, let me condense my ranting and just list off for you EVERYTHING THEY REWROTE FOR NO APPARENT PURPOSE: And please keep in mind these are just the things I thought were egregious enough to mention...

1. The poisoning.
2. Roger's disappearance
3. How Lyra finds out about the General Oblation Board
4. How she runs away from Ms. Coulter
5. Who tries to kidnap her and who rescues her
6. The meeting with the Gyptian counsel
7. How she finds out about the Witches, and Iorek Byrnison.
8. The whole thing with the BEARS OF Svalbard and the Bear King's daemon
9. The trip to Bolvangar
10. The kid she finds without his daemon, WHO DOESN'T DIE
11. How she gets into Bolvangar
12. How she gets out of Bolvangar
13. How they fight their way away from Bolvangar
14. What happens after Bolvangar (refer to #8)
15. ROGER'S NOT DEAD and also Lyra is spouting some nonsense about GETTING THE KIDS DAEMONS BACK TO THEM BECAUSE THE KID DIDN'T DIE OR BECOME A ZOMBIE.
16. Ms. Coulter's maternal instincts

IN CONCLUSION: If I saw this movie and I had not read the book, it would still be a terrible movie with no character development and no suspense whatsoever. Plus it would be cheesy. Having read the book, it is a beyond terrible movie that preserves none of the quality of the book, and instead makes it into a really shitty fantasy tale with no viable point.

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

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So today was supposed to be a day of glorious dorkdom. First cleaning my house, in preparation for Buddy and Doug coming over to go see The Golden Compass with me, then making tuna noodle casserole for them with the addition of Marty and Rebecca while getting drunk and watching the Planet Earth series that Sean got me for Christmas but had to give to me early cause I was bidding for it on eBay. *Sigh*

But I woke up this morning with a monkey on my back, or rather a monkey hiding in the enormous welts that now cover both my eyes. Allergic reaction to something, probably the cat sat on my face while I was sleeping. So my horrible migraine is back, and my eyes are swollen up and my nose could produce hydroelectric power for a small village in China.

Benadryl! For God's sakes, Benadryl!

Speaking of God, yesterday was a very trying day for me at work. What with all this glorious Christmas cheer, it became increasingly evident through comments from my co-workers that I must never ever reveal that I am a heathen atheist, or I will be immediately ostracized. I'm pretty well on my way already, with my weird postcards and habit of reading all the time, even at lunch. Then this guy at work that was talking about starting a book club with me, gave me a book to read. About spirituality and how the author found god in spite of everything.

It just about killed me. And I'll read it still. Because that's the nice thing to do. Even though I want to toss it out the window. Or at least hand it back to him and tell him God isn't really my thing. But he doesn't know me, and he really just thought I would like it. So I can't be angry at him.

It's being insulted continuously by people who don't know that they are insulting you, and therefore you can't be angry at, because they wouldn't say it if they knew, but they would still be thinking it anyway, so you would never be friends with them in real life anyway. So why bother raising a fuss? I just say thank you every time someone says "God Bless" or "Merry Christmas".

I'm an atheist in the closet. GROSS.

I mean, I've had a conversation about how I don't want to get married with a few of my co-workers who I actually like, and even that small revelation made them think I was really fucking weird. Like, the girls were actually appalled. Appalled. "How long have you been with him?", they ask. "What do you mean you might want to do something else with your life at some point? Don't you want to be with him forever?"

What the fuck. What kind of world am I living in? I know there are other social circles I can be in that don't find any of this strange. They must be out there somewhere, and there must be people who are part of them who are not gay or vegan. But I live in Cleveland, so I guess all my friends will be gay, vegan, or jewish forever.

That parts okay though....now I should go clean my house and make them food in appreciation of them.

Oh, but lastly, once again either the Scene or the Free Times is running some sex ad with my phone number mistakenly there. This happened a few months ago, when all of a sudden I started getting calls from numbers I didn't know at 4 in the morning. So I picked up one time and the guy said he was calling about the ad, and then wouldn't tell me what the ad was for. I'm assuming its one of those magazines, cause the calls started coming Thursday, the day of the new issue. Note to self: remember to pick them both up and start scanning, in case the ad is due to run for more than a week.

In the meantime, resist the urge to fuck with these callers and pretend to be a christian right activist alien.

The worst sound in the entire universe is the Zales theme song. Sean says it makes him wither when he hears it. It makes me convulsively try to block my ears with my brain.

I guess the sign of getting old in my family is that you obsessively listen to public radio in the mornings in your car.

The problem with this is that Sound of Ideas is usually a really depressing way to start my morning commute into the blue and white glass halls of corporatedom/Mayfield village.

Sometimes its things like the nanotech program a few days ago that was awesome.
But lately its been all this Mt. Pleasant stuff, and then pregnant teenage moms this morning.

It's all very INTERESTING, don't get me wrong, and at this point listening to anything else on the radio feels incredibly juvenile and offensive. I mean, if you have the same routine as me, then one day switch to Rover's Morning Glory, and see how revolted you are in the first three minutes.

But I also feel like the NPR voices actually have a sophomoric effect on me.(I actually meant to write soporific, but that one works as well) I'm waking up...but somehow I'm also easily falling into a weird work morning coma. I'm more informed, but I'm less alert.

All of this is easily offset by the pleasure of getting in my car on the weekend and hearing Michael Feldman. Or CarTalk. Or Lake Wobegon. Which instantly makes me miss my cat Biscuits and crave tacos at the same time.

I actually think I'm more settled into work when I get there because of NPR. More settled, less frenetic, the day slips by faster, the days all seem the same.

I'm not sure I like it this way, and I'm pretty sure I need to make some more CDs for my car. Because NPR may actually be sucking the cheer out of me...

After watching Ratatouille, I'm on this cartoon mouse kick.
So here's this...



And a companion piece: Cat vs. Bird
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/magazine/02cats-v--birds-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin

Also, my pickles didn't turn out so well. Marty and Buddy's did though, so its worth another try. I think mine woke me up at 2:30am to "assist" me with purging margaritas from my lungs.

SNOW

Today is the day that Sean regrets having me live less than ten minutes from a Pat Catans. Or Target.

I'm very happy with my Christmas tree. Its a wonderful little tree. And the lights all around the room are very pretty and look great in the reflection of our wonderful new TV. 2008 is the year I will finally join the legions of women with boxes of "Christmas stuff".

Note: Noticed how I said MY christmas tree, but OUR tv? Dicussion not needed.

Also accomplished today? Homemade pickles. With jalapenos, onion, lots of pepper and cumin. Jerk pickles.

Marty and Rebecca reminded me today that I know nothing about Hannukah. I don't even know if I spelled it right. However, I do now know that gelt is chocolate money you use to play Dreidel, and also that knickknacks are called "chotskes"? Which I thought was a sandwich shop?

A very strange day full of lots of people in an out. Usually my social time is very planned. Today was open house. It was exhausting. Fun, but sickeningly exhausting. My brain no longer functions after 10 hours of visiting. I need a mint julep.

I guess a perk to being Tina Fey and being on strike is that then you get to go and be a judge for Iron Chef America. However, she did not write any jokes. And the jokes she did think of were very unfunny. What was funny was that I think she was taking it very seriously, and I respect her for that, cause I would too.

Then Neil Patrick Harris got to co-(host, participate, tackle?) Dinner:Impossible, and it was the fun show where they got to play around with kitchen chemicals and nitrous. And he was very serious about it as well.

Because Food Network is serious business.

And piggybacking off that thought...Fuck You Carson Daly. Scab.


Here's something brilliant I snagged off Callahan's Cleveland Diary....

