The Most Boring Post
Dec/04/11 12:04 PM
So I was fucking around with the new mint ipad app, of which I am incidentally a big fan, yesterday. It’s not super self explanatory beyond the data it shows you up front (mainly in the form of a pie chart of this month’s current spending trends), but I swiped a little just to see if anything would happen. And it landed me on a page that super confirmed what I had feared all along. Ever since special lady friend left me, I’ve been spending more money than I’ve earned. So I got this chart with red all over it. Kinda scary actually, because I don’t know what to cut. All my spending seems to be semi-necessary impulse stuff (like train tickets in Italy or taxis home from the city at 3AM). So today’s fun-tivity will be coming up with a plan of attack. Maybe I’ll even write a post here on what I come up with. Maybe not. Probably not. Who am I kidding, this is my last post ever.
Something for your Christmas spirit: Father Christmas - The Kinks
Something for your Christmas spirit: Father Christmas - The Kinks
0 Comments
Too Much Too Soon
Dec/02/11 09:04 PM
First order of business: In the coming weeks (ok, probably this weekend) I will be experimenting with converting this site to a wordpress dealie. Currently I use Rapidweaver, which is this super cheap but pretty flexible template-based web design program that gets bundled into those MacHeist/MacUpdate things with the 10 pretty good shareware programs for the price of one... blah blah blah highly recommended but. Going to hope I don’t fuck this blog up for too long. The point is to be able to update during the day from the web.
----------
Just got back from Los Angeles where I, among other things, met this super beguiling siren:
Of course when I was introduced to her I had no idea she was this indie darling. Wouldn’t have mattered. She was that charming kind of spacey that guys like me wish they could fall into completely, but know our cynicism would ruin it after like a week. We talked (in a group) about how she hates babies but loves kids, and that none of the seances she’s been involved in have ever featured levitation. I’m not spelling out her name here because it feels weird spilling the contents of that dinner even a little bit. But I’ll hint and say the dinner involved some other semi famous yet warm and wonderful people, and I wish I was back there sharing Thai food right now.
OK. Now. The love life. Blah blah summer fling girl says one thing, does a different thing then manages to twist everything in such a way as to keep me from having a solid, describable basis for being upset, and by the way no more sex. Waah wwaahhh waahhhhh!! She called me at work the other day livid, with a catch in her throat that told me she was hurting, too. Seems some prick she knows had made some fucked up comment about us having sex and she decided to direct all of the rage and helplessness that stirred up in her at me. She said I betrayed her to my coworkers by telling them about us. I don’t think that’s true, but whatever. I reacted poorly, shutting down and forgetting everything I might have said to defend myself or make her feel better. She hung up on me. Some dude called me a couple nights later from her phone at about 1:45AM. I hung up on him. It turned out that was someone who found her phone supposedly lost in a taxi. Who cares? Now she wants to talk shit out so we get along at the holiday party and the fucking company fucking ski trip we’re all going to be at. I ask you again, who cares? I’m not going to play the game with her anymore. YAY!
On another note: Met/dated three really great women recently, all over 30, thank god. There’s three of them, which sucks. I know the inevitable “you mean you’re dating someone else?” thing may come up. I don’t know, I’ve never dated multiple 30+ year olds at once, so they may be more realistic than I expect. And let me clarify, we’re talking first dates, not fucking marriage and trips upstate. But I think it’s time to stop apologizing for looking for love. At the same time it’s probable that none of these girls are right for me anyway. None of them ever may be.
This is fun:
----------
Just got back from Los Angeles where I, among other things, met this super beguiling siren:
Of course when I was introduced to her I had no idea she was this indie darling. Wouldn’t have mattered. She was that charming kind of spacey that guys like me wish they could fall into completely, but know our cynicism would ruin it after like a week. We talked (in a group) about how she hates babies but loves kids, and that none of the seances she’s been involved in have ever featured levitation. I’m not spelling out her name here because it feels weird spilling the contents of that dinner even a little bit. But I’ll hint and say the dinner involved some other semi famous yet warm and wonderful people, and I wish I was back there sharing Thai food right now.
OK. Now. The love life. Blah blah summer fling girl says one thing, does a different thing then manages to twist everything in such a way as to keep me from having a solid, describable basis for being upset, and by the way no more sex. Waah wwaahhh waahhhhh!! She called me at work the other day livid, with a catch in her throat that told me she was hurting, too. Seems some prick she knows had made some fucked up comment about us having sex and she decided to direct all of the rage and helplessness that stirred up in her at me. She said I betrayed her to my coworkers by telling them about us. I don’t think that’s true, but whatever. I reacted poorly, shutting down and forgetting everything I might have said to defend myself or make her feel better. She hung up on me. Some dude called me a couple nights later from her phone at about 1:45AM. I hung up on him. It turned out that was someone who found her phone supposedly lost in a taxi. Who cares? Now she wants to talk shit out so we get along at the holiday party and the fucking company fucking ski trip we’re all going to be at. I ask you again, who cares? I’m not going to play the game with her anymore. YAY!
On another note: Met/dated three really great women recently, all over 30, thank god. There’s three of them, which sucks. I know the inevitable “you mean you’re dating someone else?” thing may come up. I don’t know, I’ve never dated multiple 30+ year olds at once, so they may be more realistic than I expect. And let me clarify, we’re talking first dates, not fucking marriage and trips upstate. But I think it’s time to stop apologizing for looking for love. At the same time it’s probable that none of these girls are right for me anyway. None of them ever may be.
