What sucks about positive change is that it requires time. Planning and preparation and work before the change can happen.

I'm not happy with my life. With who I am. Where I am. Once you stop pretending everything's fine and realize these things, you feel them more acutely. It's hard NOT to think of it. The suckage is everywhere, no avoiding.

I can fix this. Of course I can. But it takes time and work. And until it can change, there is the acute suckage everywhere. Transitional misery.

I hate it. I hate waking up in the morning and I hate going to bed at night, another day behind me that was filled with the same miserable feeling. I hate my own face and my own voice and just about every thought that pops into my head. I'm sick of being on the verge of tears all the time. I hate that there's no other life to escape into. I hate that this is just the way it is until it gets better.

I feel like 98% of my life has been waiting for a state of crapulence to come to an end. That's a lot of crapulence.

I dunno. Whatever. I'm just tired. I want a do-over on life. Yeah, yeah - take a number.

I'm tired. Really tired. In various ways, but the most overpowering one currently is physical.
I need to choose a book to read from this stack I have. Can't decide. Dithering dithering.
Need to call Tom back. And my aunt.
Need to mail off that book.
Should send that email and volunteer already. What am I waiting for? Ditherer.
It got cold all of a sudden tonight. Wrapped in fleece, in August. Bye bye summer.
My kicks are marginally less laughable. And the Zone bar was pretty good. If you're keeping track.
Work is extra un-good. Meeting tomorrow that I just don't want to deal with.
I don't want to deal with any of it. Tomorrow or any other day. Ever.
Is something wrong with my ear? I think something's wrong with my ear. Huh.
Really really tired.
Yeah. Sleep. Okay.

So I'm older now and have been kicked around by life a few (hundred) too many times to let myself get my hopes way up about much of anything. Sure, I can be optimistic and all. Little hope is easy. Big hope is what I'm just too tired for. I don't do a lot of dreaming, or wanting of things. Not like when I was young and would always be wanting one thing or another soooooo baaaaad. Now all I really want is to pay my bills and eat chinee noodles now and again. The little things matter more now and the big things just take so much energy and hurt like a motherfucker when they don't pan out.

Not that this is necessarily an age thing, at all. It's just me. I'm not so good at dreaming anymore. I think my last job embittered me a bit too much, quite frankly.

But anyway, I bring it up because suddenly? There's something I Really Really Want Bad. I get all starry-eyed and eager and ohpleaseohpleaseohpleasepleasepleeeeeease I'D DO ANYTHING PLEASE!! about it. Like a nine-year-old wanting a puppy. This is an alien feeling to me. Well maybe not alien - I remember it. But I'm rusty. It doesn't make me giddy, it just kind of makes me ... um... wanna throw up. It's all very fraught. And I've kept telling myself to not get all twisted up about it, but I mean it's no use. The human heart is not designed to live in a state of hopelessness. And as I've been allowing mine mere crumbs for so long, it's gotten its revenge by going all-out on this particular Big Hope. Give it an inch and it takes a mile. Or two or twenty thousand.

Anyway. Sorta have heart palpitations now. Because I just threw my hat in the ring for sure, as it were. Because that's apparently what I need in the midst of a fairly debilitating depression: major rejection.

See, if I accept the rejection in my heart ahead of time, it makes it so much easier when it actually happens. Of course, once I'm rejected, I lose the ability to pleasantly daydream about it all day.

Oh god I thinkI might actually puke now.

Celebrate Smart Bitches Day with
Chas!
and
Kate!
(and Sandy, my beloved, where the hell are you? Come back. I miss you. Stop disappearing. Please okay thanks.)


A thought or two on chick lit

So I'm at the gym, struggling through this kinda new-to-me class (Round 30 ofthe infamous turbokick and I don't LIKE this round, guh) and there's this girl next to me and she is Very Cute. I tend to only notice extremes, and I noticed her as the kind of girl that guys always comment on. Tanned. Trim and shapely. Blonde. Face of an ingénue movie star.

I would like to thank Barbie (as I dubbed her in my head) for being even spazzier than me. She just had no sense of rhythm, poor thing. I really didn't think anyone could have less coordination than me, but there she was. But god love her - she kept going. She even shot me a few looks of desperation throughout the hour of rhythmic hyperventilation that is my new workout.

Then my brain snapped her into place as the heroine of a chick-lit novel (I would of course be the Wacky Sidekick Friend) and I started to see the appeal of a genre that has mostly just completely turned me off for all these years. Here she is: cute, fashionable, obviously upper-middle class. And yet she is, well, a dork. I totally stopped being annoyed by her (omg of course I was annoyed by cute lil Spandex Barbie at first sight, DUH, it just like throws me back into 8th grade PE which is a place I'd avoid at the cost of essential body parts, okay) and started to want to be her friend.

Not that all main characters in chick-lit are perfect-looking or anything, I don't mean that. But I guess I mean every chick-lit novel I've read paints this character that somehow I'm almost instantly annoyed with. They whine a lot. They're painted to be loser-ly, but there's just about nothing in their lives that qualifies as Loser. They're perfectly fine, really (they just need to suck it up, get some perspective, and stop fucking talking about shoes) except they get all tangled up on their insides, and somehow we're supposed to feel sorry for them.