As Kelly says, "There are some funny folks about..."

Today, I feel like I am being sucked in and out of my apartment. Not physically. Existentially. I can't seem to focus and force my mind to stay in one spot. There is a huge list of things I should be doing, ranging from things I definitely don't want but have to do, all the way to frivolous things I really want to do but somehow not anymore.

Sometime the speed I read a book at will destabilize me.

So for future note....

The turkey was amazing. This is the only way I will make turkey from now on. Salt it for three days, let sit at room temp, then roast medium for two hours, then high for one.
The best turkey ever.

I feel that this might be a significant moment in my life, the discovery of my turkey technique. I might very well be making this turkey for the next thirty, forty years. And while I will of course always try out new stuff, I don't think I'll stray far from this. This is like, getting your driver license.

Now if only I could learn to make decent mashed potatoes and stuffing that isn't wet, we might be off to a good start.

My kitchen is a poultry torture cell. Currently there is a large turkey sitting in my fridge, where its been covered in salt for the past three days. I just took out the week old duck carcass, roasted the bones for 40 minutes, and threw them in the crockpot for stock. And while doing that, I was munching on a few chicken wings from last night. Oh, plus there's frozen chicken in the freezer.

I feel like the ogre in a russian fairy tale.

I just noticed that all the time stamps on my page here are showing up Pacific Time? Ordinarily, this would be considered a small problem, but I know how some of you just wait around all day to read this, and I would hate to give you a false impression of my schedule. For instance, at 7:26 am this morning, I was not on MySpace. I was in fact dreaming that I had to go to a Cavs after party and I had to buy new shoes. You see how misleading this can be.

I can't figure out how to fix this. My computer clock is not off. Is this a blogger punishment handed down from above?

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So another thing from work that I was discussing with my neighbor Colleen tonight over too many wings...too many wings...

Our trainer was talking about our guidelines at work, which is basically an online encyclopedia of everything we need to know about our job, and when you think about the amount of information they have in there, and the weird and twisty shortcuts you can take through it...it's sort of a living entity through which the company breathes, and a lot of people work on it full-time all the time. It's actually very easy to use and efficient and beautiful, so hopefully they get a lot of satisfaction out of it. Sometime I think that's where I'd like to end up, editing the encyclopedia, pruning and trussing. But I imagine that is in fact a difficult place to end up. You have to sacrifice yourself to the guidelines before you can have the privilege of serving them.

Anyway

Our trainer tells us about this girl in one of the classes he recently had who had come from SBC. And this girl said that at SBC, their guidelines were in a FUCKING BINDER ten inches thick. Like, they have to put you on hold and look through 3,000 pages to find an answer for you.

To which Colleen remarks, "Aren't they the people who SELL the Internet? Aren't they the ones who installed the fucking networks? What, do they not have a SERVER?"

And all that is incredibly true. Just very very true. Who works out of a binder? The fucking Record Exchange doesn't even work out of a binder.

Then we watched Daywatch, and it totally kicked ass.

This is a story this guy Eric in class told today, but a little tweaked around you know....

I'm sitting here drinking, and the last thing I need to be reading is this blog I've got in front of me, about how to make eco-conscious purchases. First there's the "scary" statistic that women eat about a tube of lipstick a year. You know what, I also eat about three gallons of tar from smoking, about 4 houses full of toxic outright poisoned air from driving over 480 East Really Tall Bridge twice a day, about three tons of fucking CHICKEN. The last thing I'm worried about is a little coconut flavored, "raisin" colored, fatty paraffin.

I found out about five minutes ago that my house has switched landlords. The wonderful old lady who bothered me 4 times a year has passed possession of property to some place called Larry Craig Realty. Seriously, Larry Craig? Has you ever heard a more nasally, down on his luck, poker playing, ex-cokehead, Florida kind of name? With Leisure Suit Larry and Larry Flynt, I now have a permanent bias against Larrys everywhere except the bar we go to watch concerts at. For some reason, Larrys there are generally okay and just unfortunately named.

So check it out, I don't have a car right now. And the place I live is on the outskirts of a very small Ohio "college town", so public transportation is still considered a very socialist concept. I've called everyone I know and everyone I know is in class or working. These people, Larry Craig, call to tell me that my rent is due, like, today before 5pm. Nevermind the fact that no letter was posted to me, or any previous phone calls made. I'm gonna have to walk.

Like any sincere Ohio College Town, copyright 19twenty Oberlin, there are lots of stupid little hills. People bike around here all the time, and I really have a lot of respect for that, but I don't own a bike. At least with a bike you are moving faster than SOMETHING. Walking, you are slower than everything. The distance to this place, according to Google Maps, is approximately 3 miles. That is 2.5 miles more than I have ever walked in my life. On top of that, its raining. Not warm summer muggy rain, which would be unbearable in its own way, but cold stingy rain. In less than half an hour, I am soaked through to the bones.

I walk. And I walk. And I walk. Putting one foot in front of the other becomes the sole focus of my external awareness, like a field sobriety test from hell. I concentrate on my feet so that I don't feel the pain in my fingers, the pain in my toes, the pain in my cheekbones, the pain in my nose. Footstep after footstep, it becomes increasingly harder to not draw attention to my very sore heels and the balls of my toes. But I hustle onward, there is no other path for me.

Finally I come to this wet little brick building. A cheerless sign propped against the window welcomes me to Larry Craig Realty. I march my hunched and pale shadow into their beige and cream waiting room, accented by an accident of 1976 file cabinet green. The effect is strangely pleasing, like an office at 60 Minutes. I really liked Ed Bradley by the way. He was an icon of my childhood. Looking at the dried up woman at the front desk, her childhood icon was probably Loni Anderson. I hand her my check, and then she tells me they're closing up. Meaning, I have to head back into the rain.

Back outside, I look around me, scouting possible locations, weighing my possibilities. I could try to walk home again. I could. I'm not going to though. I am flat out straight no way going to walk home.

I spot a pizza place. My mind shifts around, groping for a concept to hold onto. A plan emerges half developed. This is the place where if you buy one pizza, you get two free. The kind no one wants to get until your tastebuds are sufficiently drunk enough. Gathering my wits, I start the hurried stroll towards the door. Inside it's well lit, making everything on me just seem wetter. I walk over to the delivery guy folding boxes in a corner and I say,

"If I order two pizzas delivered, will you give me a ride home?"





He goes to talk to his boss.

He comes back and says, "Okay, sure."

As we're waiting for the pizzas to be made, he gets another load of deliveries. He says, "You know what, since we would just give these away to someone else, why don't we just get going, you can just have these."
He's really a pretty nice guy. So we drive back in his pickup truck, me with eight hot pizzas on my lap, me begging him to let me deliver just one. And he dropped me off. And ever since then, whenever someone protests ordering from that place, I tell them they have to.

"The vice president shoots you in the face" is going to be one of those eternally great punchlines, just like "two dead babies and a zebra."

Addendum to "Fuck You Sue Grafton, I'm not building a bomb"

"Hey, boys and girls!

This is Sue Grafton, just checking in to see how you're doing. I've been thinking about you often and I hope your work is going smoothly. In the event that it's not, I wanted to assure you that I get bogged down all the time. Someone asked me once if I ever got writer's block and I said, 'only once or twice a day.'

For reasons absolutely unknown to Science, many writers begin their novels with a burst of enthusiasm. There's a measurable outpouring of time and energy. I experience this myself. At the outset, my optimism rides high and my hopes are boundless. This book...this book, I say to myself...will be clever, inventive, fresh, original, witty, and profound. My characters will be complex, textured, and amazingly true to life. My prose will sing. The pacing will be relentless, yet the story will ebb and flow in a manner that will produce both thrilling surprises and quiet moments where the reader can reflect on what's gone before . My descriptive passages will be evocative, bringing scenes to life in a way that will later translate into a movie sale with all the attendant fame and glory and big bucks. (Personally, of course, I'd never sell my character to Hollywood, but you get the point...)

