this can mean only one thing

The waste basket under my desk has moved ever so slightly twice in the last five minutes.

I am clearly dealing with a dangerous mouse situation.

Call the police if I'm gone for long.

dilettante

Growing up is hard. This is because you have to learn to be honest. And to be honest with yourself. And to be honest with yourself ABOUT yourself. I have a lot of trouble with this.

I know this, though: I am a dilettante, a feigner, a hypocritical dabbler in nearly everything I talk about.

No one believes me when I say this. That is because I spent a good deal of my life until relatively recently perfecting hypocritical dabbling. I am the girl from elementary school who laughed at your jokes and swooned over your heartthrobs while having absolutely no clue what you were talking about. I am the girl from junior high who ewwwed over dirty slang while internally, frantically, trying to figure out what the words meant.

I once had a blog called "fauxhemia." This is because I knew I was a fake. I secretly wanted to be part of a cadre of cool internet writers, despite the fact that I couldn't really write (though I occasionally hit home while venting spleen or if I landed accidentally upon a cute gimmick like a love story between myself and a brand of soda).

After (though not necessarily because) I hit on the idea of making my phoniness a focal point in itself, with a name and a blog and everything, a couple of things happened without my intending them to. One is that some of the people whose writing I admired became actual figures in my life, and for some reason that to this day hasn't registered with me, seemed to take me seriously. The other is that my very assertion that I wasn't funny, wasn't witty, wasn't a good writer and wasn't exactly an intellectual bombshell in general started more and more to look and feel like a schtick.

Awhile ago, realizing that I was, first of all, secure enough to admit some faults, and secondly, in danger of being exposed as a know-nothing posing as a know-it-all, I decided to preempt by being more insistent in my denials of what I felt were false impressions. False impressions are awful because they create expectations. You will not find anyone more likely to disappoint than me, when it comes to questions like, "You know such-and-such a director?" or "Have you read such-and-such a book?" because people are under the impression that I have a vast repository of knowledge about such respectable things, which is simply untrue.

So in the interest of setting the record straight, I started issuing a lot of denials. For example, I frequently get compliments on my taste in music and have begun debunking the myth. This is because the good music I have has nothing to do with my taste. I always, and I mean with a number of exceptions that you could count on one hand, always have gotten good music by siphoning off from friends. I have become increasingly eager to share that with anyone who is pleased by my musical taste.

Sometimes I also get respectful nods at what I'm reading or at what is on my bookshelves. This is because I own Smart Books, which in turn is because I can't throw away anything from college. It is also because I re-read stuff, which in turn is probably because I'm thick enough to need a second go for it to make any kind of dent. Books like these include The Name of the Rose, National Security and the Nuclear Dilemma, Arms and Influence, The Lord of the Rings (which isn't smart so much as large), and a host of books about politics from my dad. Books I am secretly more comfortable reading, maybe not in terms of the intellectual reward but of the ease of pressure on my fragile ego because I can at least get through them at a speed that lets me live with myself, include things whose back covers have an "X age and up" sticker.

Do you think less of me yet? I'm only getting started. Here is a list of things I regularly have to deny having read/heard/seen/memorized, to my own constant chagrin and the invariable shock and horror of my interrogator:

• Annie Hall
• Clerks
• most jazz
• most French movies
• lots of Nirvana
• Joy Division
• almost all fashion designers - purses, clothing, shoes, you name it
• The Godfather
• Die Hard
• any foreign language
• many Bond films
• many Hitchcock films
• until a year ago, Four Weddings and a Funeral, but then I saw it. Y'all are insane. That movie blows.
• Casablanca (I saw the first thirty minutes but then sex intervened)
• Are you ready for this? The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

The list really does go on and on. I am a real challenge to people who try not to judge others based on what they like.