I never do feel sorry for them. But take that tangled inside and show it on the outside - flailing along whilst sweating buckets - and I'm totally there. So I get it. Sympathetic character. If I could ever get past page 2 of most chick-lit, I might enjoy it some.

Another thing I recognize in it: when you feel like you get constantly kicked to the curb, and like you're invisible, like you're lesser or you just don't seem to matter. You know. Like: The chick-lit heroine gets a call from her mother that subtly (or not so subtly) tells her how she's just such a disappointment to the family - if she were married and had kids, she'd matter. Then she calls friends to complain about her mother, but one's in Tahiti for a month, the other's completely absorbed in a new boyfriend, the other can't hear her over the screaming toddlers. Then she goes to work, where she once again feels completely marginalized, and she begins questioning her whole existence, herself, and everything she's built her life on.

Then a Gerard Butler kinda guy shows up and makes everything all better forevermore! Who knows how, none of that matters, details details, who cares, cute guy! Everything's okay now! She isn't invisible anymore! She is totally worth something!

I can TOTALLY get behind that brand of fiction*.

Well - today I can, anyway.


*key word

----------

Incidentally, the best protein bar so far is now the Snickers Marathon. Like it's any surprise it'd be so damn tasty. I got the multi-grain.

----------

Also and maybe not so incidentally, I'm not sure what my favorite summer reading was. Harry Potter 7 was the best book experience - because of my niece and all that. And I have to agree with Heloise, who commented that she's tired out with Romance. I don't think I've read any at all this summer, and I haven't missed it. But I guess I'd maybe go with The Owl Service. That book was so frikken awesome.

Okay, so it's Monday yet again. Beginning of the last week of summer, traditionally speaking, as Labor Day is next week.

Anyway, it's

Smart Bitches Day

Maybe you should blog and tell us what was the best thing you read this summer? Or whatever else you might like to share. Comments open.

Updates

Books: I continue my reading streak, and a lot of it is Young Adult stuff. It's my new favorite escapism reading. I'm currently on my third Chrestomanci novel. After that, I've no clue what I'll move on to. But I do have a scribbled list here of books to look for at the library and the swap. And there's still a not-insignificant To Be Read pile, some of which may appeal to me at some point. But most of the ones in there look slightly depressing or too serious or something. If I rode the train every day (like I used to), those would be train-reading. Don't ask me why, but it's the profile they fit. Also please don't ask me to define that profile. I don't feel like thinking just now.

Mental State: Still abysmal. However, I did go to see my neffs last night. Well really I went to see the progress on the eye-talian's salon. (Did I mention she's opening her own salon? She is. It's all Very Very Exciting. And it looks fucking fantastic.) Then for supper, I took the boys out to the hot dog place down the street, which is weirdly veg-friendly. I've pretty much not been eating at all for the last week, aside from the occassional protein bar on the way to the gym. (My depressions take one of two routes: low-level = comfort eating; critical level = constant nausea and disinterest in food.) But then I sat with the neffs and asked about their new school year, their friends, their parents, their lives in general, and I ate everything on my plate as they chattered away. Spent the night and did a decent job on my very large breakfast this morning, as well. So there's some progress.

Turbokick: Went to the Saturday class yesterday morning and did the whole thing, including all 3 turbo rounds. The instructor was all "You guys are amazing on Saturday, look at you!" I assure you she was speaking to the entire class excluding me. These are like totally hard-core people, with perfect form and unbelievably fired up. It was embarrassing to be in their midst. Also, I have to work on my kicks. It turns out I really really SUCK at kicking. Especially back kicks (I suppose because of my embarrassing lack of balance). I'm a total spaz, it's really pathetic. But it really is a fun workout. A million times more interesting than anything else I've spent an hour doing at the gym. Give me a year at this and I might actually lok cool when doing it. Well, parts of it. The non-kicking parts.

The Weather: Yesterday and today have been gorgeous. Blue skies, gentle breeze, sun, no rain. I know lots of people are still under 3 feet of water, but everything is fine in my little corner of the world.

The Hunt: I'm still working on my resumé, and I dunno that I mentioned it, but I engaged a service to help re-write it. So far, I am not wholly impressed with this service. But it's not at all a complete waste. It's a good re-formatting they did, and they came up with a lot of things that I wouldn't have. But anyway, it's taking longer, since each revision (I send back edits, and we know how critical I am) adds several days on to the process. So I'm not actually hunting yet and not sure when I will be. Still, it's always good to have an updated resumé ready to go, no matter how tedious the updating of it may be.

