But this is.
Things T-Town (the girl, not the city) and I have decided after discussing our incredibly drama-filled weekends:
Things I did this weekend:
1. Washed my sheets and futon cover (read: ALSO a sheet).
2. Vacuumed!
3. Got Titan de-furred!
4. WASHED AND VACUUMED MY CAR. Which really needed it.
And I'd like to thank the City of Seattle for all of this. For allowing me to be a yuppie. Which may be the easy way out, but at least it got done, right?
Was that hard to understand?
I'll try again. In the middle of watching a very nice team of men washing and vacuuming out my car, I called T-Town (the girl, not the city). "Seattle is amazing," I said. "How so?" she said.
Let me put it this way: in Tacoma, which is quite a large city on the general scale but still smallish in terms of services, I had a house. And a yard. And a dog brush, and a hose, and soap. While I COULD take my car to be washed professionally--i.e., pay someone else to do it, because it's not like we're talking about the Daytona crew here--it seemed like a waste. I had space! I had parking! My hose reached all the way to my car! Besides, who was I to say, "Oh, I don't need the exercise/chance to prance around in my bikini/impetus to stay looking good in my bikini."
(Speaking of, has anyone else seen that incredibly on-point Women's Health Magazine commercial? The commercial is awesome, but the magazine is tripe--and I've eaten tripe. Their opening article this month is: Can You Be...Slimmer??? Yes, I can, once I throw up all over your magazine.)
But I digress. The point is, I had a do-it-yourself dogwashing place and a yard and a dog comb to brush Titan out, and a hose, and SPACE. I had space.
Here in Seattle, I have two parking spots--one in back of the other in a narrow column. My landlord has a hose--but it won't reach to the parking lot below the apartment building. I still have a dog brush--but no place to brush Titan out unless I drive him out to a park or forest and brush him out there.
Fortunately, in a big city, you can just...PAY someone to do all that for you!
Not that I couldn't have done that in Tacoma, like I said, but...in Seattle, I have no choice. Really. REALLY. I have no choice. Especially with my car.
So I pay people to do stuff I can't do for myself and do my best to shake off the Yuppie Shadow that haunts me, every day.
In other news:
1. Eff you. I have to do something with all this nervous energy that I'm NOT spending on jail, right?
2. My brain still hurts. It hurts on the inside.
3. (That MIGHT have something to do with the coffee and the lack of sleep. But Mom, I've been eating right, I promise!)
4. My connection has gone out five times in an hour.
5. And Finally, What Happened With That Damn Jail Term?
Very simple. The cop's calibration on his laser was out of date!
He still paced me at 85 mph, which is still pretty reckless, but it's not jail time. No jail time, no suspended jail time, no revoked license, nothing--but a $200 fine! Yay!
The REAL kicker is that apparently 97 mph is an eye-brow raising, shock-whistling speed. I was FAMOUS today, y'all. (And not in a good way like before.) I was the fastest speed case on the docket. Other lawyers that I called (when I was shopping around) had remembered me and my excessive speed, and they were all watching Garrett, my attorney. One of them asked Garrett, "Hey, where's your high-speed girl?"...right as I walked up behind him. (Garrett's reply: "Actually, she's right behind you!")
So, there's a fine, and a reckless driving conviction, but no other consequence. It's a heavy speeding ticket! YAY!
Now to bum around in D.C. for two days while I wait to fly early standby home. Sigh.
But I don't want to talk about that right now.
Instead, two things that I really want to talk about, but are impossible to explain in any words on this planet:
1. How much I hate T-Mobile.
2. How much I can't stand annoying noise.
How Much I Hate T-Mobile
Such a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is that they once tricked me into buying a year-long contract--that I couldn't get out of. Thirty dollars a month. For 12 months. I wanted to punch T-Mobile in the throat every time. Some months, that payment made me OVERDRAWN. For a CONTRACT I could not GET OUT OF.
(Full Disclosure: I'm using a T-Mobile connection to type this. And it's just as craptastic as every other connection I've ever used, thereby proving my point.)
But I HAD to. Kind of like how I HAD to go to Starbucks.
Because in Seattle, which is basically fueled by free wireless internet and bottomless cups of coffee as dark as our skies, both things--coffee and internet (and darkness) are in HEAVY supply. Four strong connections bleed over into my apartment. Capitol Hill is wired by the city. Every coffeeshop worth its salt offers free wi-fi.
And of course, the coffee kicks ASS.