This is fun:
The Summer Fling Part 2
Nov/16/11 09:05 PM
So this thing (see the last entry if you’re confused) has had me all torn up and shiz inside, so I mentioned yesterday’s torturous phone call to my shrink this morning. She very successfully urged me to give thinking about this chick a break for a while. I somehow managed to carry that into the day and ended up having a fairly positive workday. But now I’m home and it’s story time.
So, actually... I don’t know if I’m up to a full continuation of the saga. Let me endeavor to summarize in a way that is both thorough and brief while managing to entertain at least a little... or maybe I’ll just go to sleep even EARLIER tonight.
...
...
...
Ok that’s actually what I did... ok not really. I got instant messaged on okcupid and sucked into a polite conversation about nothing in particular.
Here’s the continuation: The immediate events following our intense make-out session are hazy to me. But eventually she came to my super far from everything neighborhood and we eventually had sex. And then we had a ton of sex. And then we had sex at her apartment which set off a cascade of guilt behavior in her because HER ex hadn’t officially moved out yet (he was out of the state at the time though and we got nowhere near the bed...which seems to make it hotter somehow? whatevs). We shared more secrets and grew closer.
Eventually her life began to fill with other engagements. She had a wedding to attend out of state with a gaggle of friends who she shared with the ex who was also there. She never un-relationshipped him on facebook. She began to be busy every night. But she made time to hang out BEFORE her dinner plans, etc., every now and then. So I had to make do with 45 minutes here, and a quick 20 minutes before work there. By now we were only talking and hugging and holding hands. I invited her to a few things, most of which she passed on. A few times she accepted my invitations and we had a lot of fun together... But I started to get frustrated by the restricted visitation schedule. I mean what the hell, I’m supposed to be ok with crumbs after I’ve tasted the meal? Gross analogy, I know, but I mean it in a whole package sense.
From the beginning she would stop and tell me that she wasn’t ready for anything serious and make some other noises that indicated to me she was not in the market for a relationship that would be long-term. To be honest with “you,” I don’t think she ever really expressed how she thought shit should work out between us, but after her unavailability began to clearly upset me, she fell back on “I was very clear about what I wanted from the beginning.” Which to me implied that she had decided to have zero emotional attachment to our relationship. Which of course I intellectually agreed with, but seriously... come ON.
At this point in the retelling I’m beginning to feel really sorry for this girl. That of course was not my intention when I set out to get it all out here. But honestly, the only adult relationship she had for her entire adult life was over after 7 years. What the fuck did I think I was doing? I mean holy fucking hell. And she seemed to be asking me for a “friends with benefits” situation. The only problem was that the benefits part was rapidly drying up. And so was the friends part, as far as I was concerned. No one likes to be sidelined in early relationship forming stages, even if it’s just as friends. And I was being sidelined. And getting upset ( as I mentioned). Everything came to a head one night I’ll never forget. It was my friend’s birthday, and his wife had rented a karaoke room to have a suuuuper sweet party with a few friends. The girl had mentioned being able to hang out, but only for a half hour, to which I was proudly able to reply that I wasn’t actually able to see her at all, as I had friends too thank you very much. But things changed.
I’ve got a serious itch to cut to the ending, but this unexpected turn in my feelings is promising. I think I’ll do the longer version and continue the story in part 3.
So, actually... I don’t know if I’m up to a full continuation of the saga. Let me endeavor to summarize in a way that is both thorough and brief while managing to entertain at least a little... or maybe I’ll just go to sleep even EARLIER tonight.
...
...
...
Ok that’s actually what I did... ok not really. I got instant messaged on okcupid and sucked into a polite conversation about nothing in particular.
Here’s the continuation: The immediate events following our intense make-out session are hazy to me. But eventually she came to my super far from everything neighborhood and we eventually had sex. And then we had a ton of sex. And then we had sex at her apartment which set off a cascade of guilt behavior in her because HER ex hadn’t officially moved out yet (he was out of the state at the time though and we got nowhere near the bed...which seems to make it hotter somehow? whatevs). We shared more secrets and grew closer.
Eventually her life began to fill with other engagements. She had a wedding to attend out of state with a gaggle of friends who she shared with the ex who was also there. She never un-relationshipped him on facebook. She began to be busy every night. But she made time to hang out BEFORE her dinner plans, etc., every now and then. So I had to make do with 45 minutes here, and a quick 20 minutes before work there. By now we were only talking and hugging and holding hands. I invited her to a few things, most of which she passed on. A few times she accepted my invitations and we had a lot of fun together... But I started to get frustrated by the restricted visitation schedule. I mean what the hell, I’m supposed to be ok with crumbs after I’ve tasted the meal? Gross analogy, I know, but I mean it in a whole package sense.
From the beginning she would stop and tell me that she wasn’t ready for anything serious and make some other noises that indicated to me she was not in the market for a relationship that would be long-term. To be honest with “you,” I don’t think she ever really expressed how she thought shit should work out between us, but after her unavailability began to clearly upset me, she fell back on “I was very clear about what I wanted from the beginning.” Which to me implied that she had decided to have zero emotional attachment to our relationship. Which of course I intellectually agreed with, but seriously... come ON.