Funny Brother Thing: Yesterday, Bro4 said when I arrived: "Hey when's the last time you changed your oil and filled the tires and checked out your car? Do you even know?" Duh, of course I know, and I'm almost due for an oil change actually. So he grabs my keys and heads out. Completely unsolicited. The oil was clean as a whistle, and all the other fluids were full and fine and whatever. The safety catch on the hood latch was slightly messed up, so that gave him something to do - but then he looked... like, forlorn or something. He just kept looking at the engine in this sorta lost way. Finally I said, "Oh hey I noticed a couple days ago that one of my headlights is out!" That perked him up. He was off to the store for a bulb and then screwdrivers and bolts and WD-40 and his hands nice n dirty. I dunno when it happened, but he's somehow made it his own grave responsibility to make sure that everything on my car is as perfect as it can be. When asked why, he says, "Because I don't want you dead yet. YET." It's very nice of him, I must say. And it keeps him from playing too much computer game stuff. So I'm all for it.

Right, well, that's about it. I'm off to read some more, or something. I may even do the dishes, you never know.

I'm sorry, did I say I got the day off of work? What I meant to say was that I drove to work, learned the power was out, was sent home, and was then called 3 hours later and told the power was back on and I had to gather my staff and come back in.

What me? Enraged and disgusted? Why no, never. Whyever would you think such a thing.

Fortunately I was on the other line with Snookie (whose power is back on and who got the workout of her life by bailing out her flooded basement with a 2-gallon bucket) when my boss called to tell me this. And something just snapped as I came back on the line with Snooks and told her I had to hang up and go to work. Because I've had a life that's been getting progressively shittier over the last few weeks and I'm sort of in meltdown mode and this just set it off. So Snooks - who was undoubtedly taken aback that a simple work injustice would cause me to act like that - made me talk. And talk and talk and talk, fuck work, I can take another 30 minutes, just talk talk talk, get it out. And I probably never would've, if she hadn't prodded and I hadn't been reduced to weepy cinders.

Anyway. Just started typing it all out, but really there's no point or need. Because there was Snookie, who responds to everything I admit to, no matter how ridiculous or outrageous, with complete and thorough understanding. And who makes a point to cut off my apologies with admonitions not to be sorry for unloading on her and being so emotional and going on and on about things so unbearably personal that I never imagined I could ever say them to anyone. But instead she says she's glad I could talk to her and asks me to please call again, anytime I need someone, and never for an instant do I doubt that she means it from the heart, or think she's only saying it to be polite. Which I always think that. Because, as I think I've established, I'm very fucked up about these things.

She really is an amazing and wonderful friend and I've said it before but it bears repeating: I don't know what I'd do without her. So I hope I never have to do without her.

Glad she's miles away at the moment, though, because that really was an embarrassing outburst.

Power outage at work = day off.

Yay, I guess. Except if I have pretty much nothing to do on the weekend, I have the same amount of nothing to do on a free Friday. Laundry, clean apartment, take books back to library, maybe a nap. Me and my thrilling off-time. At least work is something to do, even if it's not something I like doing. Anyway.

Stopped for coffee and slipped on the tiles of the shop. Fell, of course, though not as spectacular wipe-out as I've managed before. The same knee as I fell on a couple of years ago, naturally. At least this time, I didn't twist my ankle or bang my elbow. Because that seriously sucked last time. It's just embarrassing how the floor was hardly even damp, and yet somehow I fall. Maybe it wasn't even damp - no one else was slipping at all. And history has shown that I am capable of tripping on air.

Whatever. I'll go read a book and put ice on my knee. Playing hookey is wasted on me, it would seem.

If you subscribe to this blog in bloglines, I apologize. See, it's showing new posts when really those are old posts. This is because for some reason, when I go to clean out my archives and it republishes, Bloglines recognizes random "new" posts. Whatever, it's annoying. There are a few blogs I subscribe to where it happens all the time. "Oooh," I'll think, "14 new posts!" Then it turns out to be a fake. I find it really annoying, so I apologize.

Anyway, I've neglected the archive clean-up for Way Too Long. I have like 6 months of posts to clean out. I should really make a regular time to do it, I guess. But now - when the cat inexplicably (and violently) pokes me wake at like 4:something a.m. - seems as good a time as any. And let me just say what a treat it is that when the storm doesn't wake me in the wee hours, the cat does. Very thoughtful of her. And then she just goes off and plays with her re-discovered catnip toy and totally ignores me. I mean why did she wake me up? To watch? THAT was so desperately important? GAAH.

She's not the best roommate, but I guess she could be worse. Sigh.

Pictures!

Okay, first let me say how much fun it is (not) to drive home amidst a maze of fallen trees. It only took twice as long for the commute, though, which is much better than the last time we had flooding and fallen trees and stuff. But anyway, it was also this rather fraught moment when I had to park. Because my little neighborhood is full of trees. Which I happen to love, actually, but as three (3) trees have splintered and crashed to the street just on my own block, I really rather fear waking up to a smashed car.

And I'm not done paying off that car, goddammit.

Here is a (blurry, of course) photo of weather conditions as of oh like 4 minutes ago:


It scary windy and loud lightning but most of all? I just want to be able to open my windows more. Although what's really the point unless there's some sun. Sigh.

