"I tried to think of the right answer. Unable to think of that, I spoke anyway."
Clearly there are only two reasonable explanations. The first, aliens. The second, the CIA. I ran into the living room to show it to Oleg. I sat down on his stomach, ripped off my sock, and showed him the evidence.
"Aliens removed the nail polish from one of my toenails."
He blandly examines my foot, which now has only 4 painted toenails.
"Those bastards."
"No I'm serious! This isn't funny. Why would they do this?"
"What makes you think this is the work of aliens?"
"Ummmm, because what other explanation could there possibly be?"
"Well, yes, clearly alien involvement makes the most sense."
"Dude, I am not saying that it makes sense, I'm just saying there's no other explanation."
That's not entirely true however. There is another possiblility, one far more sinister than mere aliens. And it's one that I'm afraid to tell Oleg about.
It could also be the CIA.
You may ask yourself why either the CIA or aliens would be interested in removing the nail polish from one of my toes...well, the truth is, the aliens I'm not sure about. I guess they have their reasons. Maybe they didn't have time for an anal probe? Maybe they're mystified by the human practice of applying colored varnish to our toenails, and want to test the substance out to see if it contains some kind of crazy earth magic? Maybe they were drunk? Who can ever really know the mind of an alien?
But the CIA? Well. I have a theory on that one. I have been stockpiling things. Like powdered sugar for example. You know, for baking? And tape. You know, for taping shit. I've been googling things. See my post above. Things like, "off the grid" and "government plot" and "survival gear" and "shotgun permit" and "do you need to be a double amputee to successfuly pull off DVDA? (the answer is "yes" by the way- Just ask Hilda "stumpy" Rachmann). I have been entertaining myself with youtube videos of protests and riots worldwide. I have been asking friends and family things like, "Where the hell is your sense of rage? Why are you still drinking their flouridated water? You know this is all part of their plan, right?"
But the fatal mistake was last week. I went to Change.gov and asked a few pertinent questions. About student loans. About what is being done to stop Codex Alimentus. And perhaps most importantly, whether they're concerned about civil unrest, what the likelihood of martial law really is, and whether we, the citizens, should be making our own "preparations." It was with this last one that I realized that I perhaps went too far. That there was a good chance this would be miscontrued. So I deleted all of them.
Which of course looks more suspicious.
So obviously the solution (in case I'm under surveillance now) is baking. Yes, baking. Because nothing throws off the CIA when they're illegally ransacking your house, like a house full of baked goods. So I made a french silk pie. Then I made banana bread. And then a cheesecake. So, umm, if that's you guys outside, there's nothing going on in here....just baking up some ginger cookies!
I also bought a sewing kit. You know, cause revolutionaries don't sew. They have "people" for that. So when the CIA breaks down my door, I'll be sitting here sewing, with a kitten on my lap, and I can be all "Hey guys, I was just sewing something. Feel free to take a look around. Would you like a ginger cookie?" And they'll be all- "Oh sorry, wrong house. Your cookies smell good, may we take a few?"
Why the CIA would want to remove nail polish from one of my toes is beyond me. Their methods are extreme, and their logic will be only be understood from a distance. I mean, why did they all dose each other with acid and then sit around the office like a bunch of duds? Everyone knows you head out to a laser light show, or a parade, or a gay bar.
Anyhoo. This is the second possible explanation that I'm afraid to tell Oleg about. For now, I'll stick with the aliens. So when the CIA breaks down our door as we're watching the X-Files in front of a warm fire, I can look at him accusingly and be like, "Dude, what did you do? I know they're not here for me. I've been busy baking!"
I would take a picture of my foot with the conspicuously missing nail polish on my second to the last toe, but I have no idea how to upload the picture from the camera to this blog. And you know why? Because revolutionaries have "people" for that kind of thing. So I need to wait until he gets home. I hope he doesn't forget the powdered sugar.
First two sentences have been taken from Night of the Avenging Blowfish, by John Welter, per Grace's experiment.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Low-Level Nausea
So I have a blog. It's very pink isn't it? I'm not sure why I have a blog. It always seemed so...indiscreet. (No offense to any of you lovely bloggers out there, I do quite enjoy a lot of you). It's just that it seemed a little too self-important, and well, like I said before, a little indiscreet. But this morning I realized that discretion has really gotten me nowhere, so I may as well lay it on the line. If only to amuse myself, and to force myself to get back in the habit of writing daily. Oh yes, and I lost my job last month. Well, I mean, I didn't exactly lose it- I still know where it is, I'm just not allowed to go there anymore. So I have lots and lots of time on my hands.