At this point in the retelling I’m beginning to feel really sorry for this girl. That of course was not my intention when I set out to get it all out here. But honestly, the only adult relationship she had for her entire adult life was over after 7 years. What the fuck did I think I was doing? I mean holy fucking hell. And she seemed to be asking me for a “friends with benefits” situation. The only problem was that the benefits part was rapidly drying up. And so was the friends part, as far as I was concerned. No one likes to be sidelined in early relationship forming stages, even if it’s just as friends. And I was being sidelined. And getting upset ( as I mentioned). Everything came to a head one night I’ll never forget. It was my friend’s birthday, and his wife had rented a karaoke room to have a suuuuper sweet party with a few friends. The girl had mentioned being able to hang out, but only for a half hour, to which I was proudly able to reply that I wasn’t actually able to see her at all, as I had friends too thank you very much. But things changed.
I’ve got a serious itch to cut to the ending, but this unexpected turn in my feelings is promising. I think I’ll do the longer version and continue the story in part 3.
The Summer Fling Part 1
Nov/15/11 08:23 PM
Ok, y’all get ready for some seriously long and whiney shit. Summer fling 2011 all came crumbling down today. First things first, a song to get you in the mood:
Listen to that while we continue. This is going to be the story of my summer’s interoffice romance gone wrong. It’s been a seriously heavy source of pain and angst for me CONTINUOUSLY since June and it’s either entered a new, higher level of painful shit eating, or it’s about to finally terminate forever. I don’t know where to start and I don’t want to leave anything out, but I’m not perfect, so here goes.
We have a sister company that does a certain part of the work we do on every project. We’re in direct contact with them every day, and the bosses/owners are best friends and all that shit. Ok, a “really hot” girl works at this place. The quotes are to indicate that all the dudes in the office and the peripheral dudes that come in and out as producers or what-not have major hard-ons for this girl. At one point she had a boyfriend. At the same point I had a girlfriend. We both ceased having significant others at the same time. Her story is fairly interesting, but I’m not so sure it’s relevant to this catharsis. We both had to live with out exes for a while post-breakup.
Her company had a party one night and I went, along with all of my coworkers. I think she and I had begun to ichat a little more intensely than regular work colleagues would up to this point, too. There had been flirting. But I was more or less ignored by her at this party, which was fine because I was chatted up by a very cute half black half korean girl, who i subsequently never called. I wasn’t ready to date yet. Ok, so the party winds down and the bosses start talking about heading to a strip club. They also invite her to come. I think it’s all a big joke but it’s totally not. Totally and completely not a joke. When she arrives at the club we’re already a few drinks in and a few dollars poorer. Coming back from the bathroom at one point I see the girl putting a dollar in a stripper’s g-string and getting groped with a smile on her face. Major turn on, and extremely unexpected, like I had walked in on something I wasn’t intended to see. She and I talk for a while and she tells me about the terrible fight she’s just had with her ex and how she’s going to have to sleep at work. I tell her she can crash at my place because MY ex is out of town at the moment and there’s an air mattress. One of the clients who happens to be best friends buddy buddy with her overhears and takes note. He’s married but doesn’t wear his ring. He also takes the office ladies out drinking regularly without wifey.
Anyway she refuses, etc, etc. But somehow over the next few days she lets me know that she had actually been very into our conversation, and that she would want to get a drink. This is where the retelling starts to hurt a little, and I think I can stop with the robotic announcement of the story’s bullet points now. So I’m pretty sure she’d gotten my phone number by now and she’s making noises about how forward she’s been in telling me she wants to go out for drinks. And at this point I’m genuinely getting the impression that she’s fairly old fashioned - slash - inexperienced. She had been with this boyfriend 7 years, since the tender age of maybe 19. This put her firmly in 26 and in my mind as a sort of quasi virgin with weak emotional defenses and little experience in the bedroom. Someone to be gentle with and protective of. WOW, was that the wrong impression to have formed. In fact at one point further on she would emphasize that there had been an understanding in her relationship that when he went on tour (in a band, of course), he would do what he wanted and so would she. Rest assured, she told me, she’s had much experience. Hmm. That was a red flag I failed to take seriously, now wasn’t it?
Ok, so we continue our internet chatting during work hours that lasts all day, and I’m having a good time. Meanwhile my ex had returned “home” and was getting ready to move out for good. Very sad shit. So the weekend in which she is to move out arrives and everything’s shitty with us. I kept hoping to be able to have a lovely closure thing happen, and instead we kept spoiling it, and she’s sleeping on her couch and being super excited about leaving. This is the end of May. Wow. wow. On saturday the girl invites me to come to some event she’s going to be at that’s much closer to my place than her apartment. I’m excited, but she says she’s there with her boss, and after I look it up I see it’s also got a cover and is fairly stupid, so I do the social equivalent of just putting the tip in: I tell her I’m going to be at a bar near there and welcome her to a drink if she leaves the event early.
She does leave the event. She does come to my bar for a drink. We do end up making out, and she does grab my cock through my pants outside the bar and breathlessly ask me to come home with her. It’s the day before my ex moves out. I tell her that i can’t, and I explain why and she understands. But of course we make out a while longer and she asks a few more times. It’s interesting to find yourself in this type of moment as an aged and wizened adult of 34 (35th birthday came soon after). I remember doing the math in my head. It involved consciously balancing the sure thing of the moment with the wrongness of not coming home the night before the ex moves out of my life for good. I knew that either choice (go with girl or go home) was a mistake. In fact I’ve found myself more and more in situations where I’m forced to make a choice between two shitty outcomes. I’d like to be able to pick a good one every now and then.
