By Beauty Damned

All over the place

People at work have been telling me I look tired lately. That can never be a good sign. I have been tired. More tired than I ever remember being in the past, though there is a small possibility that I was even more tired than this when I was a teenager and I never slept and life was one big party. But when you're young and springy you don't feel tired, even if you've been running yourself into the ground with bad eating habits and excessive drinking and escapades that sometimes lead to physical repurcussions, such as making the error of consuming a bottle of Carlo Rossi and rolling incoherently down a dark, muddy hill somewhere in Southern Oregon or getting caught in blackberry brambles or falling down while running from cops who have nothing better to do than chase drunk kids.

Man, life used to be crazy. I was like an energizer bunny. I guess it's a good thing I "got all that out of my system" when I was in high school, because now that I'm an old college student I just don't have the energy or the wearwithal to cheerfully abuse myself anymore. It sounds so pathetic to say that everything hurts, but it's true. Everything fucking hurts.

I wish I could be a happy helga and just say that life is great, but life has never been weirder than it is right now. It's been an insane year, to say the least. I feel like I've gone through some kind of cosmic garbage disposal. I've been shredded. I've never felt worse and somehow - if this can possibly be said without sounding like a complete psycho - I've never felt better. I have never felt that my actions were as consequential as they seem to be now. At least, that gives a person good reason to live and make a stab at happiness. This hasn't been a trivial year. It hasn't been the kind of year where you just say "well, there went another year." It's been the kind of year where you look back and go, "What the fuck??? How did I get here?"

My body hurts. Every minute of every day I am trying to disconnect from my physical pain. I, like most people, have vices that help me get through every day. I am having a very hard time - for reasons that I myself do not understand - confronting the issues that I'm having about balancing work and school. For some stupid reason, I would rather suffer physically and mentally than have the dreaded talk with my employers about working fewer hours. There's no explanation for my timid behavior except for the fact that I am actually afraid of the change. I have always worked full time, and even though now I've taken on school, I feel like I should still be able to just buckle down and work my badass to the bone. I'm having a hard time admitting to myself that I'm not as badass as I wish I was and there is a point where you have to face the fact that you can't handle everything at once. You have to lessen your own load.

On Wednesdays, I almost always go from work to my favorite bar on University where I normally do some reading and have a beer and something to eat before my late class. Then I go to class and get home around 11 p.m. Exhausted because I've been out of the house for 14 hours. Tonight I decided to come home first, even though it meant I could only be home for 45 minutes before having to commute back to Manhattan. I did it anyway. Laying down on my couch for half an hour was worth it. I drove Rob's car to school and parked in an overpriced lot near 6th Avenue, where I was charged $10 more than necessary because I forgot my student ID. On the way down 12th Street, coming from the West Side Hwy, I saw a man in the West Village digging in a trashcan. He was depositing his acquisitions into a big shopping bag that had the words "CONTAIN YOURSELF!" printed in big block letters on the outside. That seemed a weird omen to me. Maybe one shouldn't read too much into messages printed on the baggage of homeless people, but then again, maybe there's no better place from which to glean wisdom.

Contain yourself!

Okay. I'll try.

Even when people say annoyingly zennish things to me such as "stop trying," I can't stop trying to contain myself. I'm afraid that I will turn out to be uncontainable and I'll tear right through the bottom of a paper bag and find myself scattered all over a sidewalk in the west village next to a homeless man who is digging in a nearby trashcan for something of value. How does one contain their self?

Anyway, enough with that vague fucking bit of contemplation. Class was good. Creative non-fiction. Good times. Nothing exceptional happened except that we critiqued a classmate's piece and she cried because she felt like it wasn't good enough. I felt terrible because I know what it is like to pour your heart into a story and then have people tell you their honest opinion. It's worse when writing non-fiction because we are often so attached to those true stories that we finally find a way to tell. It's hard to have people examine your writing critically and speak their minds about it in front of a class. After it's over you feel like your story has just been dissected and left on the table in pieces and all you can do is just gather up all the little fragments and put them in your "Contain Yourself!" shopping bag and go home to lick your wounds.

I also know what it feels like to spontaneously break down in tears in front of near-strangers, though I've thankfully never done so in class. She is a middle-aged blond woman who wears bright colors and brings a fan to class everytime. Tonight she wore a hot teal blazer. (Everyone always tries to look extra nice when their story is on the hot-seat because you feel like everyone is going to be looking at you. I do it too. It's sort of silly though, because the truth is that people look at you less when they're talking about your story.) Anyway, she wrote a beautiful story about an eye-opening trip to Lima, Peru. There were some things...a few things about it that weren't working or could have been better, but that's every story that is submitted in class. I remember feeling dejected for at least a week after my story was critiqued. This woman fanned herself while the tears made their way down her cheeks. She never stopped fanning herself, not for one second. We all told her that we really loved her story and that she shouldn't cry. It was true. We did love her story, so I didn't feel bad about putting on the kid gloves. Usually I manage to stay far away from kid gloves. It just seems patronizing to me to tell a person you like their crappy story so that they feel better, but in her case she really had no reason to cry. At least sentence structure is something that can be improved upon, while a lack of talent seems relatively hopeless.