This hype, this glorious feeling of Omnipotence sometimes continues unabated until Chapter Two. By then, most puzzlingly, I might notice something is amiss. You may find yourself in a similar position at this point in the game. Whether you've written a thousand words or ten thousand, you may find yourself faltering. A little note of doubt may creep into your consciousness. This, I assure you, is not about the merit of the work you've done so far. It's an artifact of your own insecurities. You're probably beginning to wonder what your mother will think of those steamy sexual passages. Perhaps you're suddenly uncertain your immediate family will appreciate your rendition of their annual drunken Christmas antics that result in all those accusations, renunciations, and slamming of doors. You might suspect that your mate (and let's not even talk about your kids) might take a dim view of what's visible through the little window you've opened onto your soul.

This is my advice. Disregard the nagging voice piping up from the back of your brain. You aren't stupid. You won't fail. You won't humiliate yourself (that much) in front of all your family and friends. The important point is to keep up your momentum regardless of the fact that you might stumble now and then. Most people you know have never written a novel at all, let alone pounded one out in a jam-packed thirty days.

Look at it this way; you're not compelled to show your manuscript to anyone, right? In fact, I'd advise you do the opposite. Keep it under lock and key. Guard it with your life. This is your opportunity to express yourself, safe from the opinions of the dolts around you, who don't know bad literature from good. If you're smart you've kept your mission a secret, but suppose you've already blabbed your goal to anyone who'd listen. What was the initial response? Did your loved ones and colleagues scoff or pretend to be supportive while making faces behind your back? Either way, if you bravely soldier on, you can make them eat their words. You can throw their skepticism back in their faces and laugh yourself silly that they had so little faith.

Believe me, getting from beginning to middle to end is an incredible accomplishment in itself! Literary quality is in the eye of the beholder and who's to say your novel won't be right up there among the greats? All you have to do is work. All you have to do is push. Focus on the job at hand. Ignore the urge to second-guess yourself. This is not the time for introspection; it's a time for charging on. Believe in yourself. Be determined to keep the promises you made when you first began. Your commitment to do th is will see you through, even over rough ground.

So. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and write. You said you would do this so nod your head and say, "I will do this. I will do this. I will do this." And then do this.

Sue Grafton"





I mean, what's in this for you? What do you care if I write a crappy novel and then keep it under lock and key? Though to be fair, maybe you are secretly trying to undermine Nanowrimo, and save the world's editors from the deathly months of reviewing numerous really crappy 50,000 words exactly novels.

Maybe Sue is in league with The Editors.

In which case I forgive you for the phrase "Your commitment to do th is will see you through, even over rough ground."

The closer I read this letter, the more subversive it sounds....

Yesterday I roasted a duck, and it came out, in Sean's words, "as the best thing I've ever made him".

I don't really like duck, but this was okay. It was way less greasy than I had been led to believe by several duck appetizers at several bars.

Congratulations Michael Symon. You're totally awesome, and we all know you would have won your first Kitchen Stadium battle if it weren't for Murimoto's stain glass window. Now I will not be able to eat at Lolita's for at least a year.

Also, today is my third day without a headache, and it is totally rocking. Except that as soon as I get happy and feel good, everyone else in Cleveland decides to fold to the impending winter blues. And Norman Mailer dies of renal failure. Which seems pretty poetic to me, but seems to make everyone else sad. Norman Mailer said in 1991 that fifty years from now the novel would go the way of poetry and cease to be relevant. Because of course he failed as a novelist. Well, its 16 years later, and I haven't even FINSHED my first novel, so he can fuck off. Fuck you Norman Mailer. Not because of your nine wives or twenty three children or feminism or whatnot, but just because. Just fuck off because.

And while we're at it, Fuck You Sue Grafton. Stop sending me fake nanowrimo "pep" letters. Fuck you Tom Robbins for using your stilted and cliche prose to try and be the "cool" teacher.
Fuck all y'all motherfuckers.

Yeah! No Headache Bridget is So Much More Fun.

So, for lack of a house stereo and/or decent computer speakers, I turned to the music channels on cable while house cleaning.

It got left on the "Adult Alternative" station while I was sweeping. And proceeded to make me feel forty by playing Fountains of Wayne, James Blunt, David Ford, John Mayer and then.....Crowded House? What? "She called up" is a great song. Also the Crowded House singer is from New Zealand. I wonder if they would be mad that they are on this station? Probably they are just happy that some 28 yr old in Cleveland knows where New Zealand is on a map.

They tricked me into not changing the channel, because now the fuckers are playing u2. See how I refuse to even capitalize that? Also I just realized that the tv show One Tree Hill is named after the u2 song. GROSS. That's enough of that.

addendum: They seriously just sandwiched Rilo Kiley in between Dave Matthews Band, Sarah McLachlan, and a Santanta/Dido duet. AND I didn't even notice the difference. Which means Rilo Kiley has jumped the shark. Also that this music channel actually SUCKS THE SOUL FROM YOUR BODY THROUGH YOUR EARS. IT STEALS EVERYTHING DECENT AND GOOD FROM YOUR 20s AND TURNS IT INTO DOG POOP. IT WILL EAT YOUR MEMORIES LIKE OVERLY RIPE BERRIES AND THEN REGURGITATE IT INTO YOUR MOUTH. I can't even turn it off, its like watching a Lindsey Lohan movie.

Here is a video that I actually find annoying, but strangely catchy, like that 'If I Had A Million Dollars" song by Barenaked Ladies that everybody knows the words too except my dad. Which is just one more way in which my dad is pretty cool.

Anyway, the reason I put it here for you to watch is that even though I deep down hate it, it is a fairly accurate representation of every single work day I go through. Which is probably why I hate it.

Titles of my News Rss Feeds this morning....A poem

How Do You Stop Flesh-Eating Bacteria? Apply Some Clay

Could Robots Become Your Toddler's New Best Friend?

Lunar Landscape, HDTV-Style

California oil spill 'emergency'

Merkel, Bush seek Iran consensus

Tennis: Italian player betting ban

Author Norman Mailer dies at 84

UN chief makes Antarctica visit

Cricket: Sri Lanka set for defeat

Fresh clashes in north Sri Lanka

China halts 'toxic' toy exports

Row delays Harry Potter lexicon

Iran 'must free' woman activist

The Birth of a Brain Cell: Scientists Witness Neurogenesis

Congo arrests after toxic dumping

I'd like to say thank you to all the fine men and women who made my painkillad dreams last night so damn interesting and symbolically depressing. Things I learned from 7pm to 8:30am this morning....

1. My fear of Sean's disapproval is so high right now, that it has taken over my brain.
2. This has caused my brain to want to run away to Chicago with Tara and go to a bunch of indie dance clubs.
3. My brain also wants me to fuck some unknown english professor who is a total asshole and sleeps with his students and makes me feel like a retard.
4. My brain also wants Sam English to visit Buddy's vet tech classes so I can come and get an autograph.
5. There is no way for Sean to sleep past 4am when there's hunting to be done.
6. Its possible that the smell of doe rut in the apartment caused me to dream about the asshole english teacher.
7. My sister does not have a real appreciation for old Roman coins. Or blancmange.

Dad, you should make Mom watch these...

I steal ideas for these posts from emails to friends, and they never read this because its all old metaphors....