I returned home to a shitty and sad night, sure that I had been forced to forever miss the opportunity of sleeping with the girl. I also felt pretty great about doing the good guy thing, despite my disappointment. It would be the last time for a long time that I would make the right choice in this budding romance. I’ll continue this story tomorrow. Teaser: today, 5 months later, she yelled at me and hung up in my face, blaming me for everything that has gone wrong between us while simultaneously denying that anything had gone wrong AND that there was an “us” to begin with. Lovely.
Listen to that while we continue. This is going to be the story of my summer’s interoffice romance gone wrong. It’s been a seriously heavy source of pain and angst for me CONTINUOUSLY since June and it’s either entered a new, higher level of painful shit eating, or it’s about to finally terminate forever. I don’t know where to start and I don’t want to leave anything out, but I’m not perfect, so here goes.
We have a sister company that does a certain part of the work we do on every project. We’re in direct contact with them every day, and the bosses/owners are best friends and all that shit. Ok, a “really hot” girl works at this place. The quotes are to indicate that all the dudes in the office and the peripheral dudes that come in and out as producers or what-not have major hard-ons for this girl. At one point she had a boyfriend. At the same point I had a girlfriend. We both ceased having significant others at the same time. Her story is fairly interesting, but I’m not so sure it’s relevant to this catharsis. We both had to live with out exes for a while post-breakup.
Her company had a party one night and I went, along with all of my coworkers. I think she and I had begun to ichat a little more intensely than regular work colleagues would up to this point, too. There had been flirting. But I was more or less ignored by her at this party, which was fine because I was chatted up by a very cute half black half korean girl, who i subsequently never called. I wasn’t ready to date yet. Ok, so the party winds down and the bosses start talking about heading to a strip club. They also invite her to come. I think it’s all a big joke but it’s totally not. Totally and completely not a joke. When she arrives at the club we’re already a few drinks in and a few dollars poorer. Coming back from the bathroom at one point I see the girl putting a dollar in a stripper’s g-string and getting groped with a smile on her face. Major turn on, and extremely unexpected, like I had walked in on something I wasn’t intended to see. She and I talk for a while and she tells me about the terrible fight she’s just had with her ex and how she’s going to have to sleep at work. I tell her she can crash at my place because MY ex is out of town at the moment and there’s an air mattress. One of the clients who happens to be best friends buddy buddy with her overhears and takes note. He’s married but doesn’t wear his ring. He also takes the office ladies out drinking regularly without wifey.
Anyway she refuses, etc, etc. But somehow over the next few days she lets me know that she had actually been very into our conversation, and that she would want to get a drink. This is where the retelling starts to hurt a little, and I think I can stop with the robotic announcement of the story’s bullet points now. So I’m pretty sure she’d gotten my phone number by now and she’s making noises about how forward she’s been in telling me she wants to go out for drinks. And at this point I’m genuinely getting the impression that she’s fairly old fashioned - slash - inexperienced. She had been with this boyfriend 7 years, since the tender age of maybe 19. This put her firmly in 26 and in my mind as a sort of quasi virgin with weak emotional defenses and little experience in the bedroom. Someone to be gentle with and protective of. WOW, was that the wrong impression to have formed. In fact at one point further on she would emphasize that there had been an understanding in her relationship that when he went on tour (in a band, of course), he would do what he wanted and so would she. Rest assured, she told me, she’s had much experience. Hmm. That was a red flag I failed to take seriously, now wasn’t it?
Ok, so we continue our internet chatting during work hours that lasts all day, and I’m having a good time. Meanwhile my ex had returned “home” and was getting ready to move out for good. Very sad shit. So the weekend in which she is to move out arrives and everything’s shitty with us. I kept hoping to be able to have a lovely closure thing happen, and instead we kept spoiling it, and she’s sleeping on her couch and being super excited about leaving. This is the end of May. Wow. wow. On saturday the girl invites me to come to some event she’s going to be at that’s much closer to my place than her apartment. I’m excited, but she says she’s there with her boss, and after I look it up I see it’s also got a cover and is fairly stupid, so I do the social equivalent of just putting the tip in: I tell her I’m going to be at a bar near there and welcome her to a drink if she leaves the event early.
She does leave the event. She does come to my bar for a drink. We do end up making out, and she does grab my cock through my pants outside the bar and breathlessly ask me to come home with her. It’s the day before my ex moves out. I tell her that i can’t, and I explain why and she understands. But of course we make out a while longer and she asks a few more times. It’s interesting to find yourself in this type of moment as an aged and wizened adult of 34 (35th birthday came soon after). I remember doing the math in my head. It involved consciously balancing the sure thing of the moment with the wrongness of not coming home the night before the ex moves out of my life for good. I knew that either choice (go with girl or go home) was a mistake. In fact I’ve found myself more and more in situations where I’m forced to make a choice between two shitty outcomes. I’d like to be able to pick a good one every now and then.
I returned home to a shitty and sad night, sure that I had been forced to forever miss the opportunity of sleeping with the girl. I also felt pretty great about doing the good guy thing, despite my disappointment. It would be the last time for a long time that I would make the right choice in this budding romance. I’ll continue this story tomorrow. Teaser: today, 5 months later, she yelled at me and hung up in my face, blaming me for everything that has gone wrong between us while simultaneously denying that anything had gone wrong AND that there was an “us” to begin with. Lovely.
Thought I was done
Jul/17/10 07:45 PM
Well I thought for sure I was done with this thing... I have a girlfriend, we live together, life is good, etc, etc... But of course life inevitably turns to shitty and surprisingly this is just about the only outlet I have for talking through my feelings and crap. I guess it’s a good thing I’ve laid off this blog for so long, though.