And now that I've alienated everyone who based an opinion of me on some semblance of an idea that I am Brainy and Cool, let me say that while I fully admit - more fully than I thought I would, actually: I didn't really think I'd admit I hadn't read Kavalier and Clay - that what apparently comes off to some as an intelligent, cultured exterior is nothing more than thousands of pieces of facade cobbled together over the course of a lifetime, I still maintain that I am smart. The next thing I have to do to grow up is learn how to be proud of that on its own.

that's what freshman year of college will do to you

To this day, I can't smell cranberry juice without thinking of grocery store brand vodka.

once more into the ... cubicle

This weekend, I...

• Bought the new Decemberists album
• and donated to their fund for replacing all the stolen gear
• Found the fourth season of the West Wing on sale a good week and a half before the release date
• Was told I was pretty by a stranger
• Yelled at an incompetent Chipotle employee and realized that's the perfect place to yell at an incompetent food service employee since they can't spit in your food if you're right there when they're making it
• Had framboise, framboise, and framboise, all on different nights
• Looked through a tourist guide to Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan (with, I swear to god, a whole section devoted to Nagorno-Karabakh, which I could only pray was one page long with the words DON'T GO)
• Experienced the magic that is dirty risotto followed by bread pudding with amaretto sauce
• Re-read a paper I wrote in college. Why? Nobody knows.
• Lamented
• Missed dancing and brunch, but had a lot of sex

a laconic book review

Somebody buy me Being Dead or Quarantined by Jim Crace, because supposedly this guy is good, but Genesis sucked.

stupid birthdays

I've never been able to draw a crowd. You don't want me to organize your party, because no one will show. I'd say it's because no one likes me, but I want to avoid seeming self-pitying so I'll say it's a lifelong coincidence.*

Birthdays are always the worst. Part of the reason is that on most years, the weekend most logical for celebrating it is the weekend of Mothers Day. So as long as I've had friends with mothers in other cities who need to be doted on in person come early May, I've had a greatly reduced pool of potential partygoers to celebrate the passing of years with me. For my 21st birthday I went out to dinner with my three roommates and then drove to my "ex" boyfriend's place and had a big argument (and then sex, but whatever). For my 20th, disappointing dinner with the boyfriend. 19th - my first and only surprise party, a Tuesday afternoon half-hour cupcake fest in my dorm suite with half a dozen friends before people split up to study for midterms. All but maybe one of my birthday parties before then, when I had the courage to attempt to throw one, were dismal failures.

Not that I never have fun. The cupcake fest was an utter surprise. My first legal drink, bookended as it was by emotional-baggage-heavy fighting, was perfect to have with just the girls. Last year about ten friends and I unintentionally crashed a wedding reception at a pub in (San Diego's) Little Italy, and I got a T-shirt printed with the eternal truism, "Guns Don't Kill People. People With Mustaches Kill People." Gifts don't get much better. And the pre-birthday party a couple weeks earlier, though about half the size I'd hoped for and completely depressing in its beginnings - an empty bar, me alone with a pint - must have ended ok, since I can't remember.

The upshot is, if I make plans, they suck. But that doesn't prevent my friends from being fun and awesome and giving me cool T-shirts during whatever lame thing I'm doing to celebrate.

Which is good, since I just discovered that some of my best, closest friends here won't be here for my next birthday, which I'll celebrate the day before, on May 7. They're all missing it for ridiculous reasons, too, like business trips, wedding planning trips, and as always, Mothers Day. Pschaw. Who cares about doing your job so you can pay for your life, preparing for one of the most important things you'll ever do, and MOTHERS? Mothers are almost as awful as children, puppies and happiness.

God, I hate happiness.

Anyway, I'll probably try to have some kind of event anyway, but don't expect good stories. It's going to be a I have to find a new job and new place to live but at least I survived until my 23rd birthday ... oops it's only May 7 ... *falls on third rail* sort of deal.

* Yeah right. It's obviously because no one likes me.

sloth

In the past several days, I've been doing a lot of things that make me feel like a worthless pile - napping, being sick, napping, eating and then napping, sleeping in, watching too many DVDs, staying indoors. This is all stuff that's supposed to make you get healthy, and while I'm not sick anymore, I'm now in this slump, this cave-dweller-like existence.