Old metaphor: Like Zeus, a child is trying to be born from my forehead. Unfortunately it doesn't quite seem to be strong enough, and there don't seem to be any greek gods around willing to split open my skull. But the doctors are going to disembowel some cats tomorrow and see what the intestines say about it.

My head is in so much pain, I want to take a wedge to it myself. I spend my days after work trying like hell to pass out as quickly as I can. This isn't helping my Nanowrimo goal. The sense of failure there isn't helping my headache. Its a vicious cycle.

Also particularly vicious? According to a news story Sean read, our combined household income is in the upper 20% of the country. Considering the number of adverse action letters I get every time I go shopping for insurance, I find this a terrifying and strangely wonderful fact. And depressing as hell. Which isn't helping my headache.

DO NOT WATCH 2 GIRLS AND A CUP. I haven't seen it myself, I'm sure its not that bad, we all know and love Gigi Allen, so really how much worse could it get? HOWEVER, on pure principle, do not participate in this unseemly act of mass gross out. Lets all pretend we're the new Editor In Chief of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and only put happy news on the front page because that's what the numbers told us we should. Remember people, we don't like bad news.
I'm sure if I watched it, it would not help my headache. But not watching it is also not helping my headache.

THIS IS SO BEYOND A HEADACHE, HEADEARTHQUAKE HEADCATASTROPHE HEADGENOCIDE are more accurate terms for it.

Finally, I think its sad that we live in a world where a Hindu goddess is actually born and then we cut her arms and legs off.

Today at breakfast, after someone using the term "preemie" to describe the size of a plate of french fries, it occurred to me to wonder at the fact that because of Cabbage Patch Dolls, a whole generation of people frequently use the term preemie with absolutely no negative connotation at all. Not that preemies should be discriminated against, however...thats kinda creepy.

In the news I read today, we have rape on tv, massive disasters caused by matches, the lies of presidential candidates, love in the time of cholera, bounty hunters with nine lives, and internet in Africa. But today I worry about paying my car payment, rent, insurance, and cell phone bill all out of the same paycheck. Did you know that you can get a plane ticket to New Zealand for under 2000 dollars? And that they have a glacier there you can walk on? And giant eels that will eat out of your hand? And parrots that will eat the rubber off your car windshield?

From sciam.com

"Workers of the world, unite!: You have nothing to lose but your—pustules
Karl Marx may have erred in predicting the "withering away" of the state under communism, but he got one thing right: "The bourgeoisie will remember my carbuncles until their dying day," he wrote in an 1867 letter to his longtime collaborator Friedrich Engels, referring to painful boils on his rump and nether regions. In a paper slated for the January British Journal of Dermatology, dermatology professor Sam Shuster of the University of East Anglia concludes from Marx's correspondences that the radical 19th-century political theorist suffered from hidradenitis suppurativa, a blockage and chronic inflammation of the sweat glands in the armpits and groin that can cause painful boillike lumps, swelling and scarring. The unsightly pustules made it hard for Marx to work and may have contributed to the alienation and self-loathing expressed in his writings, Shuster told Reuters. The revolutionary consoled himself by noting that it was at least a "proletarian disease." (British Association of Dermatologists; Reuters; London Times)"

Dude, Marx and I totally had the same condition! And I used to be a communist! Now, I realize it may be going a bit far to say I'm, like, Marx reincarnated....but....we can all draw our own conclusions...

What I'm not sure about is whether this ecstatic state of being forgiven is supposed to include a grown woman listening to the new Britney Spears album like 17 times in the past 24 hours. And having multiple phone conversations about it.

I think, and often argue, that the words love and happiness are too broad to actually represent the varied and individual experiences they imply. And that too many people fall prey to thinking they have to live up to whatever norm they perceive these words to mean, and therefore miss out on what would really enrich their own lives.

However, this weekend has convinced me to fall prey to at least one cliche. Which is that I now believe "love" to include that hardest of all feats, absolute forgiveness.

We are taught, at least us childhood christians, that to forgive someone is our duty, and to be forgiving is a grace. I'm not a forgiving person, and the majority of people I know are not forgiving. Perhaps no one really is until they experience the other side of the equation, which is to be forgiven. When you are utterly forgiven for something unforgivable, it is a mind-blowing, heart- palpitation causing, HUMBLING act. It deflates you and fills you up again with something that at the moment is unnamed, but infinitely more substantial than whatever oxygenless ether filled you before.

The true test though is whether you can apply this grace that has been set upon you to your own life.

I have had this kind of forgiveness before from family, many times over, but I've never had it from someone who was not genetically and socially obligated to give it. Not to undercut the value of my family's love, but when someone who, essentially, is a stranger to your upbringing can love you enough not only as a lover but as a human being to show this amount of compassion for your life?

I mean, the least you can do is accept it. The very least. And what the hell do you buy them for Christmas?

Today I pushed Sean into the crazy side of bad. If his name isn't in here too much more, I'd like to state for posterity that I am genuinely crazy and it isn't his fault. I mean, crazy is crazy. There's not a lot of things you can do to deal with it. You all think I'm blaming myself more than I should. I'm telling you straight up, I'm pyscho. I should never ever have a romantic relationship with another human being. Coincidentally, I read the part today where Miller realizes he is inhuman and proud of it. I don't know if I'm proud, but then again, I haven't published a novel yet. Maybe if some sort of good can come out of being inhuman, I'll appreciate it more. Otherwise, its just a waste of other people's time. You can only get away with crazy if you're also a proven genius. Or saint. And I'm definitely not a nice person, so sainthood is out.

Today I spent three hours at work reading about Superstringytheory and trying like hell to, you know, really get it.

Today I actually considered going back into to school to major in math. Cause I'm terrible at math. So shouldn't I go back to school to become decent at something important, rather than stroking my ego with the things I'm already good at? I mean, I know how to read. I know how to write well. I know how to run a board meeting. Physics is my mid life crisis frontier.

My problem with my career is that I simply am not capable of seeing school as some neccesary evil to make more money, because I can't concieve of anything in school that I'm going to learn that will make me a better employee. I already have all those skills. Most of them are simple common sense and an ability to think quickly on your feet. So why pay all that money and time to get a degree that doesn't do something to change my life? On a pyschological level.

No seriously, I'm mentally retarded at math. I'm not exagerrating. I can't do division or multiplication at all, even on paper. I have trouble adding. I can't look at them like numbers, I only see words that I don't understand. But I want to understand string theory. I mean, its actually an important thing. I feel like the sodomized sailor who wants to become a priest. I have to approach math like learning a new language.

Not being able to completely understand and instantly grasp complex physics just by reading it, like I do with everything else in my life, makes me ashamed.

And its important. Its important to know the difference between a boson and a fermion.

It drove me even more crazy when I found a website that gives you the basics of string theory, blackholes, and quantum mechanics. Then it quizzes you after each article. Of course I got perfect scores....but I still don't understand it! I am painfully aware of NOT GETTING IT. I could probably write a freshman college essay on the damn stuff, but thats NOTHING. Its what kindergartdners would understand, if we gave them a chance. They would probably get it better than me, because their mind isn't full of middle eastern politics.

Sympathy, love, regret were all on his side, until she found the pubic hair in the toilet.

Conclusions

When I said I was in love with you, I meant that I would love you even if the fourth reich descended upon us and we were forced to live in shelled out cities, eating radioactive rats and digging through the rubble to find scraps of the former civilization so we could learn from them and not make the same mistakes.

I meant that I would love you even if we were traveling down the Congo on a raft and you sold me to some natives for food, and then sat there masturbating while they boiled me in a huge kettle. (Though I always thought cannibals preferred ovens.)