I am a terrible time-waster. My report cards from kindergarten all the way through high school have one thing in common. "Stacie does not use time wisely." Oh sure, I'm dilligent when it comes to work- I doubt very much that I would have made it through college while working 50 hours a week, I probably would not have made it through law school, and I most certainly would not have made it through bar study if I was unable to manage my work time. My problem is wasting what precious little free time I have. I do have fantasies of toiling in a personal wood shop where I will build fabulous armoires, or learning to sew gorgeous couture ensembles. These fantasies are expensive and unrealistic. But I could surely find something worthwhile to do with myself, right?
What is used to do is write. I wrote regularly. Religiously, in fact. I have carried around a sad looking Crayola-Crayon embossed child's suitcase full of my old journals for the past 14 years. It's heavy. Its contents are embarassing. But it has served as a reminder that, at one point in my life, I felt that I had things to say. Important things. It's been a long time since I felt that way, and it's been a long time since I've written. There is nothing new under the sun, yes? So it's not that I feel that I have anything important to say now, but this can't be a bad way to sort out my own thoughts, can it? And it has to be a better way to spend my time than googling random things ("How do sumo wrestlers wipe their butts?") when I take a break from searching for that elusive job.
There's also the guilt of course- induced by my brother and my better half, Oleg.
My brother, who I will be writing about in more detail later on, has recently written two screenplays. Two. He's schizophrenic. He is living in a private hell right now that I cannot begin to imagine, and yet he's had the discipline, the patience, and the organizational skills to knock out two full-length screenplays in the past 6 months. That's pretty remarkable for anyone, never mind someone living with the stress and the confusion that he lives with. He was "inspired" by a screenplay of mine that is only 1/3rd finished, and that I haven't worked on in almost 8 years. He even typed it up for me and put it on a disk, since the computer I had it stored in is long since deceased. Everytime I see him, he asks me, "Have you worked on your screenplay?" "Oh-uh-no. I was thinking about it though..."
Then there is the better half, Oleg. Oleg, who will almost certainly tell you otherwise, "uses time wisely." I am better at the daily organizational stuff, like the bill-paying, the cleaning, the deadlines. But he is infinitely better at making good use of his downtime. While I am googling random shit ("Is Kirk Cameron crazy?"), he is drawing, or teaching himself to program. And when I say "drawing," and "teaching himself to program," I mean he is learning and applying these skills at an almost expert level. Everyime we move (which has been 5 times in the past 13 months), and the sad Crayola Crayon suitcase is dragged from its hiding place, he says, "You should write something." I say, "Yeah..."
So why today? I don't know. I've felt a low-level nausea and panic for the past few days. If I'm being honest, I've felt this way since I was about 9 years old, but some days are worse. The past few days have been pretty significantly worse. I woke up this morning feeling overwhelmed by my thoughts. I don't know how to order them, or how to get away from them, so I'll put them here and maybe tomorrow they will make more sense.
It might just be the weather. I've spent the past 9 years in a cold climate ("the north," is what they call it, but I say that's just a pleasant euphamism for "dreary depths of hell eight months out of the damn year") and the weather from October through May still just seems unholy to me. It seems- wrong. I know there are people who acclimate to the weather after a certain amount of time. I am not one of them. When I bemoan the cold, I will inevitably get, "Aren't you used to it yet?" And I want to scream "NO! I'm not used to it!" In fact every winter seems darker, longer and more oppressive than the last. The early darkness and the frigid air, which inspire some sort of seasonal nostalgia in other people, make me want to hide in my bed and cry.
So I woke up today, exactly one month after I was let go from my job, with another empty day staring me in the face. It's cold, so I don't want to go anywhere, and even if I did, I can't spend the money for lunch, or a coffee, or a movie, or whatever one does in the afternoons when one doesn't have a job to go to. My recent unemployment means that we are trying to get by on Oleg's salary. He is not working as an attorney, because apparently, a 3.3 from the University of Minnesota Law School (a top-twenty school) means you're unemployable. So he's working for less than I made waiting tables in college, at a job that requires only a GED, and which brings him into contact with actual practicing attorneys who are, on a good day, a great deal less intelligent, ethical and dilligent than he is. When we figured in my job (which paid me a draw rather than a salary, and a draw that was considerably less than I made waiting tables at that), together we were making what each of us expected to be making on our own. So it was tight, to say the least. Two people with a combined 400K in student loan debt trying to get by on 80K in Chicago is not easy. And now. Well now...
For some reason this morning I was thinking about New Orleans. About the time I spent there. God, I was such a baby. So young! And when I thought about New Orleans, I couldn't help but wonder what that baby-self would think of where I'm at now. I think she would be sad. Disappointed. To say this is not what I expected to find thirteen years onward would be a gross understatement. I listened to "Tangled up in Blue" which is one of a number of songs that will forever remind me of New Orleans. Of a dark bar with my friend Griper closing down at dawn. Of humid nights, and goofy philosophical conversations fueled by unholy combinations of cheap burgundy wine and, well.... Of potholes and pigeon shit. Of a certain kind of certainty that lasts a couple of seasons and then disappears like ash. I wondered what all the intervening struggles over the years have been about. Seven years of higher education since then and I know a lot less than I did. Seven years of higher education and all of the debt that goes along with that, and my prospects look dimmer than ever. It's not right. I will talk more about New Orleans, I'm sure, at a later date.