Here in D.C., where I sit in Foggy Bottom after being released from my impending doom, the closest I can get to this feeling is, of course, the nearest Starbucks. Its internet is not free--TEN DAMN BUCKS for a Daypass--and the coffee is mediocre. But it's the closest fascimile to Home I can get. Yes, I could have gone to a Cosi for cheaper internet, and I probably should have. But the coffee. And the ATMOSPHERE. And the...the...it's like being home. It's a crappy imitation, yes. But it's as close to home as I can get right now. And since all I want to do for once in my life is go home, I'm a slave to Starbucks from now until I leave.
Sigh.
How Much I Hate Annoying Noise
This is even more difficult to describe, since it's, you know. Noise. And these are, you know, words. And if millions of poets since the dawn of time have still not succeeded in connecting words on a page directly to the other four senses--although some of them have come damn close--then who am I to try?
But I will anyway.
Okay. It's not noise, per se. After all, I live in a noisy area. Usually four or five sirens go by on a nightly basis. (Club Drug Overdoses, my favorite!) I love loud music. I like to shout when I talk. I like to scream when...well...you know. I'm a loud girl!
But I'm not repetitive. If repetitive noise starts to occur--be it an alarm clock, a smoke alarm--OH MY GOD THE NOISE THAT DROVE THIS POST JUST STARTED AGAIN AND I DON'T HAVE MY EARPHONES OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP. Whew. Okay.
Sorry about that. Repetitive noise, as I was saying, does this thing to me. It makes the imp on the inside CLAW ITS WAY OUT OF MY BRAIN. MY BRAIN MATTER SHREDS BEFORE ITS FRANTIC CLAWING OH GOD MAKE IT STOP.
It would be safe to say that when the smoke alarm goes off, for example, I cannot focus on ANYTHING ELSE UNTIL I CAN MAKE IT GO OFF OH GOD MAKE IT STOP PLEASE I'LL DO ANYTHING.
Yes. It would be safe to say that I freak the fuck out. (The Kiwi was over just a few nights ago and watched this happen. He was calmly continuing his sentence, assuming it would turn itself off in a few minutes once the smoke dissipated, and I was screaming at him: WHAT ARE YOU DOING CAN'T YOU HEAR THE SMOKE ALARM OH GOD WHY ARE YOU STILL TALKING OH GOD YOU DON'T DESERVE TO BREATHE UNTIL YOU CAN STOP YOUR MONOLOGUE AND PAY ATTENTTION TO YOUR SURROUNDINGS FOR ONCE IN YOUR GODDAMN LIFE OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD THE SMOKE ALARM!
Perhaps it would be safe to say that in addition to the imp that CLAWS its way out of my brain, an army of small-brained mice runs around and around a cloistered piece of cheese while the water rises on a small family trapped in a boat and a twister descends on a tiny, defenseless town as the wind whips cows through the air. It's THAT BAD.
And I am not getting better about it, and I don't care.
The "Before" shot:
The "During" shot:
The "After" shot:
WOO!
Also, huge shout-out to my boy Mark, who took me as a passenger on his sailboat yesterday out on Lake Washington. Pictures of the Lake, NOT taken by Mark or myself:
Marina.
Bellevue. Bill Gates lives somewhere by there, on the Lake.
Nature Shot.
More Nature.
We didn't take our own cameras because the boat is REALLY, REALLY small. Anything we brought had the possbility of going over the side at any time, and if I lost my camera...well...I would cry. A lot. For days.
Besides, I spend most of the sailing trip in my underwear, so would the pictures even allowed on this blog? (Hey. HEY. I had to pee, and we were miles from the marina, and there was no wind...so I stripped, dove in, and peed in the water. Happy?)
I could not for the life of me find my black bikini, or else I would have worn it. SORRY. Mark wasn't sorry.
Last night, in the middle of a downward spiral--a SERIOUS downward spiral--I tried to post, but my spotty (stolen) wireless connection prevented it. Probably a good thing.
Because today I feel tons better, and I think it's because I'm at work. I can't believe I'm saying this out loud, but it's true.
Being home is like being trapped in the darkest recesses of my own mind. There's laundry to be done, Titan hasn't been groomed, I need to vacuum, I should be writing, I should be putting more pictures up, something, ANYTHING, I'm broke, I'm going to jail, OH MY GOD I'M HAVING A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN.
Being at work involves lights, a faster internet connection, more people, less opportunity to waste time playing Freecell, Things To Do, a fancy color printer. It's better. And that's all I have to say about that.
It's cloudy here today after four days of GORGEOUS sunshine. Although gray is the Seattle standard, it's almost painful to have beautiful weather shown to us and then snatched away.
It's a Blue Friday for me. I am wearing unfortunate jeans and having a bad hair day. All I can think about is the future. Not the immediate future--THAT's filled with jail and brokeness.