I tried to make things better last night by baking muffins to have in the morning, but five minutes after I turned the oven on to preheat, the fire alarm sounded. Stupid oven. It was a very Carrie-Bradshaw-in-the-country sort of moment. "I hate this!"

With a little bit of determination I should be able to pull an extra hour at the beginning and end of every work day this week, which will take the edge off having clocked a pathetic thirteen hours since Monday. What's that you say? You don't care? Reader, back button. Maybe you've met.

For some reason, whenever I miss work, I go back feeling like everyone's upset with me and I need to make it up to them. I probably have an everlasting guilty conscience on account of the nasty lie I told in order to quit my third-to-last job. Aggravated by the fact that I'm screwing myself since I don't get paid for the sick time. Whatever it is, it makes me feel icky and I think I'm possibly too vocal about it. On Wednesday, my boss scolded me for emphasizing how sorry I was to miss work.

Things seem stagnant. Browsing through iTunes is fruitless. Everything is either old, or new and recently overplayed. I've been watching episodes of The West Wing from the one season I own, just to pass the time, and I've seen them so many times the 90 mph dialogue seems slow to me. TV is better for passing the time than a movie - such a commitment. Since I don't get anything but Spanish-language channels, it's The West Wing or The Office. The Office is six 30-minute episodes so you can guess how many times I've gone through that one.

I'm even sick of reading. I go through the motions but it's forced. Nothing grabs me, even if it's decent (though I did have a dream about having threesomes the other night after falling asleep reading The Witches of Eastwick). The food I've been eating is repetitive - soup for awhile, then frozen enchiladas, with chips and salsa while it's heating.

I'm still tired but I'm so sick of bed that I can't go to sleep when I'm in it, unless it's the middle of the day and there's no reason for me to be sleepy. I want a mug of hot coffee but I'm afraid it will keep me up. I want to watch something but I'm afraid I'll be bored before it starts plus feel even more sloth-like by the time it finishes. I want springtime to come but I don't like the way a season's first warmth and sunshine whisper that you're a lazy slug if you're not outside enjoying them, just as I don't like being told to get out of bed. Something about it always feels insulting.

Not that there's nothing to celebrate right now. Two of my good friends are probably as I type this having more sex than I had in my Witches of Eastwick dream, for example. (Not with one another.) I just bought fresh half and half. I have two uncashed checks in my wallet. I have plans for tomorrow with Her Lady of Fishiness, His Royal Biscuitness, Shivery "Getting Hitched Five Months from Today" Timbers, and The Owlest of Owls. I spent the bulk of the afternoon with Conrad, coffee, assorted pastries and the Times, and spent the rest of it flipping through America the Book and watching Dress to Kill. And there's always the internet.

Tomorrow morning it's back to the real world if it kills me.

accounting

In case you've been wondering, and to explain the emptiness here - a soulless accounting of what I've been up to.

Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Monday: San Diego
Tuesday: catching up at work
Wednesday: sick part one
Thursday: catch up on work again
Friday: sick part two: start to throw up on subway, turn around and go home, wonder from where exactly April's rent will come

ribbons you might make if you were easily amused

things i need to do in san diego this weekend

• Eat good cheap mexican food
• Eat bad (well, cheaper) mexican food
• Eat In N Out
• Take swimsuit out of suitcase so as to simulate the possibility of use
• Spend as much time outside as I possibly can, considering it won't feel so tropical to my friends as it will to me
• Go to beach, be disappointed by San Diego weather as per usual, leave beach
• Go to tanning salon so as to fool NYC friends and co-workers into thinking I spent weekend at beach
• Eat more mexican food
• Look at ocean, re-affirm belief that the Pacific is better
• GEEK ALERT get Mac OSX upgrade from ex-boyfriend hahaha END GEEK ALERT
• Give a six-month-overdue birthday present
• Gossip enough to make up for life's almost total absence of San Diego gossip in past seven months
• Wear sandals (note to self: paint toenails, remove winter grime from boot-bound feet, etc.) (kidding - my feet are TINY and PERFECT and NEVER GRIMY)
• Drink self silly (duh)
• Chide self for every non-mexican meal except In N Out and maybe the occasional detoxifying foodstuff
• Avoid the general area of my college campus, as am still in FUCK I'm glad to be done with school phase
• Avoid also the twenty pounds that could easily be gained in drink, mexican food, cheeseburgers animal style, and the lack of walking due to travel by car rather than public transport
• Note frequently the fact that I can't see my own breath