I found something in my blue Tiffany box (no, not from a gift of jewelry, but crystal candlesticks that my mother bought me a few years ago) that I keep notes and cards in. It was a note.
Stacie,
Hey babe, what's up? Well I wasn't serious when I asked Cory out. Did she think I was? In your note you said that I probably didn't care that your life isn't very good. Well I do care. I care alot about you. :) Are you going to the 8th grade dance? I was kind of wondering if you would go with me just as friends. Ya know? I guess that sounds stupid to you. If you don't I understand. Why do you hate your father? I used to really hate my parents, I guess it was my dad that I hated more than my mom. My dad used to hit me for know (sic) reason, but we've gotten alot closer. So know (sic) I love my dad and my mom. My life is fine know (sic), there's this one beautiful girl that I really like and I'm pretty happy I guess. Do you like Bart Simpson? I do. He's my hero. Well I gotta cruz. So I'll c-ya later. W/B/please. I love you.
Love,
Matt
PS you shouldn't hate, you should only dislike.
PSS I can't imagine you hating anyone.
This note makes me sad for a couple of reasons. First, I obviously said "no" to this boy, because I clearly remember that I went to the 8th grade dance with my friends. Was I kind when I turned him down? I'm a lot of things, but I'm not cruel....I don't know if I can say that with any certainty about my 8th grade self however. God, I hope I was kind to him. What makes me saddest though, is that I have no recollection of this Matt boy. Zilch. None. And since I talked to him about my father and my home life (which is not something I recall ever discussing with even my best friends at that age) we were obviously close enough that I confided in him. It's crazy and troubling that I can't remember him now.
I think that's it for now. I am trying to feel fortunate that I have a beautiful Mahi Mahi (courtesy of Trader Joe's) defrosting in the refrigerator. I think maybe when you have Mahi Mahi to look forward to for dinner, it's not right to consider yourself anything but blessed, frustrated expectations and comparative failure aside....
The Laundress
I am a terrible time-waster. My report cards from kindergarten all the way through high school have one thing in common. "Stacie does not use time wisely." Oh sure, I'm dilligent when it comes to work- I doubt very much that I would have made it through college while working 50 hours a week, I probably would not have made it through law school, and I most certainly would not have made it through bar study if I was unable to manage my work time. My problem is wasting what precious little free time I have. I do have fantasies of toiling in a personal wood shop where I will build fabulous armoires, or learning to sew gorgeous couture ensembles. These fantasies are expensive and unrealistic. But I could surely find something worthwhile to do with myself, right?
What is used to do is write. I wrote regularly. Religiously, in fact. I have carried around a sad looking Crayola-Crayon embossed child's suitcase full of my old journals for the past 14 years. It's heavy. Its contents are embarassing. But it has served as a reminder that, at one point in my life, I felt that I had things to say. Important things. It's been a long time since I felt that way, and it's been a long time since I've written. There is nothing new under the sun, yes? So it's not that I feel that I have anything important to say now, but this can't be a bad way to sort out my own thoughts, can it? And it has to be a better way to spend my time than googling random things ("How do sumo wrestlers wipe their butts?") when I take a break from searching for that elusive job.
There's also the guilt of course- induced by my brother and my better half, Oleg.
My brother, who I will be writing about in more detail later on, has recently written two screenplays. Two. He's schizophrenic. He is living in a private hell right now that I cannot begin to imagine, and yet he's had the discipline, the patience, and the organizational skills to knock out two full-length screenplays in the past 6 months. That's pretty remarkable for anyone, never mind someone living with the stress and the confusion that he lives with. He was "inspired" by a screenplay of mine that is only 1/3rd finished, and that I haven't worked on in almost 8 years. He even typed it up for me and put it on a disk, since the computer I had it stored in is long since deceased. Everytime I see him, he asks me, "Have you worked on your screenplay?" "Oh-uh-no. I was thinking about it though..."
Then there is the better half, Oleg. Oleg, who will almost certainly tell you otherwise, "uses time wisely." I am better at the daily organizational stuff, like the bill-paying, the cleaning, the deadlines. But he is infinitely better at making good use of his downtime. While I am googling random shit ("Is Kirk Cameron crazy?"), he is drawing, or teaching himself to program. And when I say "drawing," and "teaching himself to program," I mean he is learning and applying these skills at an almost expert level. Everyime we move (which has been 5 times in the past 13 months), and the sad Crayola Crayon suitcase is dragged from its hiding place, he says, "You should write something." I say, "Yeah..."