So right - pictures. Here we are. I had the camera with me today and took pictures of whate'er caught mine fancy, mostly. Here's the new summer bag, dad:



Dawn and I found it for $14 in a Bucktown resale shop. It's perfect. Well, it wasn't exactly perfect when I got it because there was this hideous tassle hanging at the button there. But it was easily detachable. So NOW it's perfect. I adore it. YAY.

And while we were out and about I spotted this highly amusing paper clip holder and decided my desk needed it immédiatement.


It amuses me. And I could use some amusement at work.

One thing I was on a mission to buy was a new watch, because did I mention that my beloved and much-treasured Swatch watch died? It did, a few weeks ago. And I need a watch, that's all there is to it. I'm really bummed about the Swatch because it was just absolutely perfect. And beloved. And treasured. And stuff. Waaah.

So anyway, I finally just went to Target and grabbed a $12 watch that looked acceptable.




It's Target and you can't exactly try it on to see how it looks before you buy, so I've spent most the week wondering if I like it. It's growing on me.

And as long as I was stuck in traffic with the camera, I decided to show you what is officially the most revolting protein bar I have ever put in my mouth:

I think the more protein they have, they more vomitous the taste. Gag. I mean it was awful. I'm trying out various protein bars, incidentally. I also don't like the Detour all that much. I do like the Kashi Go Lean bars quite a lot - they're my fave to date. It's not the most exciting culinary adventure of my life so far, not by a longshot, but it's an adventure nonetheless. May my tastebuds forgive me.

Here's a picture of my hair this morning. I feel like I should've gussied it up for you all, but I'm in a bit of a near-all-consuming depression at the mo and I just couldn't motivate myself to give a shit what the internet thinks of my shaggy mane.



The Italian cut off a couple inches last time - more than usual, because there were a lot of split ends. She really wanted to do blonde highlights too but then, the second she plunged her hands into my hair, she stopped her gushing about golden streaks and said, "No. I am sorry. We cannot put color for few months, maybe longer. Already I put too much and I dry out your hair. We cannot play no more with it. It needs to rest." So I'm not blonde-streaked for summer, but I'm fine with it. I think the Italian is more bummed than I am - she loooooves to color my hair. She also loves extremely healthy hair, so I bet it'll be a year before she'll touch it. Here's hoping I don't get too bored and take a pair of scissors to it at some point. I tend to do impulsive things like that.

But no, I wouldn't. Not really. She'd kill me. Or even keeeeeeeeel me.

That's it. Pictures as promised. Here's one I took at the Potterpalooza, just before dusk, right outside the library. They were wizard-dueling, quite fiercely, and yet with many giggles. It made (makes) me smile:

Ladies and gennilmens, I have done 55 minutes of Turbokick and lived to tell the tale. I actually coulda done more, as I'd gotten my second wind, but they were all like "Hey let's do another turbo round!" and I'm all like "dude, I gotta go." So I skipped that, and the final cool-down. And it's not like I was flat-out woo-hoo let's go lookit me kick ass, okay - I scaled it way back. Like a geriatric version. But still. I kept up. I didn't wanna vomit or nuttin. Yay rah go me girl power wooo.

And yes, I promised pictures, but I'm really tired. Haven't been sleeping (or eating) well. So tomorrow, pictures. I know how desperately you're all looking forward to the blurred brilliance and I would so hate to disappoint.

Thanks, Kate.

There was a wicked storm last night - really this morning, like 4-ish - which usually I enjoy but this time was just scary. I actually left the bedroom (you know, the place where my bed is surrounded by 5 large windows) and came to sleep on the futon (where there are only a couple of windows at my feet). Because you're supposed to move away from windows. This is the first time I ever really did, except for tornados.

Whine whine it's gross whine everything is damp and gross whine whine. I swear I'm growing mold. There just seems to point in showering, really. So I sit here aimlessly surfing. Oh the glamourous life.

So I'm half-watching Nova, right, because I am completely addicted to the content and looove to cringe at the "re-construction" of various historical moments. Tonight is Typhoid Mary- really interesting about the difficulty in getting people to believe in germs at all, and there's the awesome bonus of a bad actor playing Important Historical Medical Official with one of the awfullest, fakest mustaches I've ever had the pleasure to see. (Note: actress playing Typhoid Mary is pretty fuckin great.)

But one of the commentators, in addition to the usual suspects like a biographer and an epidemiologist and whatver, is Anthony Bourdain. The chef.

Okay, Nova - why? Why is Anthony Bourdain commenting authoritatively on typhoid fever? I mean - Typhoid Mary was a cook, sure. But I mean that is SERIOUSLY reaching. I'm so baffled.

In other news, the sun actually came out today. Everything is still musty and damp, though, so I reserve the right to whine continuously.

Oh my gawd. The rain and overcast darkness all day every day since Saturday is seriously going to kill me any minute now. No sun forecast until SUNDAY. And absolutely everything is damp and musty-smelling.

I need to move. To another planet. Gah.

Celebrate Smart Bitches Day with Salomé and me.