I meant that if you became the richest man in the world, I would gladly live with you and your trophy wife, wearing her cast away Armani and having clandestine meetings with you in the servants quarters where we'd fuck on a straw cot and you'd leave me a few pounds before rushing off to your meeting with the guv'nor.

I meant that stranded on an ice floe? If you killed a seal I would skin it and not say a single word about how gross it was. I would write you a love letter in seal blood in the snow.

If we were hiking and got stuck somewhere in the woods over night, I would piss in a circle around us so the wolves wouldn't attack us, and you could use Anna Karenina to build a fire.

If we lived in a log cabin where you chopped wood and I made pie and we had only one candle I would write in the daytime so you could use it at night to pick splinters out of your hands.

If we worked at an animal testing facility and the monkeys got loose and started attacking us, I would lead them down a hallway so you could sneak out.

If we met a couple at a bar who asked us to swing with them, and the girl was really hot but the guy was only so-so? I would fuck him just so you could stick your dick in the really hot girls mouth. I'd do it even if you didn't let me watch.

And if we never actually quit smoking, and you need a lung, I'll gladly give you....well I'll go kill some emo kid for you so you can have his.

NANOWRIMO

Feels like it should be capitalized every time......

So...I told a friend I would do it this year with her. And I will. Because it will give me something to do besides watching 30 Rock and drinking.

Actually, I consider both of those elements to be essential to the creative process. One is inspirational, the other is a veritable fount of thievery. Guess which is which?

On the website, they suggest that you tell everyone about participating in this (this BTW being writing a 175 page novel all during the month of November), so that if you start to feel yourself falter, you will be too embarrassed to quit. Like with losing weight, smoking, or breaking up with your boyfriend.

Cause that has worked SO WELL for me in the past.

What I'd like to know is what kind of support are my friends going to give me now that I'm part of a shtick, that they wouldn't give me for the past 25 years I've been trying to write? No seriously, what's up guys? You all went from being crazy insane dirty psycho druggie glamour hogs to being married and living in Akron with cats. That's not helping me out here. Unless we're all looking forward to some serious self-destruction on Bridget's part, you're gonna have to step it up a notch on the dramatic Parisian bum scale. And I know how much you love me and would hate to see me lose my job :) So hurry up. November is almost here.

The worst part of this whole thing is that the inspirational write-ins for Cleveland? Are being held at the Panera bread right around the corner from my house. Seriously? Really really great 4 cheese souffles. Sean really likes the spinach and bacon ones...I don't know about their coffee though...fuck you, ever appealing and simultaneously revolting Panera bread.

A really quick actual life update: I came home to a case of beer sitting on the floor, with two xbox games on top, and a large amount of poo in the toilet. There is no pistachio frozen custard left, and I'm so bored I just bit off my fingernail and spit it on the floor. If I watch that fish video one more time I'll start to bleed from my nose.

I really hated this song until I saw the video. Damn you singing fish that I simply can't resist....

This is once again Sean's fucking fault. Sean AND Marty.

Found this on John Hodgman's page...Thank you John for filling my brain with delicious addictive sugar water.

One thing I will never be able to fully forgive Sean for is the existence of an unmarked burned Paul McCartney SOLO work CD in my car. It got me tonight when I reached into my pile of unmarked very cool surprise CDs. It got me good and hard. Like a bullet to my sinuses.

I suppose this could be solved if I got a sharpie....or threw the devil thing out.

Sometimes, when you come back from a trip, vacation, or just something really stressful, you have this elated high for days afterwards. You feel like a new person, you feel motivated, you like yourself, you feel like you can accomplish that rare feat of being interesting to talk to...

But what provides an even stranger, more tripped out sensation is the day you realize that the high is over and you are deflating back down to the world you inhabited before said event. Which most of the time was heartbreaking and boring, like the grinding of continents against each other. As you sink into this sensation, everything that causes these feelings becomes stark clear in relief against the silk drapes of your recent memories. You really, really hate your job. The same tv shows are on every night. You can't talk to your boyfriend. You're allergic to your own cat, that you've had for 7 years.

If traveling has the same effect as cocaine, then the regular work day is a solid dose of opium. And the slow ones do in fact kill you faster than the speedy ones.

Moment of Zen /:

Sean figured out while watching the Colbert report tonight that if every state in the union has the same filing fees as South Carolina to register in the GOP presidential primary, it would require 1.25 million dollars to run in all fifty states.

Its become increasingly transparent that they intend on choosing the next democratic canindate based on who raises the most money, since every campaign article is now about who's ahead in the fundraising race.

C'mon guys, I'm the least disaffected of them all, and you're really starting to turn me off.....Fie on you, Fie!

So I would like to ask everyone to donate all their monies to me, so I can be president please. I will be a good president, and Al Gore will be my secretary of state.

Things I sometimes miss about Livejournal when I'm really bored and have already read every Agatha Christie book in the house seven times, but cannot stomach anymore Henry Miller because of the blueberry pancakes I ate for breakfast this morning...

QUIZ

1. I've come to realize that: I really truly absolutely without question do not believe in a "higher power". And my life does not suffer in any way shape or form from a lack of that belief. In fact, my life is absolutely better, more amazing, and more interesting for it. I appreciate the existence of things like whale sharks, underground lakes, and giant amazon ant swarms as random acts of coincidence, which inspires more awe and joy in me than religion, wealth,or sex has ever done.

2. I've come to realize that, I talk :
as if I really don't care if you're listening to me or not, because you should be.

3. I've come to realize that, I love : like a wicked witch.


4. I've come to realize that, I have:
GOT to get an ipod eventually.

5. I've come to realize that, I lost : a lot of favorite articles of clothing, hats and purses over the years that I will never be able to replace because no one makes them anymore....people don't make the same things forever...


6. I've come to realize that, I hate it when :
I spend a whole weekend without seeing something new.

8. I've come to realize that, marriage is :
really really weird....

9. I've come to realize that, somewhere, someone is:
thinking that god will punish them for something. Like, actually punish them.

10. I've come to realize that, I'll always be :
A little bit bored, a little bit lonely.

11. I've come to realize that, I have a crush on :
Lindsay Lohan. And Crispix cereal.

12. I've come to realize that, The last time I cried was :
Okay, these are starting to seem less like realizations and more like lyrics to a Fallout Boy song. The last time I cried was yesterday when Sean finally called me after not picking up his phone all day cause he was sleeping, and I had pictured him trying to fix his flat tire and the truck falling on him and crushing him all day. Cause I'm nutso.

13. I've come to realize that, My cell phone's:
making me infertile. In more than just a physical way.

14. I've come to realize that, When I wake up in the morning:
my bed sucks so fucking badly. Its seriously the worst bed in the whole world. Bad Bed! Bad Bed! I might as well try to sleep on the floor. Also, I realize every morning that I should stop leaving my underwear on the bathroom floor. But I never do. Mornings = shame.

15. I've come to realize that, Before I go to sleep at night I:
need to get drunk in order to pass out on that fucking bed and get any rest at all. Mother fucker!

16. I've come to realize that, Right now I am thinking about:
Oh, now we're doing up to the minute realizations huh? Right now I am thinking about how overused the word "realization" is in our vernacular.

17. I've come to realize that, Babies are:
very susceptible to death.

18. I've come to realize that, I get on myspace:
To support the suppression of the Chinese people.

19. I've come to realize that, Today I:
want to get every article of trash, including my cat, out of the house.

20. I've come to realize that, Tonight I will: have to do laundry because I really think I've ferreted out any last hiding pieces of underwear there were left to find...