I find myself once again with a girl who seems to not be able to stand me half the time. This time, as I mentioned, we live together, so it’s sort of worse (although when the last girl decided she hated my guts halfway through a saturday, it was usually too much of a hike for her to go back to her place, so she stayed and we smoldered and it was a lot like this).
A friendly acquaintance of mine has recently been put in charge of an advice column and I spend a lot of spare thought time mentally writing out hypothetical letters for her to answer in it. They tend to go somewhere along the lines of: “I can’t hang out with both my girlfriend and my friends because at some point she always turns sour and begins to act shitty. Are we doomed?”
Or: “I am catching myself looking at cute girls on the subway and out on the town and fantasizing about the possibility of a breezy cheerful relationship that isn’t so much ‘work’. What can I do?”
Side note: Around about the time of my last entry on this site, I had decided that I was going to write memoirs, and that it would be a bad idea to spend all my juicy energy on pouring out my heart in this blog when I should have been pouring it out into a manuscript or something. And then I decided that writing self-indulgent whining about everything that sucks was taking my focus in the wrong direction, and that I should be doing fiction instead of glorified journals. Or maybe it was that first and the other last. In any case I stopped writing altogether and realized I had managed to clamp down on my only emotional outlet. So I’ve been a little bit like a pressure cooker ever since. This entry is me letting the steam out before I explode.
Anyway, I’m having serious relationship problems, and I have zero perspective on whether I’m causing them or how bad they really are or what. I’m considering seeing a shrink just so I can get a fucking opinion. At this point it’s been so long since I’ve hung out with any friends that it would be severely lame to make this the topic of a conversation with any of them. If I ever WERE to hang out with them.
In other news, I finally quit my job and got another, more exciting one. Except I think I might hate the new job. Once again I have no way of getting any perspective on my feelings or experiences here. Other than my girlfriend’s warped impressions filtered through her own hatred for her job and unhappiness with her life (don’t get me wrong, she’s been very supportive to a point... she doesn’t like sitting through anything I have to say that takes me more than 10 minutes), I don’t have any way to talk to anyone about this that would give me any meaningful insight.
I bounce between thinking I’m just irrevocably burnt out in this line of work to thinking there’s a personality conflict with my new employers, to thinking the personality conflict is actually internal jitters and unrelated feelings of discontent (see above! heheh) that are manifesting themselves as unhappiness at work in order to insulate my romantic life from the truth.
In terms of the theme of this site, moving far away from the epicenter of hipness and excitement: the girlfriend believes that and acts like she’s nearing a point where living out here is going to drive her batshit crazy, so she’s been basically making me feel miserable about living so far out from the action. As if it wasn’t hard enough.
I find myself once again with a girl who seems to not be able to stand me half the time. This time, as I mentioned, we live together, so it’s sort of worse (although when the last girl decided she hated my guts halfway through a saturday, it was usually too much of a hike for her to go back to her place, so she stayed and we smoldered and it was a lot like this).
A friendly acquaintance of mine has recently been put in charge of an advice column and I spend a lot of spare thought time mentally writing out hypothetical letters for her to answer in it. They tend to go somewhere along the lines of: “I can’t hang out with both my girlfriend and my friends because at some point she always turns sour and begins to act shitty. Are we doomed?”
Or: “I am catching myself looking at cute girls on the subway and out on the town and fantasizing about the possibility of a breezy cheerful relationship that isn’t so much ‘work’. What can I do?”
Side note: Around about the time of my last entry on this site, I had decided that I was going to write memoirs, and that it would be a bad idea to spend all my juicy energy on pouring out my heart in this blog when I should have been pouring it out into a manuscript or something. And then I decided that writing self-indulgent whining about everything that sucks was taking my focus in the wrong direction, and that I should be doing fiction instead of glorified journals. Or maybe it was that first and the other last. In any case I stopped writing altogether and realized I had managed to clamp down on my only emotional outlet. So I’ve been a little bit like a pressure cooker ever since. This entry is me letting the steam out before I explode.
Anyway, I’m having serious relationship problems, and I have zero perspective on whether I’m causing them or how bad they really are or what. I’m considering seeing a shrink just so I can get a fucking opinion. At this point it’s been so long since I’ve hung out with any friends that it would be severely lame to make this the topic of a conversation with any of them. If I ever WERE to hang out with them.
In other news, I finally quit my job and got another, more exciting one. Except I think I might hate the new job. Once again I have no way of getting any perspective on my feelings or experiences here. Other than my girlfriend’s warped impressions filtered through her own hatred for her job and unhappiness with her life (don’t get me wrong, she’s been very supportive to a point... she doesn’t like sitting through anything I have to say that takes me more than 10 minutes), I don’t have any way to talk to anyone about this that would give me any meaningful insight.
I bounce between thinking I’m just irrevocably burnt out in this line of work to thinking there’s a personality conflict with my new employers, to thinking the personality conflict is actually internal jitters and unrelated feelings of discontent (see above! heheh) that are manifesting themselves as unhappiness at work in order to insulate my romantic life from the truth.
In terms of the theme of this site, moving far away from the epicenter of hipness and excitement: the girlfriend believes that and acts like she’s nearing a point where living out here is going to drive her batshit crazy, so she’s been basically making me feel miserable about living so far out from the action. As if it wasn’t hard enough.