The class went by quickly. Before I knew it, I was headed back to the lot to retrieve the car. I drove all the way down Broadway to the Brooklyn Bridge. It felt good to drive. I had the music cranked up and I felt a burst of energy for about two minutes before my eyelids started to become painfully heavy. Once on the bridge, traffic was bad. There was this asshole in a van in front of me who wouldn't allow this little sedan to merge. Never underestimate the rudeness of a New Yorker. As soon as you think to yourself, "no one could be that crazy, rude or stupid!" You will see a person exhibit all three of those traits at one time. So it was tonight when the big van wouldn't let the little sedan in front of him, despite the heavy traffic and the fact that none of us were getting anywhere any faster by being hostile. Long story short, they hit eachother. They fucking hit eachother! I couldn't believe it. There was already a traffic jam and then these two idiots caused another traffic jam by getting into a fender-bender in the middle of a traffic jam! It was one jam on top of another. I finally made it home and now here I am, should have been in bed an hour and a half ago, but I'm still up because I don't feel like surrendering to sleep yet. As tired as I am, I still don't want to go to sleep. Even if it is the only time that I can be truly contained.

New Photos

me, Darcie, Jenni at the Rose Gardens in Portland.

me and Darc at the Anti-Bush rally that blew.

A Typical Weekend

I'm supposed to be writing a paper right now. And also reading two books and revising two stories. It's not that I don't feel like doing those things because I do. I wish I could do all of them at one time. So therefore I am doing none of them at all. It makes perfect sense.

I also need to eat something, do a mountain of dishes, clean out the catbox, drink a beer, do some laundry, check the mail, sort the old mail and the new mail, take a shower, vacuum the floor and lay down.

Instead, I am here at my computer, feeding my addiction to myspace and telling any stranger who is bored enough to read about it that I have so much to do that the list itself renders me useless.

I think I just wrote the textbook definition of "Procrastination." And I now feel pathetic enough - now that I have confessed and experienced shame - to do something about it. This house better watch out because it's about to get clean. And watch out world, because I am going to write the end all, be all of essays comparing the concerns of Blade Runner to those of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. HA! HAAAAAAA!!!!

Horns, Streamers, Confetti

Not only is today a good news day for democrats the nation over, but it is also a perfectly good day to tell republicans who continue to support Bush, and his corrupt war, that they suck, and ask them how it feels to eat a bowl of dick dirt.

In other news, that would otherwise be jovial if not followed by news of his successor, Donald Rumsfeld is being fired stepping down as Secretary of Defense. He is being replaced by - surprise! - another asshole!

More good times to come. At least we have a "democratic" House. Though I wish "democrat" were not synonymous with "chicken." Hopefully we really will have a democratic house, and not just a clukkity headless chicken coop.

Evil Bits

You know what I don't get about this whole hoopla over John Kerry's recent comment (which the republicans are clutching transparently, as if it is their last pathetic hope of keeping control of Congress in the upcoming election)? I don't get how it is okay for George W. Bush to joke during a correspondents' dinner about how there were no WMDs, but John Kerry cannot make a joke about the lack of intelligence of George W. Bush without it being construed into a direct insult to the United States Military.

George W. Bush can joke about the very lie that got us into Iraq as if that lie hadn't already cost countless lives, and America doesn't flinch. But somehow John Kerry's comment harms us, it harms our country and our troops. The media is so cunty. I'm sorry but it's the truth. Useless sons of bitches.

I know that it's completely unnecessary for me to go into all of the reasons that this war is wrong since I think we're all pretty up to date on that, but let me just say that I am so tired of the tiny percentage of people left who still agree with the way that things have gone and continue going.

According to NY1 this morning, less than thirty percent of Americans are supportive of the way that George W. Bush is "handling" the war in Iraq. Who are those people? I suppose they're the same people who say that the Dixie Chicks and Barbara Streisand should just shut up and sing. What amazes me is that those are the people who are given a voice. While the dissent that has risen up against this war has been blacked out by media for years, those who support the war in Iraq and president Bush have been given a voice. Isn't it time that those who oppose the war are given a voice? Even if the things they sometimes say are fumbly, bumbly bullshit?

And speaking of fumbly, bumbly bullshit, you would think by the way that republicans have reacted to John Kerry's remark, that George W. Bush had never said an ineloquent thing in his life or insulted anyone or even, dare I say it, made our entire country look bad in the eyes of - dundundundun - the rest of the world. No. Only a democrat can make a remark so inflammatory that republicans would think it their final opportunity in what seems to be a lost race for them. Republicans will pick their teeth and file their nails while the administration dismantles everything good that this country has ever stood for. They will yawn and giggle, while at a formal correspondents' dinner - a scene that is going to be broadcast across the globe - Dubya himself is pictured moving about a room pretending to look for the weapons of mass destruction that he claimed were an imminent threat to the U.S. and a justification for the preemptive slaughter of other human beings in Iraq. He pretends to look for the imaginary thing to which he sacrificed American lives and resources. He looks under a chair, looks stumped (as always). He snickers. No WMDs there. Everyone laughs. What a great time.

Can we rewind? Can we go back to that and turn to the people who are once again doing everything in their power to string up a democrat - any goddamn democrat - and say to them, "What about this hilarious piece of comedy? How do you like that punchline? There were no WMDs! Hahahahahaaaaaa. Get it?"