21. I've come to realize that, Tomorrow I will:
Go to work. Again. and Again. and Again.

22. I've come to realize that, I really want to:
spend my life flying around the world with no visible purpose.

I don't know how to give enough credit for this story not being mine and being published in a book, and the link is on McSweeneys, and this is seriously one of the best short stories I've read in a long time.....Dave Eggers, this is AWESOME. I wish YOU were my best friend. I just had to record it here for posterity, but I'll go out and buy your book too,http://store.mcsweeneys.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/catalog.detail/object_id/2c1bfd66-f2a2-4c3f-9ca0-688a10f2c1fc/OneHundredandbrFortyFiveStoriesbrinaSmallBox.cfm I promise. Unless they're all just online :)



The Anger of the Horses.

BY DAVE EGGERS

Last week we let all the horses go. It seemed the right thing to do. We tore down the fences, burned the bridles and the saddles, and told the horses they were free. At first they hesitated. "Go, go," we said. "Go." And so they went, up over the hill, across the plain and into the mountains. Two days later they returned. "We're bored," they said. So we sat with the horses for a while, trying to think of something for them to do. Before we could think of anything, the horses had an idea of their own. "Let's kill all the rabbits!" they said, their black eyes alight. "Let's kill all those goddamned rabbits!" they added. The horses became more and more inflamed as they talked about the details of the plan. "We'll run and find them, help flush them out," they said, "and then you can shoot them since you have the guns." They were pacing and snorting, shaking their manes and tails, ready to get started. It turns out the horses had hated the rabbits for a long, long time.

Despite being absolutely stellar at work today, running meetings and doing sit-withs and being an overall perfect corporate smiley face, I still feel very very lost there. Also, my eyes are taking turns being allergic to various substances and swelling up individually. I have a scarf around my one eye right now. I am a polka dotted pirate.

So champagne is officially my drink of choice, cheap or not. I think it was waiting there for me this whole time, but I avoided it out of a preconceived notion that bubbly should be withheld for toasts and new years and romantic celebrations. Turns out, champagne is also the perfect accompaniment to gross feelings of inadequacy and lost glamour of youth.

I suppose when I turn forty I'll have to find something else, but champagne has shown up just in time to usher in my thirties.

So here's a list of things I can count on for at least the next ten years...

1. Champagne. Unless there is a worldwide drought that kills all the grapes everywhere ever. Which could still happen.

2. Al Gore not being president.

3. My eyelashes.....I think. I suppose there could be a fire.

4. Being kissed. By somebody. Somewhere. At some point.

5. Knowing how to make pie.

6. Being able to read....I think. Oh my god, I could go blind.........

7. My hair remaining basically the same color.

8. There still being no god. But still lots of people who believe there is. And them getting in my way.

9. Money still being important.

10. Me still not caring that money is important, but having to work anyway.

11. Rocco De Spirito still being dreadfully hot.

Three bottles of champagne later, with a fur hat and a belt around my neck....I concede defeat.

I swear to god I just saw an ad for Speriva, which treats COPD. Wanna know what that is? Its chronic bronchitis and empheseyma. You know what the commercial states that it treats? The effects of smoking.

BECAUSE WE REALLY NEEDED A NAME FOR THAT.

I wonder what they'll call it when they find out how to treat the cancer along with it?
CCOPD?

I also have been screwed over 500 dollars for being smart by the company I work for. So I've drank a lot of champagne so far, and I swear to god, I'm gonna drink a lot more.

Funny enough, Designing Women is in the background right now, and as I'm watching it, the blonde one just made up a disease too called OOPD.

CRAZY.

MySpace is not George Martin

If you have a Myspace account, which you probably do even if you don't know it yet, then you have been on the receiving end of numerous requests from bands to "friend" them. Technically it should be "befriend", but whatever.

Myspace is a great place to look up a band you've heard of and want to check out. Myspace is a terrible place to look up porn, because then your inbox is full of girls named Debbie who are in your extended network and really like sparkly things.

If you are in a local band and you're gonna try and woo me, here are three things not to do....

1. Don't mention anywhere in your profile that you don't know quite how to describe your sound. For instance.."I don't know how to describe the sound. Kinda like Scratch Acid-fucked up classic rock with a heavy garage rock twist. We have some slow songs some fast, and even one with poetry. "

Really, even one with poetry? Please explain to me the difference between poetry and lyrics? Is it the sincerity level? Do you scream one and whisper the other? Or is it the only song you have that has any hint of rhythm or flow?

I'll tell you what you sound like. Styx.

2. Please do not post concert pictures of yourself. I am less inclined to go to your show when I already know what you look like. Without knowing, I can motivate myself with visions of tight t-shirts over lithe college bodies, and maybe a super cute not gay drummer. If you show me pictures, then I already know that I'm looking at tight t-shirts over beer paunch and a drummer I'll probably wish was gay.

Just because you have a girlfriend who thinks you're hot, don't let that get in the way of your music.

3. Don't post your music.
Seriously, haven't you spent a lifetime going to shows? Don't you realize that most local bands only get people into their shows by not letting them know at all what to expect? I can't tell you how many times I've paid the cover charge with no idea who I was going to see.

Also, do you really expect to hold up next to all those other bands I can see on MySpace. I mean, I can go to Os Mutantes, Lupe Fiasco, Built To Spill, Boston....and then you.

Posting your music is just a bad idea period. I would suggest instead substituting some funny youtube videos. People will think you have quirky personalities. Cause face it, most of those people telling you how good you are... are your friends. And they were your friends before you started this crappy band. I'm not saying your personality will win them all over, but its certainly a better chance than your shitty badly recorded 13 minute long serenade to Bad Brains.

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Trident of Undeclared Debate. What's yours?

There is something about weddings that make everything catastrophically sexual afterwards. And its not loneliness or some sort of girly wedding jealousy. Its more like...near death experience.

Atlanta

There are two things that seem to be important to remember about Atlanta. 1, people drive like assholes. 2, when you get back home, you too will drive like an asshole.

The wedding was very pretty and emotional and all. Both of them will be very happy. They were already happy to begin with.

Everything else was lots of fun. The aquarium kicked your aquarium's butt. Whale sharks are a physical reaction. I fell in love with Tennessee, specifically the height of Tennessee. I learned that when you are waiting in the Intercontinental's very pretentious, "filled to the brim with suits and orchids" lobby, everyone who walks in to talk to the concierge will have a drink in their hand, and sometimes dogs. I met an English bulldog with flowers in his collar.

The highlight will not be televised. Suffice it to say, if I was famous, you could make a lot of money off of it.

What I find personally offensive is that even though most of the 5 star hotels in Atlanta are all nonsmoking now, the travel sites don't allow you to search for hotels by a preference for SMOKING ROOMS. So because I'm not famous, I can't get fucked up and blow a bunch of money in your hotel, Mr Rotating Restaurant in the Sky? Fuck That Shit.

I am over you Jack Kerouac. You know where the Subterraneans is sitting right now? On the back of my toilet, because its only worth picking up and reading random pieces of it. Reading the whole thing through has the intellectual value of watching a marathon of Project Runway.

At least I'm not the person who watches Heroes and then runs to post about how she's figured out who the mystery killer is already, and has to be the first person to hit the boards with it. Even though I have. And technically, it was suggested to me when I revealed my theory last night. And Sean wants me to write it down in an envelope and seal it up and then we can read it later to find out if I'm right.

They should give out Emmys for this.

If I was really rich I would give out a "Best Person In The World" award every year. And I would make people send in video archives of their everyday lives, and then stay with them and interview them and all their friends, and this would be my entire life all year long, finding the winner of this prize.