Miscellanea and junk
Dec/14/09 10:20 PM
Ok, so I’m going to start off with the pap. I happened to watch a little television tonight, having gotten home late and needing something to distract me from a monster headache and a pile of unfulfilled dreams. I was canceling a gym membership and picking up (yeah picking up myself, not having it brought to me which is what ya pay for) a package from the fedex compound in Brooklyn, if you wanted to know.
So anyway, I was watching this new reality gameshow competition thing called “The Sing-Off,” which if you haven’t seen the ads is like “Star Search” but with group contestants only. Or as I’m sure the show’s creators pitched it, it’s like “Glee” meets “American Idol” by way of “So You Think You Can Dance.” Sheesh I’m done with the fucking quotation marks. Italics from now on. If you don’t know any of those references, it’s an a capella group competition with three judges (dude, Ben Folds is one, and he’s like a kindly yet serious high school music instructor).
I’m pretty much hooked even though I despise every single one of the other shows this thing takes it’s cue/influence from. Mostly because the groups competing are actually kind of bad. Plus they eliminated the only group with a compelling non-musical back story tonight (called Solo, from a poverty stricken neighborhood somewhere). Making it to the next round were at least two incredibly white lady groups who sang without much soul or character or emotion or whatever.
My favorite moment, other than the super short solo of the tall dude from Solo who had this buttery Lou Rawls meets Marvin Gaye with like a tiny smidge of Johnny Mathis voice that will definitely make him rich and laid, was when the elimination bit got down to its final two groups (Solo and Gaggle Of White Housewives [sic]). There was a moment when both groups were huddled together clasping hands tightly, waiting in painful anticipation. There was some serious shit riding on it, and both groups had reason to believe they were going home. I personally expected them to eliminate the WASPs.... So anyway, both groups had a member who was visibly praying to god. It was almost like a mini competition to see who could get god to pick them with the most devout pleas. I sound callous... Yep. White ladies church group no 1 won. Bleh. They sucked.
Other topics? Well... it’s Xmas time and I’ve got to decide who to blow money on. I’m in a little bit of a fight with part of my family, so I’m thinking of sending them all something really thoughtful to pour on the guilt. Haven’t gotten much in the way of family contact from them since we all “reconciled” 2 years ago that I haven’t initiated. They pissed me off recently so I haven’t initiated any contact with them and suddenly they’re all “you’re so quiet, is something wrong?” Well, if you get a christmas present, then yes, I hate you. Just not sure what to get them. I’m becoming a real fan of small stuff. There’s an incredible variety of tiny things to get people... It lends itself well to finding something “personal,” like a flask for a certain alcoholic asshole.
On the coworkers front: more and more surreal. I’m starting to get shit from the idiots new boss for not tattling on them when they don’t do their work. As I wrote that, I just realized that she probably had a few talks with them, and they probably blamed their lack of involvement in their own projects on me. Like I’m an ogre and I chase them away from their own shit. Sighs. It would be nice to work on something that isn’t absolutely embarrassingly awful. For once. Please universe.
So anyway, I was watching this new reality gameshow competition thing called “The Sing-Off,” which if you haven’t seen the ads is like “Star Search” but with group contestants only. Or as I’m sure the show’s creators pitched it, it’s like “Glee” meets “American Idol” by way of “So You Think You Can Dance.” Sheesh I’m done with the fucking quotation marks. Italics from now on. If you don’t know any of those references, it’s an a capella group competition with three judges (dude, Ben Folds is one, and he’s like a kindly yet serious high school music instructor).
I’m pretty much hooked even though I despise every single one of the other shows this thing takes it’s cue/influence from. Mostly because the groups competing are actually kind of bad. Plus they eliminated the only group with a compelling non-musical back story tonight (called Solo, from a poverty stricken neighborhood somewhere). Making it to the next round were at least two incredibly white lady groups who sang without much soul or character or emotion or whatever.
My favorite moment, other than the super short solo of the tall dude from Solo who had this buttery Lou Rawls meets Marvin Gaye with like a tiny smidge of Johnny Mathis voice that will definitely make him rich and laid, was when the elimination bit got down to its final two groups (Solo and Gaggle Of White Housewives [sic]). There was a moment when both groups were huddled together clasping hands tightly, waiting in painful anticipation. There was some serious shit riding on it, and both groups had reason to believe they were going home. I personally expected them to eliminate the WASPs.... So anyway, both groups had a member who was visibly praying to god. It was almost like a mini competition to see who could get god to pick them with the most devout pleas. I sound callous... Yep. White ladies church group no 1 won. Bleh. They sucked.
Other topics? Well... it’s Xmas time and I’ve got to decide who to blow money on. I’m in a little bit of a fight with part of my family, so I’m thinking of sending them all something really thoughtful to pour on the guilt. Haven’t gotten much in the way of family contact from them since we all “reconciled” 2 years ago that I haven’t initiated. They pissed me off recently so I haven’t initiated any contact with them and suddenly they’re all “you’re so quiet, is something wrong?” Well, if you get a christmas present, then yes, I hate you. Just not sure what to get them. I’m becoming a real fan of small stuff. There’s an incredible variety of tiny things to get people... It lends itself well to finding something “personal,” like a flask for a certain alcoholic asshole.
On the coworkers front: more and more surreal. I’m starting to get shit from the idiots new boss for not tattling on them when they don’t do their work. As I wrote that, I just realized that she probably had a few talks with them, and they probably blamed their lack of involvement in their own projects on me. Like I’m an ogre and I chase them away from their own shit. Sighs. It would be nice to work on something that isn’t absolutely embarrassingly awful. For once. Please universe.