I think I figured it out

You may have noticed how few romance novels I ever really like. I notice it too. It made sense back when I was a kid, to be reading them. I was an adolescent sighing over the idea of True Love, and more than a little curious about the nookie. But as I've said before, then I developed a sense of taste and it was goodbye Romance genre.

Then I accidentally read Laura Kinsale, and believed in the power of romantic love again, that sometimes two people find each other and all of nature works overtime to bring them together because there is no doubt that the world is a better place on multiple levels when these two people are together. She made me believe that, all by herself. So I started reading romance again, because of that magic.

Yet still I find a ton of the genre to be utter rubbish. Poorly written treacly sentimental crap, and very little magic to be found in it. But I read it. I keep reading it and I keep finding something there that brings me back. And back and back and back. Why?

Well, I figured out why. Not long ago, actually. Just in the last few weeks or so, about the time I noticed my face settling in to the idea of middle-age. It's dreadfully personal, so I won't open comments.

I'm alone, see. (And listen: there are as many reasons for being alone as there are for reading romance novels, so those of you non-romance-readers inclined to think "the stereotype is true!" can either stuff it and read on, or stuff it and click your internetty self somewhere else. Either way, just stuff it. I don't have time for tiny little minds.) I've pretty much always been alone and never wanted all that much to NOT be alone. Even whilst in the clutches of deep deep romantic love, the thought of myself as part of a couple has always given me the hives. Still does. No, I don't know why, but that's not the point here. It's just a bare fact, just me and not some grand romantic trauma from my past. I've always been this way - from birth, as far as I can remember.

But I get older. My friends are all far, and my family (the well-loved members thereof, anyway) is not quite close enough. My life gets lonelier and quieter, and more painful with the empty silence as time goes by. One day my pet will die and then I'll just be utterly pathetic. Well, more pathetic than I currently am, that is. So I think to myself sometimes: is that it? Should I have worked to change myelf, then made a point to find someone to grow old with? Would that fix it? It would maybe fix the silence, anyway, but everyone gets lonely sometimes, single or not. I'm mostly okay with the lonely - I almost crave it most times - but the silence is rather unbearable. So unbearable that I start asking questions to myself about the choices I've made.

Then I remembered/realized that my life has been beset with bad timing. Not just romance-wise, but all over the place. Most all of it comes down to mis-timed awareness. The times I should have been noticed that I wasn't, and the times I should've noticed someone else and I didn't. I can't even count how many relationships (romantic and not) that I let continue past the point they were any good for either of us. Or how many I let pass by before they even got started. Not to mention the number of times I should've seen he means me harm or all I need to do is ask and she'll save me or now, this is the moment, now now now move move. Yeah right, everyone has this.

But I so often miss the boat - I so rarely get it right. I always manage to love the wrong person at the right time, or else I love the right person at the wrong time. Mostly I manage to love everything in the wrong way. About the only time in my life I got a relationship effortlessly right was when I was six years old and asked Dawn to Girl Scout Friend Day. (And friendship is easy compared to romance, for me.) But with most people and for most of my life, I am out of step. The worst is when I manage to get in step and then somehow get out of it. Stumbling along and stubbing my toes, or sometimes dancing beautifully but suddenly, inexplicably alone - those hurt like holy hell. For all of us. But most often, I don't even manage to get to the dance. I'm thinking it starts at 9:00 when really it ended at 8:00. Or I thought the invitation was junk mail and oops I threw it away. Yes, that more perfectly describes it. There's a notable lack of serendipity in these things for me. Or more likely, I'm unconsciously doing something very wrong - whatever, the reasons aren't important, the fact that it is, that's what matters to this.

That's why - or at least one of the major reasons why - I keep coming back to romance novels even when I expect crap (and more often than not get it). Because in a romance novel, you don't miss the boat. Or if you do, the boat swings back round to pick you up. It's not the Happily Ever After that sucks me in - it's the idea that some kind of magic happens to let people even have a chance at the HEA. They screw up, they hurt each other, they get it wrong before they get it right, but there is that moment when two people absolutely understand that they need to do something quick, because this is a Really Big Important Thing That Will Change My Life. They see it.

I am monumentally blind to these moments in real life. I fail utterly to recognize them. I get them bassackwards every single time. The people in romance novels (and other novels too because man, do fictional people have it easy) get that notorious frisson. They have frozen moments and tingles in the spine and sudden clarity. Their lives are arranged in such a way that a new relationship is convenient and welcome (those heroines with their dead parents; those world-weary heroes looking for some freshness and innocence). It's not the end that I'm reading for, but the beginning. Not the beginning beginning, but just to watch that moment when the magic happens and they see each other, recognize what the other could mean, and take a step toward each other. You know - instead of blinking confusedly, shrugging, and heading for the punchbowl, then calling it an early night

That's why I read it. Sheer jealousy of people who miraculously have their eyes open at the right time.

Well and the nookie. Duh.

Anyone up for

SBD?

Go for it. Comments open.

My cat is snoring.