The FUTURE future, on the other hand, is the early spring of 2009. It has me sipping coffee on sun-drenched balconies in Spain. I'm a published author--maybe three times, by then. I have gotten a work visa for Canada and ski-bummed for a winter in Whistler during the 2008 Olympic Winter Games. I have been to Cuba. I have taken a road trip with my girls to Mexico. I have camped and hiked and rock-climbed. I have been to Africa.
I am 25, in early 2009 I'll be 28, it is three short years from now and I won't make it. Let's get real. In three years, I'll still be working here. I will have been nowhere. I will still be in debt.
Really, I mean it this time! Check me out in the Stranger, now on newsstands everywhere. They printed my letter!
(It's the one titled 108 Pages of Suck.)
Number of Sparks currently in my fridge: 4
Number of Sparks ORIGINALLY in my fridge: 6
Number of days ago that I bought the six-pack: 3
Number of girls that will be appearing at my apartment needing Sparking, including me: 5
Number of days this will be happening in: 2
Number of Sparks I need to buy: at least 17.
Days until jail time: 8
Days until I leave for jail: 7
Days of vacation I will waste: all of them.
Dollars I spent for a one-way plane ticket: 190.
Dollars I will spend on lawyer fees: 900.
Number of dollars I will have left over: 0.
Way I will get back to Seattle with no money left: Hitchiking, maybe?
Weight, in pounds, this morning: 137.
Weight, in pounds, after walking back from D.C.: 120.
Hey, it's an exercise program!
Number of cigarettes I had yesterday: 3
Number of cigarettes I will have on Friday, the Night of Debauchery: 217
Number of cigarettes I will smoke in preparation for going to jail: 1,489.
Number of games of Freecell I will play: 16,834.
Number of hot U.K. guys I talked to last night: 3
Number of drinks I got bought for me: 11
Ways in which I love Rolls-Royce: 15
Pounds of hair that Titan is shedding: 4,000.
Number of days until I get him trimmed: Possibly forever, see, number of dollars I will have left, above.
Number of ways I've considered selling myself: 6
Number of ways I love my friends: Countless.
So, as always happens when I try to work on my actual WRITING--as in, stuff that has a beginning, middle, and end, and maybe some kind of point--my blogging has completely disappeared. I'm trying to get art back into my life, and while I'm succeeding in that--stage-managing a show about femme queer art and trying to write a script for a playwriting contest--my blogging has completely fallen by the wayside.
In some ways, living by oneself allows one to tunnel further and further into oneself, becoming certainly more insular and, if one is also obsessive complusive, then exponentially more narcissistic as well. Examples of insularity: because I am naturally a dirty person--shout-outs to the two people among my reading audience who have lived with me--I am likely, with no outside influence, to get dirtier and dirtier. Last night after wearing the same clothes for almost a month, taking them to Pittsburgh, and moving in them, not to mention usually sleeping in them, I realized that I STUNK.
Also I realized that I had a pot that had originally held mac + cheese soaking in my sink--for days now--and the mac+cheese water STUNK. Enough to put me off mac and cheese for a long, long time.
And I could have let those travesties go on even longer--Titan wouldn't mind, certainly--but I pulled my socks up and got to it. I did two loads of laundry and washed all my dishes. I hung up my clothes. I finally unpacked--fully--from Pittsburgh. I went to bed at 1:30, tired but content.
See what I mean? There is nothing interesting about the above story WHATSOEVER. I'm excited to have a clean house, and even more excited that the entire apartment now smells like Mrs. Meyers Lemon Verbana scent, but no one else should be excited by this.
I could mention that I was hit on, fully and obviously, while buying Sparks--a cute young punk saw my Blockbuster bag, asked me what movies I was watching, and then said, "Would you like company?" I was so suprised I asked him to repeat himself, and he said, slowly and clearly, "Would you like. Company?" And I smiled and said no, but I appreciated the offer--true--and went off, smiling to myself. And I might be able to make a good story out of that, but that's not HALF as important to ME as the fact that I have a clean apartment--well, clean-ish, I still have vaccuumed or fully unpacked--and so I don't want to write about it. I only want to write about boring stuff. Like laundry.
Sigh.
For all those who laid bets at the time of the New Male Roommate announcment, we're dating now. Just so you know.
Like last Saturday, this saturday I woke up early. Only earlier. 7:00 am, this time. And could not go back to sleep.
I don't remember this ability to wake up early from the last time I lived alone--but I barely remember anything about the last time I lived alone. It's a mishmash of gorgeous hikes in more gorgeous weather, knocks on my door at all hours that preceded yet another complaint that I was making too much noise, doggy day care as I was traveling for my Bob, fighting with TheBoy, and eating. Compulsively. (The gorgeous hikes were both a reason to spend as much time as possible out of the apartment, and a way to burn off the calories I was ingesting because of the stress of living in that apartment.)