New people Same old song
Jul/29/09 08:19 PM
Well I’m not sure what to focus on here. Job sitch: scary as fuck. Morale is at an all-time low across the board, bureaucracy is ascendant and personal accountability is keeping pace. So I’m in a work environment where blind devotion to red tape is making it hard (impossible) for people (and me) to get shit done, but a new philosophy of holding people responsible for their work means not getting shit done has consequences. Yikes. Don’t get me wrong, there’re a ton of idiots at my job who would’ve been fired years ago if they worked anywhere else, and I personally welcome any boss who decides it’s time to stop letting shit slide. I’m just worried about the whole guilty-by-association thing. How does a person decide which team member fucked up on a project? Safer to toss out everyone, right? I hope not. Let’s hope the union gives a shit.
Love life sitch: In a serious relationship. No more handjobs in bars by strange women for the H.I.E. Instead it’s trips to nearby metropolises to attend the weddings of sisters, weekends pushing the karaoke comfort envelope open, and evenings listening to lengthy recountings of daily minutiae. Lucky me those minutiae are often regarding encounters with J. Lo and Katy Perry... but I gotta say I’m having trouble sharing my hermit space with someone else. Most days it’s fine and fun to have a caring lady to cook for and talk to and cetera. And then it suddenly gets old and I can’t stand to have her around. And it’s hard not to interpret those feelings as being deeper than commitment phobia/panic and selfish desire to watch the bad TV I like. But I think this one’s going to be around a long time. As long as I work in some days off.
Except MAN i could save some serious dough if she moved in and split the rent. Holy crap. We’re talking max-out-the-Roth-IRA-contributions money. heh. Or whiskey.
Look for a more specific update this weekend as I attempt to hide from girlfriend relatives by pretending to work. Also, I’m toying with the idea of telling some dating stories just to get them out there before my new blissful state erases them from my mind. Let me know if there’s interest.
Love life sitch: In a serious relationship. No more handjobs in bars by strange women for the H.I.E. Instead it’s trips to nearby metropolises to attend the weddings of sisters, weekends pushing the karaoke comfort envelope open, and evenings listening to lengthy recountings of daily minutiae. Lucky me those minutiae are often regarding encounters with J. Lo and Katy Perry... but I gotta say I’m having trouble sharing my hermit space with someone else. Most days it’s fine and fun to have a caring lady to cook for and talk to and cetera. And then it suddenly gets old and I can’t stand to have her around. And it’s hard not to interpret those feelings as being deeper than commitment phobia/panic and selfish desire to watch the bad TV I like. But I think this one’s going to be around a long time. As long as I work in some days off.
Except MAN i could save some serious dough if she moved in and split the rent. Holy crap. We’re talking max-out-the-Roth-IRA-contributions money. heh. Or whiskey.
Look for a more specific update this weekend as I attempt to hide from girlfriend relatives by pretending to work. Also, I’m toying with the idea of telling some dating stories just to get them out there before my new blissful state erases them from my mind. Let me know if there’s interest.
The inskernex
Mar/07/09 12:41 AM
So it’s 12:42AM, Friday night. I’m at home. Here’s a thing about New York that’s subject to change, but hasn’t in the last couple years: Most people don’t really go out on Friday night. And if they do they royally half-ass it. I am giving in to this situation and Fridays will henceforth become Get Shit Done nights.
To wit: tonight I spent a fucking loooong time dicking around with my resume site. Of course I’m not going to link to it because I hate you all and I would never willingly let you find out who I really am. No but really, come on. And I had an interesting discussion about gentrification with a person I almost went on a date with from that cupid site, but we didn’t and now things have simmered down into a bland series of instant messages about the hood. We both live here at the ass end of Brooklyn, hence our original inclination to meet up.
Anyway (and I realize my blogs are like a million times too long, so I’ll trying to paraphrase here), it went like this:
Girl: I see more and more hipsters in our hood every day
Me: Oh thank god
Girl: No, but they’re going to ruin the neighborhood.
Me: Huh? How?!
Girl: Gentrification. I don’t want an American Apparel here.
Me: Srsly? But--
Girl: I’ve seen too many neighborhoods with charm and character destroyed by gentrifying rich yuppies
Me: Have you ever actually opened your eyes in this neighborhood? It’s all rich white people ALREADY! And they’re all TACKY!
Girl: Something stupid and irritating
Me: Somebody tell me when the yuppies get here
So I obviously edited for time, etc, etc, but the thing is, this girl is always complaining about how lonely and isolating living in this place is. And she’s right (when she says that part). Why anyone wouldn’t want a nice mix of people with a sense of fucking atmosphere to be injected in this pean to “Saturday Night Fever” of a town I’ll never know.
Back to the subject of this entry (right). I have now posted my resume online, and everyone I know who works in the biz I do finds something to dig into and pull apart, sending me into a spiral of self doubt. Everyone else, however, loves it and is positive. My industry is full of bitter jealous assholes. Myself included.
The rest of the time was spent trying to figure out how to get my stuff to show up on google. I think the consensus is you wait a month. fine. i will. Next stop, work on getting this garbage heap up to snuff.
To wit: tonight I spent a fucking loooong time dicking around with my resume site. Of course I’m not going to link to it because I hate you all and I would never willingly let you find out who I really am. No but really, come on. And I had an interesting discussion about gentrification with a person I almost went on a date with from that cupid site, but we didn’t and now things have simmered down into a bland series of instant messages about the hood. We both live here at the ass end of Brooklyn, hence our original inclination to meet up.