Cat snores are fucking adorable, man.

What I wouldn't give to have a washer/dryer in-house instead of dragging myself to the laundromat all the time.

It's rainy. Rain is forecast for the next 7 days. Fitting.

But I need a shower anyway, and to wash my hair. My strangely long hair. And then I'll have to blowdry it so I can go out in the cool rainy day to the laundromat where I don't want to spend my time. It's August. It shouldn't be so chilly that I need to blowdry my hair before stepping out. Wet hair should steam on contact with August air and be dried by the sun within 20 minutes. Oh well.

I'm reading Tamsin, by Peter Beagle. Got it at the liberry. The adolescent protagonist's voice suits me well - we share a barely banked anger and a feeling of constantly being wronged by everyone, and guilt over all of it.

Incidentally, I love my library.

I'll charge the camera now and take pictures for you later. I got a new bag you should see. At last.

Okay - shower, laundromat, photo shoot. Yawn.

This post is actually about chocolate

Hey, do you have an Aldi by you? I think they may be somewhat regional. I grew up with Aldi as one of our regular shopping stops. It made me feel unbearably poor to shop there - everything was at least 30% cheaper (usually more) than any other grocery store, and there were no bags. NO BAGS. You brought your own, or if you wanted they had a bunch of boxes you could use - and you bagged/boxed your groceries YOURSELF, without ANYONE to carry them to the car for you. The whole place was like a warehouse, long before the days of Sam's Club and Costco. It was small and there was hardly even any shelving - just open boxes of product piled on top of each other. And none of the brands were recognizable at all. They weren't even the generic names I was used to (like Centrella and Lady Lee and all those).

I thought it was the most appalling place in the world. Ah, the sting of poverty.

Then I grew up and realized it's fucking genius. It encourages everyone to recycle their grocery bags. It's fabulously anti-commercial, screw the advertising and the marketing, just BUY FOOD AND STOP BEING STUPID ABOUT IT. And some brilliant person had the idea of sorta-rental shopping carts - you can only get one by putting a quarter in the corral and then you only get your quarter back by returning the cart. So everyone always returns their cart instead of them floating about the parking lot, see. And the only staff needed is to open and put out the boxes of product, and the cashiers. The end. Genius.

Also, the unrecognizable brands? Aren't generic. They're just not mass-produced stuff with an advertising budget. So a ton of their food is really, really, REALLY good.

Which was my whole point in posting this. If you were unaware, the absolute best chocolate you can buy in this country is from Aldi. It's all Swiss and German, and you can get a half-pound block of it for like a buck. It's so damn good it makes you wanna weep with joy. Seriously: there is no better chocolate commercially available. Trust me.

My week has not been good.
I am a rather unhappy person.
I will necessarily remain so for the forseeable future.
And my cat just puked on the rug.

I just WASHED that rug.

Asshole.

Oh my god, I swear the weather lady on TV just said "nipple-sized hail".

Nipple-sized. I SWEAR.

Could I have misheard? But what else sounds like nipple? Stipple? Dimple? Quibble? Kibble? Tipple? Ripple? Mr. Whipple? Cripple? Could it be cripple-sized hail? I don't think so. I very clearly heard NIPPLE.

I wonder whose nipples. I mean, they do come in varied sized. Naturally, they'd be erect. It's hail, after all.

Man, this is leading to visualizations that I could REALLY live without. Mr. Whipple's crippled dimpled nipples, indeed.

Do you think humankind will ever advance to a stage where personal hygiene can be got in a pill?I mean, all the sci-fi stuff has easy-eat food pellets in the future, but what about teeth-brushing and showering and shaving and shampooing? Not that I don't actually enjoy the act of getting clean, but what about when you're crazy-busy in the morning or run out of time because you're dithering? There should be some kinda pill - or maybe a powder you can just dump in your coffee - and it just somehow makes all the dirt/sebum/plaque/stank/unwanted hair fall off you. Anyway, just a thought.

Monday was rainy and delightful, but then yesterday it just turned rainy and miserable. Oh August, how I hate ye. In my dream future, I will take two months of vacation a year and spend them in like Maui or something, and those months will be August and February.

I just finished reading a couple of books in the Chrestomanci chronicles and they were really good, but now I can't decide what to read next. I'm still in a book-eating mood. Unfortunately, so is Thunder, who regularly snags books (from the piles on the floor located where I SWEAR TO GOD my bookcase will be) and teases at them with her claws. She hasn't actually shred any yet, but she's poked holes. And pissed me off.

I know, I know. I need a bookcase. But I also need a shower and some coffee and to stop rambling and to suck it up and get to work.

Sigh.

It's okay, Kate. It was just a crap day at work and another unbelievably frustrating bout with the gym's parking lot (where there is never a spot anymore, nor is there street parking, and for fucksakes what am I paying dues for to a place that I can never seem to park at?) and I needed a bit of a temper tantrum.

I could also use a day off of work to lay around and read as the rain comes pattering down, but oh well.