Did I miss anything?

support our ribbons

Tired of those "Support Our Troops" ribbon-shaped bumper stickers and magnets? Friend-of-a-friend Jake and some buddies of his have the answer.

Check out SupportOurRibbons.com.

yup, it only flies when you're having fun

I like to be in charge of my own time. I like to own it. I like to know that I'm going to be having dinner from 7:00 to 8:30 followed by a movie at 9:00. Or to know that I'm not doing anything after 5:00, that it's mine to figure out as I go along.

I don't like unexpected changes, which is why I often don't make last-minute plans with someone during an entirely free day, if I've already roped it off for my own lazy use. It's also part of the reason I'm so angrily intolerant of being stood up, and relatedly, being made to wait. I fucking. Hate. Waiting. And it's why, if I blocked off a day for a reason that evaporates, I don't know what to do with myself.

I like to be able to plan my alone days. I don't like being unexpectedly alone at home, thinking, "well, I guess to justify my existence I should at least drop off my laundry," whereas planning a laundry/tidying/cleaning day in advance actually makes me feel useful.

Furthermore, I just can't handle down time when I'm otherwise agitated. Today I very nearly started crying because someone mentioned a show in May and I could only think that I might not be around to see it - May, that is, not the show necessarily.

(I don't know if I've ever mentioned it on this site, but I can't stop thinking I'm going to die before my 23rd birthday. This is mainly frustrating because it occupies my mind, for a pretty big fraction of every day, with thoughts about death and how terrified I am of it, and because it forces me every day to chastise myself for this retarded suspicion which, for whatever reason, I can't seem to give up.)

Plus I'm fucking hungry.

I guess I should grow up and be able to deal with changes in plans gracefully, especially when the changes are for very good reasons. But with two months to live, growing up seems pointless. I'm just going to get an enchilada and a beer and hope that makes me forget how stupid I'm being.

An addition: My casual references to having only a limited time left on this earth are meant to make light of the fact that I have this silly paranoid fear, and hopefully won't be taken as offensive to the fact that many people have actual life-and-death concerns or memories. Plus, my boyfriend has promised not to leave my side for the last couple days before my birthday, to keep an eye out for any rogue life-taking muggers, buses, spiked drinks, disease-infested subway poles, etc., so we just might thwart fate.

down time

Fifteen minutes until I vacate my desk. What oh what shall I do? Hello, Movable Type!

Two years ago when I started this blog, and during the two years preceding that when I had other blogs, I could easily spend fiften idle minutes at blogspot, hammering away at the keyboard with whatever miserable or ecstatic or irate thoughts I was thinking.

I can't (or don't, or whatever) do that anymore, for reasons that will only be elaborated upon when I am either (a) in the mood to over-share with the internet, or (b) drunk.

So instead I'm going to have to entertain myself by thinking about underwear.

Underwear underwear underwear underwear underwear underwear.

my only post related to the gates

Frankly, I've heard enough naysaying about The Gates. So you don't like it. So what? You don't have to bore me with your condescending comments about why. To be clear, I'm not defending The Gates - I'm telling the people who love to hear themselves say how dumb it is to shut up already, I really didn't ask.

Not that I mind ANY comments about it. For example, this exchange this afternoon made me happier than god.

Co-worker Deb: I don't like the way my hair dye turned out.
Jen, me: I like it!
Deb: It's orange.
Jen: It's not orange, it's saffron.