Anyway (and I realize my blogs are like a million times too long, so I’ll trying to paraphrase here), it went like this:
Girl: I see more and more hipsters in our hood every day
Me: Oh thank god
Girl: No, but they’re going to ruin the neighborhood.
Me: Huh? How?!
Girl: Gentrification. I don’t want an American Apparel here.
Me: Srsly? But--
Girl: I’ve seen too many neighborhoods with charm and character destroyed by gentrifying rich yuppies
Me: Have you ever actually opened your eyes in this neighborhood? It’s all rich white people ALREADY! And they’re all TACKY!
Girl: Something stupid and irritating
Me: Somebody tell me when the yuppies get here
So I obviously edited for time, etc, etc, but the thing is, this girl is always complaining about how lonely and isolating living in this place is. And she’s right (when she says that part). Why anyone wouldn’t want a nice mix of people with a sense of fucking atmosphere to be injected in this pean to “Saturday Night Fever” of a town I’ll never know.
Back to the subject of this entry (right). I have now posted my resume online, and everyone I know who works in the biz I do finds something to dig into and pull apart, sending me into a spiral of self doubt. Everyone else, however, loves it and is positive. My industry is full of bitter jealous assholes. Myself included.
The rest of the time was spent trying to figure out how to get my stuff to show up on google. I think the consensus is you wait a month. fine. i will. Next stop, work on getting this garbage heap up to snuff.
Boring real life
Jan/18/09 12:36 PM
Well so here’s the part where I jump into divulging mildly confidential info and am thus forced to keep this site anonymous forever and ever ever. But first, the noise problem.
The part of the neighborhood I moved to is made up mostly of people waiting to die. They are old. They are great as far as old people go, though. At least to someone who’s used to a certain stereotype of the elderly as quivering, barely mobile, mostly silent and lacking in the spunk department. Where’d I come up with all that awful bigot-ey bullshit? Well the southwest, natch. My point is, though, that here you get some real live wires.
Take my upstairs neighbors as an example. They scream at each other all the time, move furniture in the middle of the night (2 AM), and have crazy topics as fall-back conversation. When encountered in the laundry room, the old man from upstairs likes to wistfully declare that the “Indians” had it right. “Huh?”
“The Indians had it right hundreds of years ago.”
Me: “H- how so?”
Upstair Old Guy: “They never washed their clothes.”
Me: “Oh, yeah?”
UOG: “Yeaaah, they had the right idea, this washing stuff’s for the boids.”
Me: “Is that right. Well I think I prefer being clean. It gets a little unpleasant after a few days--”
Uog: “Naah, they really had life down back then, those Indians. You have a nice day.”
Me: “You too”
Problem is they’re fucking loud sons of bitches. Even when they are off to Florida until April, like the building manager (who’s sympathies lie firmly with the older residents) claims. In fact, as I write this I hear something large being dragged across the floor. And I have to be the crazy psycho who forces the sweet old couple to buy carpets (which everyone is required to have). And leave asshole notes tucked in between the doorknob and door jam. Which bitch about loud humming machinery that turn out to be in the basement and NOT in the “empty” apartment upstairs. So now I’m crazy.
Work
So two more people got fired last week. I’m wrapping up the last episode of the show I cut, and would probably be the next in line. And I bought an apartment. This is a new type of stress. And the messed up thing is I’m finding myself getting boxed into WANTING this job badly because of the mortgage and the inherent potential depression factor of being jobless in Siberian Brooklyn. Nuts.
Want a fun link? Not safe for work
The part of the neighborhood I moved to is made up mostly of people waiting to die. They are old. They are great as far as old people go, though. At least to someone who’s used to a certain stereotype of the elderly as quivering, barely mobile, mostly silent and lacking in the spunk department. Where’d I come up with all that awful bigot-ey bullshit? Well the southwest, natch. My point is, though, that here you get some real live wires.
Take my upstairs neighbors as an example. They scream at each other all the time, move furniture in the middle of the night (2 AM), and have crazy topics as fall-back conversation. When encountered in the laundry room, the old man from upstairs likes to wistfully declare that the “Indians” had it right. “Huh?”
“The Indians had it right hundreds of years ago.”
Me: “H- how so?”
Upstair Old Guy: “They never washed their clothes.”
Me: “Oh, yeah?”
UOG: “Yeaaah, they had the right idea, this washing stuff’s for the boids.”
Me: “Is that right. Well I think I prefer being clean. It gets a little unpleasant after a few days--”
Uog: “Naah, they really had life down back then, those Indians. You have a nice day.”
Me: “You too”
Problem is they’re fucking loud sons of bitches. Even when they are off to Florida until April, like the building manager (who’s sympathies lie firmly with the older residents) claims. In fact, as I write this I hear something large being dragged across the floor. And I have to be the crazy psycho who forces the sweet old couple to buy carpets (which everyone is required to have). And leave asshole notes tucked in between the doorknob and door jam. Which bitch about loud humming machinery that turn out to be in the basement and NOT in the “empty” apartment upstairs. So now I’m crazy.
Work
So two more people got fired last week. I’m wrapping up the last episode of the show I cut, and would probably be the next in line. And I bought an apartment. This is a new type of stress. And the messed up thing is I’m finding myself getting boxed into WANTING this job badly because of the mortgage and the inherent potential depression factor of being jobless in Siberian Brooklyn. Nuts.
Want a fun link? Not safe for work