Other things I could use:
groceries
a pedicure
new clothes
a bookcase
inhuman reserves of patience
coffee

That last one, I can do.

I'm not SBDing because I hate the entire stupid fucking retarded cocksucking asshole universe. Therefore, celebrate with
Kate
and
jmc

and see you later, if I don't get arrested for triple homicide.

SBD

Dawn is gawn (off into the sunset). Thunder is sulky (she loooooves Dawn). My calves ache like a mofo (much walking). I have a lingering headache (from lack of sleep because the stupid fucking cat would NOT shut up all night). I also have a chocolate croissant and a pumpkin-cranberry scone (we went to a great bakery) so I think I'll wash my slightly aching and seriously smelly feet in my exciting new soap (rosemary and mint - we also went to the apothecary), rub them down with lotion, make some coffee and have a treat as I prop up my feet and read a new book (we also went to the [used] bookstore).

Yes, that means I had a great time. :-)

It's still humid but not as hot, that kind of feeling of lethargic air like you're wading instead of walking. Things to whisper in an ear:

• Today I thought to myself that I haven't had a single healthy relationship of any kind in my life. Not really. None of them. Then I thought, But who in the world DOES, really? and felt better about things.

• Tomorrow I'm eating at Spacca Napoli, which makes me absurdly happy. Great food does that to me, and eating great food with someone who recognizes and relishes the food's greatness puts me over the moon.

• Shhh. I'm brushing up my resume. It's almost done. I don't belong here. This isn't the direction I wanted to go in.

• My face is turning old. Not wrinkles, not sagging. I don't know what. The look of it is the look of approaching middle age. I don't mind much because I don't look much. Except when I do.
  

• Dawn visits tomorrow and I realized that I just don't care about how my apartment looks. I swiffer and make sure the bathroom is freshly scrubbed. I put out clean towels and laundered cat-hair-freee sheets on the bed. But other than that, I can't be arsed. I'm torn between calling this maturity or calling it laziness. Little of both, maybe.

• When I get scared and nervous and feel like I might puke or pass out or cry or just generally get all wound up or hysterical, I have a thing that calms me down. I think: The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. And then I'm okay. Everything is okay.

• That's what I tell myself, too: I'm okay. And I think I'll keep being okay. I think. I hope. Okay.

• I wish I wanted to write again.

Celebrate Smart Bitches Day with...

Salomé!
and
jmc!
and
Sandy!
and just a little bit from headachey me.

The Owl Service, by Alan Garner, is totally freaking awesome and you should go read it now. See, what happened was, my friend Paul is a fantastic friend and all-around brilliant person who is also sadly incapable of grasping why it is that I enjoy the Harry Potter books so much. His incomprehension is a good thing, because it gets him all het up and determined to show me exactly how many books are ten times better than Harry Potter, and next thing you know I got books to read, yay!

This was one of em. I love it. It's so flippin terrific.

So it's based off the last section of the Mabthingy, which is basically a buncha Welsh traditional tales and which I happen to flat-out adore. I read the whole thing back when I was researching Gwen (she of the ill-fated and half-finished novel that I actually don't even know where is stored on my hard-drive, but even though the book's dead, my love of the Welsh stories is not). I believe I've mentioned before that I have a whole thing for ancient fairy-like tales and any modern stories that incorporate them - and the more Celtic, the better. Honest, I've read any number of dull novels and stuck with them through thick and thin simply because there was the slim chance that Cuchulainn might show up at some point. I'm a sucker for it.

So the legend this is based on is how this one guy (whose mom was a total shit, incidentally) was cursed to never have a wife of flesh so he and his uncle-wizard made a woman out of flowers tp be the cursed guy's wife. Flower-lady liked a passing lord a lot more than her husband, so she had an affair and she and her lover plotted to kill the husband. It didn't work, and the husband killed the lover instead. Then for good measure, the uncle-wizard-guy turned the lady into an owl. The end. Basically.

And this book is about these three teenagers who are rather destined to re-enact the whole crazy mess.

It's ostensibly a YA novel, but it's far more complex and layered than the vast majority of adult novels I've read, much less young adult. The writing is incredibly smart - or I should say that it relies on the smarts of the reader. It's not the kind of writing that takes you by the hand and leads you through each step. It's that kind of just-the-facts writing. Don't go looking for a truckload of adjectives here, people. It's the kind of plain writing that's not just serviceable and meh, but the kind that builds tension, over and over, bit by bit throughout the book. It's really pretty amazing, and I can't wait to read it again.

And here's the thing about the characters: none of them are all that terribly likeable because all of them are too real to be enirely likeable. Even the ones I really thought I liked, by the end of it - I wasn't so sure. And vice versa. The book is full of class issues, conflicts between social classes: rich vs. working class, British vs. Welsh, rural vs. urban, and even some Brit on Brit action. (Did I mention it's a British book? Because it's very, very, very British. I kept wishing for a glossary to be sure I understood it all.) So it's like there are these twists and turns of character that keep whacking you in the nose every time you turn a corner, and every time it's like "D'oh! I totally knew that was there, gaah!" And it's like mentally tensing your shoulders, more and more and more as you wait for a blow, so by the end you're just all wound up. It's awesome.