I dreamed last night about two couples staying at a historic house in Key Largo, where one of the girl's ex boyfriends died violently, and now that couple is being haunted with ghastliness until they discover that the haunted item is a box full of old coins, and they throw the coins out and he goes away. It was the closest thing I've had to a nightmare in a long time, cause it was pretty spooky, although nobody was injured or hurt. I always dream in third person, I never dream of myself. In fact, I always masturbate in third person too, though I never dream about sex ever. Why is my subconscious incapable of including me in its thoughts? I suppose its a gift, my dreams probably wouldn't be as entertaining and then I would be obsessed with interpreting things and god knows I did enough of that stupid new age shit in high school. See, Kerouac makes you write sentences with too many "ands" in them, the shithead.

I woke up and I was very glad that Sean was sleeping next to me, so that's why even though sometimes its hard to believe you're with this person, I know we're doing the right thing. Also because we are smarter than anyone else in the world with the exception of genetic relatives.

The stupidity and neurotic antics of every person around me is overwhelming. And really, I don't think I'm such hot shit. I usually walk around feeling quite stupid. But god, really, people are fucking awful morons.

However, being smarter than everyone else doesn't make you money. They all make much more money than me. And are happier too. I'm starting to understand how overrated happiness is though. Its not like happiness is the same as being interested. Being interested is so much more important.

Chapter Three prelude

Last night I went to a girl's birthday party where nobody showed up but two other people. She had a blender, we had brought her a bottle of rum, she had fresh fruit. I spent my evening cutting myself on strawberries and somewhere in between them talking about men and sex, I all of a sudden found myself ranting about Israel and how I can totally be anti-zionist without being anti-semitic, how Iran and anyone else is right to not acknowledge them as a nation, how Iran has the second largest population of jews in the Middle East and no one is KILLING THEM because they don't hate jews, just Israel. Also in there was about the 700 club taking donations from Christians to "adopt" Russian jews to send them "back to their homeland", and how the last Iranian president was way less crazy and its our fault they elected a crazier one who also happens to be right about western politics, just wrong about gays, even though in one of Buddy's gay travel magazines they talked about how Iran was a good travel spot if you only followed certain rules which quite frankly you can probably say about Missouri too. It ended with me being the last one drinking, in the kitchen, explaining how the creation of Israel was one of the most stupid wicked things Western civilization has ever done all because we didn't want the jews in america and russia/poland/france/italy didn't really want them either.

Then I buried my head in Sean's chest and said "and now we're all going to die".

That last part is not true of course. I'm never going to die. I'm just going to deflate, slowly and painfully, and probably not fast enough for some Columbia students.

Also, I have to refrain from a repeat performance of this at Marty and Rebecca's (jewish) wedding next weekend.

Chapter Two

The first thing to say about all of this is that I am not a nice person. Was I born not nice, or raised not nice? That's for you and anyone else to figure out, but not here. The root of the matter is not important, only the effect.

The first not nice thing I can remember doing is feeding my baby sister watercolor paints. I thought that if she ate them, she would piss colors. Which she did. Which freaked the fuck out of my mom. I didn't do this out of any evil intention towards my sister. She was a non-entity to me at that point, a thing that existed in the house, like a couch or a bathroom. I did it because I was curious what would happen. No, thats not true. I knew what would happen, I just wanted to see it happen.

The second not nice thing I did was steal from my mother. First I would look. I couldn't stop looking through her things. And when I found something of hers I wanted, I took it. I didn't think of it as something that belonged to someone else. I thought since I had found it, in this house, it was as much mine as anyone elses.

Now, today, I am not what I would consider a bad person. I know what is the right thing to do in most situations, which came from a childhood of reading Agatha Christie novels and watching public television. I smile and talk to all my co-workers. I buy my friends presents, even when I forget their birthdays and they don't remember mine. When I go to a party, I remember to bring a gift of some sort, a bottle of wine, or a blender. I am very courteous and unfailingly polite and incredibly embittered.

My best friend Allison moved to Australia, and now I never write or talk to her. Not because I don't like her, but because it is inconvenient to my life. My best friend Peter died a few years ago at 28, coincidentally the age I am now. To tell you the truth, I don't know if he was 28 or 29, and I can't even remember his birthday though for years I spent almost every day with him. When he died, I guess I cried, though I can't remember now. But I felt worse about not being there when it happened, sudden heart attack. Because all the rest of his friends saw it and I didn't. And when I think about him now, he is a character that happened to me. He meant a lot to me alive, but even more dead? I can't say that for sure, but I am anxiously awaiting the next death of someone close to me, to see if I feel anything then either.

I could attribute this to no fear of death. But I am afraid of my own death. Just not anybody elses.

I keep wanting to see things. Things that are hidden from me. Things people don't want me to see. Things they are thinking that they won't tell me. Things happening outside of me that I am unawares. I feel very sorry for polar bears, but I accept their extinction as an inevitable conclusion and therefore my heart is softened, but in a Velveteen rabbit sort of way.

I wish this story were about a rabbit. Rabbits have a way of encapsulating all soft human emotions, making them fuzzy, joyful, and neccesary for survival. But I can't write a book about a bunny. I am scared of what would happen to it. I have read Watership Down. As a consequence, I am scared of picking up real rabbits, even pet ones.

So reading this, please keep in mind that while I am a wonderful person to watch your kids, I am exactly the type of woman who should never have kids. I am a wicked witch deprived of my silver shoes, and this is my attempt to reclaim them.

If I was an angel?
I'd be the kind that talked in pretentious riddles.
And gives you weird sidelong looks to make you think you said something stupid.
And I'd make you think I was mad at you all the time until you were in love with me.
And then I'd shoot you.
But only when you finally got the girl.

I'd wear sweaters all the time and glasses to hide my beauty and I'd run around drawing lipstick pictures on cars.
And then I'd send thunderstorms across the country and spell out I love you in lightning.

Cheshire Sphinx: Most of what happens in my life doesn't happen to me.

Chapter One

His dealer was a fat man, over 500 pounds. Randy said he had already lost 200 this year, which meant once he was 700 pounds and couldn't move around the house. And she felt bad that every day she felt self conscious going to the gym, when here was this guy going to the gym every day like he was, with his stomach down to his knees, and she felt that must be an act of bravery equivalent to penetrating into an enemy bunker. He sat on the couch, and didn't get up to say hello, just sat there, phone on one side, x box controller on the other. He was the kind of fat man who was really tall, but so fat that he actually looked like he should be short. His arms were long, and the forearms were skinny. They were scarecrow arms sticking out of his orange t-shirt. His blond fluffy mullet hung like bunny bangs in front of his eyes. Everything on his body seems pulled and pushed apart, he had been gone at with a meat tenderizer and left for spoiled.

The thing was, every time you went over there, you had to hang out a few hours. He didn't like too much traffic. So she had to sit there with Randy and try to look this big boy doll in the face while he was speaking. Only thing was, she knew how bad she was at hiding her thoughts, and she thought for sure that little sneer of disgust trying to be a smile was obvious on her face. So she spent as much of the conversation as she could looking at the back of Randy's head, or staring at the tv screen, which was just the x-box screen and didn't lend much of an excuse.

The whole bag was shake. It made sense, when you sell pounds, then there are large amounts of shake, and he put more in there cause he thought it was for Randy. Also, he spent an hour picking out all the seeds and stems. He really liked Randy.

Everything was in boxes still, he had just moved. She wanted to watch him unpack those boxes, those elephantine thighs rumbling around the room, the mass of skin and suet crawling, a jello lizard behemoth, a late descendant of primeval reptilians. He was a man trapped in liquid suspension.