So why today? I don't know. I've felt a low-level nausea and panic for the past few days. If I'm being honest, I've felt this way since I was about 9 years old, but some days are worse. The past few days have been pretty significantly worse. I woke up this morning feeling overwhelmed by my thoughts. I don't know how to order them, or how to get away from them, so I'll put them here and maybe tomorrow they will make more sense.
It might just be the weather. I've spent the past 9 years in a cold climate ("the north," is what they call it, but I say that's just a pleasant euphamism for "dreary depths of hell eight months out of the damn year") and the weather from October through May still just seems unholy to me. It seems- wrong. I know there are people who acclimate to the weather after a certain amount of time. I am not one of them. When I bemoan the cold, I will inevitably get, "Aren't you used to it yet?" And I want to scream "NO! I'm not used to it!" In fact every winter seems darker, longer and more oppressive than the last. The early darkness and the frigid air, which inspire some sort of seasonal nostalgia in other people, make me want to hide in my bed and cry.
So I woke up today, exactly one month after I was let go from my job, with another empty day staring me in the face. It's cold, so I don't want to go anywhere, and even if I did, I can't spend the money for lunch, or a coffee, or a movie, or whatever one does in the afternoons when one doesn't have a job to go to. My recent unemployment means that we are trying to get by on Oleg's salary. He is not working as an attorney, because apparently, a 3.3 from the University of Minnesota Law School (a top-twenty school) means you're unemployable. So he's working for less than I made waiting tables in college, at a job that requires only a GED, and which brings him into contact with actual practicing attorneys who are, on a good day, a great deal less intelligent, ethical and dilligent than he is. When we figured in my job (which paid me a draw rather than a salary, and a draw that was considerably less than I made waiting tables at that), together we were making what each of us expected to be making on our own. So it was tight, to say the least. Two people with a combined 400K in student loan debt trying to get by on 80K in Chicago is not easy. And now. Well now...
For some reason this morning I was thinking about New Orleans. About the time I spent there. God, I was such a baby. So young! And when I thought about New Orleans, I couldn't help but wonder what that baby-self would think of where I'm at now. I think she would be sad. Disappointed. To say this is not what I expected to find thirteen years onward would be a gross understatement. I listened to "Tangled up in Blue" which is one of a number of songs that will forever remind me of New Orleans. Of a dark bar with my friend Griper closing down at dawn. Of humid nights, and goofy philosophical conversations fueled by unholy combinations of cheap burgundy wine and, well.... Of potholes and pigeon shit. Of a certain kind of certainty that lasts a couple of seasons and then disappears like ash. I wondered what all the intervening struggles over the years have been about. Seven years of higher education since then and I know a lot less than I did. Seven years of higher education and all of the debt that goes along with that, and my prospects look dimmer than ever. It's not right. I will talk more about New Orleans, I'm sure, at a later date.
I found something in my blue Tiffany box (no, not from a gift of jewelry, but crystal candlesticks that my mother bought me a few years ago) that I keep notes and cards in. It was a note.
Stacie,
Hey babe, what's up? Well I wasn't serious when I asked Cory out. Did she think I was? In your note you said that I probably didn't care that your life isn't very good. Well I do care. I care alot about you. :) Are you going to the 8th grade dance? I was kind of wondering if you would go with me just as friends. Ya know? I guess that sounds stupid to you. If you don't I understand. Why do you hate your father? I used to really hate my parents, I guess it was my dad that I hated more than my mom. My dad used to hit me for know (sic) reason, but we've gotten alot closer. So know (sic) I love my dad and my mom. My life is fine know (sic), there's this one beautiful girl that I really like and I'm pretty happy I guess. Do you like Bart Simpson? I do. He's my hero. Well I gotta cruz. So I'll c-ya later. W/B/please. I love you.
Love,
Matt
PS you shouldn't hate, you should only dislike.
PSS I can't imagine you hating anyone.
This note makes me sad for a couple of reasons. First, I obviously said "no" to this boy, because I clearly remember that I went to the 8th grade dance with my friends. Was I kind when I turned him down? I'm a lot of things, but I'm not cruel....I don't know if I can say that with any certainty about my 8th grade self however. God, I hope I was kind to him. What makes me saddest though, is that I have no recollection of this Matt boy. Zilch. None. And since I talked to him about my father and my home life (which is not something I recall ever discussing with even my best friends at that age) we were obviously close enough that I confided in him. It's crazy and troubling that I can't remember him now.
I think that's it for now. I am trying to feel fortunate that I have a beautiful Mahi Mahi (courtesy of Trader Joe's) defrosting in the refrigerator. I think maybe when you have Mahi Mahi to look forward to for dinner, it's not right to consider yourself anything but blessed, frustrated expectations and comparative failure aside....
The Laundress
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