Yeah, sorry, I have a headache. I'm not doing it justice at all. It'd be hard to even if I were more articulate, because it's really hard to discuss all the stuff I loved without giving a zillion spoilers.

So just read the book. It's so great.

You know what day it is!

SBD

So do that SBD thing, will ya? Like tell us what you've been reading this summer, anything that might be worth our time or that we should avoid. I shall tell you of a YA book I read yesterday. Promise. After I come back from work. Which necessitates (sigh) going to work. Which requires getting dressed. Which can't be done until I drink this trough of coffee.

Right, okay - see you back here laters.

I guess I just don't get the appeal of fireworks. That is, the ones set off in the neighborhood alleys and not big vibrant bursts of color along the skyline. I mean what, you go outside on a muggy-uggy August night, hang out in an alley, and light this thing that gives a really loud crrrack and a bit of whistling and sparkling. How is that fun? It just seems kinda sad and depressing to me.

And, of course, really fucking annoying to your neighbors.

Holy crap, I could go for a margarita. Ooooh the 5 Tacos And A Giant Margarita Delivered To Your Door For $10.99, the brilliant invention of Angelo's Mi Rancho, which I have not had in approximately forever. But no! I shall resist! Because I will not spend more money until payday. Which is Friday. Which is just sooo far away. Sigh.

Hey speaking of Friday, Dawn's coming next weekend. Woo hoo! This means I'm taking Friday off. (WOO HOO!) This also means I'll be shopping and dining all over the city with my very dear friend, and there are not enough woo's or hoo's in the world to adequately express my happy anticipation. I get:

• Dawn
• Favorite Chicago food spots
• Way cute n fun shopping spots
  
• Traipsing about in my beloved city
• A day off work
  

These are a few of my faaaaaavorite things, my friends. Joy.

Hey, I just figured out why I've been like ravenously hungry all day and even after I eat, I'm still all starving and it's driving me crazy and why why why is this happening. It's because I didn't eat breakfast. Well I mean I had coffee and a few cookies. But that doesn't count. Obviously. Gyaaah, should I eat something? It's late. But I'm hungry. ARGH this has thrown my WHOLE clock off, who on earth knew I could be such an old lady aout food and blood sugar and routine. Sheesh.

Omg, I'm so boring lately. I seriously have nothing to say anymore. Or I do, and then I don't say them. I can't quite handle articulating any results of whatever serious introspection I'm currently engaged in. I dunno.

I'm gonna go get a snack now. Bye.

So what if it's 80 degrees outside and I don't even have the a/c out of storage, sometimes you just need to make peanut butter cookies. Even if it uses up the rest of the peanut butter but you don't even have a half cup so you wind up halving the recipe and that makes it even better because now you won't be tempted to make yourself ill on 3 dozen cookies? 1.5-ish dozen cookies is a very acceptable pre-dinner snack that will not lead to Vomit And Regret.

Okay, I won't really eat all of them at once like that. But let's not take bets on if they'll last to Monday.

mmmm coooookies

Never shop at lens.com, for they are motherfucking cocksucking motherfuckers who should die die DIE.

So say you're in the business of taking orders, fulfilling orders, and servicing customers. Say a perfectly lovely woman gives you her perfectly lovely money so that you will ship out some boxes of desperately needed contact lenses within 1-2 days, as stated on your website. Say that, after the 3rd day, the aforementioned lovely woman emails you to ask when her order will ship. Then after 24 hours without a response, she calls your customer "service" line.

Would you tell this lovely woman that yes the handling time stated on your website is 1-2 days, but that means 1-2 days ONLY IF it's in stock, and no we don't really ever say what's in stock and what's not, not where youcould see it when ordering? When she asks you if you were ever planning to tell her that her order would be delayed by two WEEKS, would you answer: "I just told you that now"? Would you concievably apologize even ONCE for the delay in fulfilling the order, the absence of any backorder notice to the customer, the failure to answer an earlier email inquiry, or even for having misleading information published on your site? And when this customer asks if it's still possible to cancel the order, would you say "Sure can" and then HANG UP ON ME, CLICK DIAL TONE?

No. No you would not. Because you, my friend, are not an asshole of the highest order. And you know how to run a business. And you don't suck the shit out of your own asshole, bitch.

Instead of calling this company that gave me one of my Worst Customer Experiences Ever, might I suggest you take your business to the fabulous people over at 1-800-CONTACTS? Because they are friendly and helpful and forthright and good and true and all that is noble in this consumer-driven society. They are pleasant and efficient. They have it in stock. They will ship it the same day.

They even call you up and tell you that they actually can't ship it today as promised, because your prescription expired WHILE YOU WERE WAITING FOR YOUR ORDER FROM THE FUCKING MOTHERFUCKING ASSHOLE COCKSUCKERS AT LENS.COM.




I will now take deep cleansing breaths. Good night.