Later, She sat at the computer desk, headphones on, mug of ice water beside the monitor. She was listening to Tchaikovsky, having bought that day two collections of him, plus one double disk of “50 Classical Performances”, the kind of thing you found cheap that invariably had “Flight of the Bumblebee”, and “The Nutcracker, Op.71.ACT II, Scene III, No.12:Divertissement. Trepak (Russian Dance)”. She realized this was all a cliche, the blocked writer, high as fuck, desperately trying to write something with glow, the night before a deadline. But as a cliche it felt full and useful. She had even gone to McDonalds to get ice cream, it was sitting in the freezer. That also felt useful.

Outside the ghetto birds were buzzing away. The spring night air required a sweatshirt, which was the best kind of air. The blood was rushed to her fingertips, she saw them turn circulatory red, patched with veins, the frosted nail polish gleaming harsh against the swollen skin. She closed her eyes with the cellos and the cars, and began to type. She wasn’t entirely sure what she typing, but it sounded good, the words seemed thick and firm. Sometimes she could smell the difference between good and bad. Good words smelled like tangerine and mango, with a base of gold and jewels all wrapped up in white cotton. Bad words smelled like steel rooms, green hallways, romance novels in waiting rooms that have recently been cleaned with Clorox. She thought about how rooms in the Pledge commercials always looked like they smelled. Gold and rich, with sparkling dust motes in the air, warm from the overpowering sunshine. That comforting summer baked smell. An intense feeling of comfort, thinking about those designer rooms, she pictured houses in Nantucket with wide porches, kitchens in Minnesota with red flowered curtains, patios with golden retrievers and begonias. In every pictures, the pitcher of lemonade on the counter or table, the plate of cookies. The cat sleeping, the small child playing. The perfectly washed floors. The nicely arranged rows of knickknacks, magazines, pots and pans gleaming.

She did this so if he ever decided to talk to her again, he could find her. She did things like that all the time, it was a game she would play with herself. At work she pictured him walking in some day. Outside smoking a cigarette she looked in passing cars trying to see if he was in one. She didn’t know what kind of new car he had, so she would play “What kind of car do I think he would drive” at the bus stop in the morning. But she never once thought about calling him, or writing him another unanswered e-mail. He hadn’t been around at all for months at this point. He had become in her head a storybook character, a memory already stripped of flesh and blood. When she thought about him, it was without a face. The details of the room instead maybe, or sounds. But never him. She had gone at her nostalgia with a pair of scissors, and someday she would throw them all into a mental drawer in the linen closet, to be lost.

Caring about someone is like letting them rent out a piece of your brain. They get this tiny small section, and the longer you know them, the more space they start to take up. So first they add a few light fixtures, some new shrubbery, then all of sudden they're talking about second bathrooms and new garages. When you break off a relationship with someone, friend, family, lover, or otherwise, you're evicting them. Or maybe they break the lease and move themselves, cause they think you're charging too much. Either way, you're stuck with this empty property, and you have to tear most of it down. But the first room they ever had will always still be there, and maybe they scratched something in the woodwork, or cursed it, but you can never ever get another tenant in there. They just don't fit. No matter how much time goes by, you can always just go sit in that room and it will be like they never left. This might seem cynical to some people, but she liked having all those empty rooms in her head, it gave her lots of options. Everyone decorates differently, so it's kind of exciting and eccentric. Sometimes she took her mental typewriter into a certain room and wrote letters to the former tenant that she never sent, because it was familiar and comfortable. But at the same time, it's good to know when to evict them, cause you can't have them taking over the whole goddamn house.

She saw herself calling him on the phone. She saw him answering, and her telling him to listen to what she had written. Then she read him the most beautiful twelve lines in the world, a perfect poem, a rare shining jewel among poems, the kind to make young girls cry and queens fall in love, as if those kind of people had an appreciation for literature. In the vision, she saw herself saying “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever written, and you had to hear it first.” And he would tell her he loved her. And it would be perfect. A perfect moment. She could even feel the expression she would make on her face. She could see the light in his eyes, hear the Prokofiev in the background. And then she would write a novel based on their lives together, the first time and the second time, and even if it ended badly again, it would still be dreadfully romantic.

So she stopped typing for a minute and read what she had written.

In the beginning
A boy fell in love with a girl. The girl had big black eyes.
The girl who was a kraken said:
In the beginning I was floating in the darkness and the light would dance on my purple skin and I would push myself through the currents on long white arms.
And there was a speck floating in the darkness with me, following my wake, it was a tiny rock. And on this tiny rock were lots of tiny tiny creatures, and they lives tiny tiny lives and they worked hard and died and melted glaciers. And they had a god, his name was God. I could hear him talking to them as I floated along besides. But he never talked to me.
And one day I took a very big gulp and the little rock was swallowed.
God was angry, and he took away my purple skin and he took away my long white arms and he locked me in a tiny shell, with only my big black eyes. And there I stayed for ages and ages, with no light and no dark and no current.

The girl who is only a girl with big black eyes says:
And now I am here.
I sleep with a warm back and ankles entwined.
In the back of my throat there has been a trickle of blood all day. You can't tell when I brush my teeth, but when I bit his arm there was a circle of blood and it wasn't his. I can taste it when I swallow. It’s filling up my stomach. I’m never hungry.
I must be careful not to swallow the world or he will lock me up again. I must be careful.

Beings who can only relate to each other through symbolic representation are doomed to be imaginary forever.

The Fun of Feces

This has been an ongoing drama in my tiny little apartment. Why won't the cat stop scooting her butt on our couches/beds/random pieces of clothing on the floor?

Recently Sean and I had come to the conclusion that she was doing it on purpose. We saw her lean down and clean herself all the time. And immediately after she would lean forward, paws in front, intent look on her face.....

We've thrown toilet paper, books, pens, at her. Nothing deters her. She knows she's not supposed to be doing it, because when I glare at her and point my finger, she stops and walks away, like nothings wrong.

This morning, I took a wet towel and scrubbed down my cats ass. It was disgusting. Nothing but poop and more poop.

Then I rubbed some anti-inflammatory/antibiotic cream on her poor bright red butthole. And I waited.

I knew she wouldn't be able to take something on her ass, so I waited for her to clean it or scoot it. Something to prove one way or the other if this was voluntary or born out of neccesity.

And the good news is.......she didn't scoot it off! But she also didn't clean it off! She tried like hell, but she really couldn't reach it. She could reach everywhere around there, and she really put her back into it. But the cream remained. Which is great! It means she isn't scooting because she has to clean it, she's scooting because she can't clean it and it probably itches like crazy.

This is actually good news because it means I can stop having cat feces all over my house eventually. I just have to clean my cats butt three times a day and put cream on it. Yay!

And the bad news is....I just ate some coffee ice cream and now there is a long brown smear on the side of my hand. Which I think is ice cream.

Rainy Thursday

It feels very quiet and doomy outside. Somebody on livejournal said it feels like it must be raining everywhere. I'm actually glad its dark outside, because I'm off today. Usually on my off days I just want to sit around and read all day, and cook. But when its sunny, it feels like I should be motivated and hyperactive. The sun is a big giant guilt trip. Rainy days afford me a little fat girl relief.

Today I've done nothing for the past four hours but read Fitzgerald short stories and squish the cat with various body parts. Now I'm going hunting for baguettes, prosciutto ,and pecans.

Christopher Walken was on the Daily Show recently, and he said "The only reason I'm a good cook is because I can afford expensive ingredients." Amen Mr. Walken. Reading the Food sections of the NYT and LA Times is my version of Entertainment Tonight. For dinner today we'll be having prosciutto and tomato sandwiches, spinach pecan salad, and some desert yet to be determined by the trip to Galluci's.

It would be far more impressive if I was making this dinner for my boyfriend in a clean house though :(