The weeks I have spent in THIS apartment, however, have been some of the best of my life, and I say that about a time period in which I broke up with a boy (one of them) and got arrested. I was terrified about living alone--I'll admit it. I was scared it would be like the last time, or even the time before, in which Titan and I lived in a beautiful studio and I was depressed as hell.
But it hasn't been. I see now what everyone is talking about when they say everyone needs to live alone. Everyone needs to live alone, even if they hate it at first. It took me three tries to find the right combination of neighborhood, apartment, and neighbors. From me to you, if you hate living alone, I say: stick with it! Try and try again, and when you are successful, you will discover how much you enjoy your own company, and you will never be lonely again.
Now that I have the strength of my convictions, I made what may turn out to be the worst decision of my life just a few hours ago, and I don't care. I got a call from a lawyer, whom I had called yesterday, and within a few minutes on the phone I knew he wouldn't be the lawyer for me. He talked...very...uh, uh...slowly...and he called me...from...his vacation...while...talking...to his, uh, uh,...little boy. And he talked. And talked. And TALKED. 37 minutes later he was STILL talking. He took long side trips to tell me about his 30-year-career, his kids, how his littlest was definitely going to law school (because he comes from a chain of lawyers. duh.) And halfway through I thought, This man represents everything that I hate about the patriarchy. Because of that he may be a better choice to help me win my case. But I simply cannot give my money to him without a part of me dying. I hate him and all of his ilk. I cannot support him and would rather die on the barricades.
Vive la revolution.
Me: "Can I just say right now that I am listening to Ashlee Simpson. WILLINGLY."
K: "I have both of her CDs. And Lindsey Lohan's."
Me: "Darn, I could have had you burn them for me!"
K: "Trust me, you don't want Lindsey's." (Because ANYONE SANE would want ANY of the CDs we're discussing?)
Me: "Okay."
K: "I like the first CD of Ashlee's better, but her voice is better on the second one."
Me: "..."
K: "I seriously can't believe we're having this conversation."
Me: "Me either. I was just trying to figure out what to type in response."
K: "..."
Me: "Okay. We're officially moving on from A. Simpson, that talentless whore of the music industry who inexplicably has us in her thrall."
K: "That'll work."
And, talking to T-Town:
Me, talking about a boy: "Besides, we know it's not what he looks like, it's the fact that he drives: (1) a Jetta 1.8T (new. Red.) and (2) A DUCATI."
T-Town: "I don't care if his jetta can cause an earthquake and then fly away from it, it is still a JETTA. The ducati is cool though, if you are into that sort of thing. And I know you are."
Me: "Hey!"
T-Town: "One has to raise their standards. A Jetta is by no means a bad car, I am just saying it is not lust inducing."
Me (muttering under my breath): "It induced MY lust."
T-Town: "And that is hard?"
The talented and funny Beau, talking about my upcoming jail time:
"It's too bad that you aren't a celebrity. Then you'd for sure get suspended jail time. Wait...why aren't you a celebrity?"
Me: "It's on my to-do list."
Beau (pretending to be me): "Okay, I've become a fanatically successful chemical engineer, I've sexually dominated Seattle, I've moved into a kickass apartment...oh SHIT, I forgot to become a celebrity! What is WRONG with me?"
Did I mention I have a very nice camera? A Canon SLR, 30 years old, that takes the most gorgeous pictures ever? and yet, they are not digital?
And did I mention I have a camera phone?
And did I mention that my camera phone pictures turn out very poorly on the blog, and I don't have easy access to a scanner for the Canon pictures? (Blatant lie. I do have access to a scanner. But I hardly ever develop my actual pictures. Yes, really. I have boxed of undeveloped film sitting around my apartment. That I have successfully moved at least four times now. But I digress.)
So, I don't have a lot of digital pictures. Of important things. Like, say, my haircut. That happened THREE MONTHS AGO.
BUT I DO NOW!
A bunch of very hot girls, and me. I'm on the bottom right, with the weird mouth thing happening. I think I'm about to say something? And you can see for yourself: short hair!
Me, drunk, with a drunk work friend. Awesome night. Yes, I stick my tongue out a lot when I'm drunk. And I have short hair!
A cute shot of my Big Brother Ethan and myself. (With short hair, in case you didn't notice.) Many thanks to his lovely wife and my lovely sister Sylvia!
And finally,
My favorite picture of my current life status, ever. Note the labeled parts.
And to their friends who love them anyway!
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