Decembered

so much for rest and relaxation during december. i had severely miscalculated this month, thinking foolishly that i would spend it living a leisurely existence. i was sure i’d finally get some downtime at work, with weekends free to gallivant with friends and finally accomplish the myriad low priority items that have been languishing on my to-do list for months (hello, cleaning out the garage), things i promised myself i’d get done before the end of the year.

but here i am a few weeks away from january and the garage is still a mess and i haven’t even finished chronicling the two-week roadtrip i began on labor day. so what the hell happened? of course work is the perpetual culprit, with the day jobby and freelance gigs keeping me busier than the trash man on trash day, which is surprising given the seasonal slowdown i usually encounter this time of year.

but hey, i’m not complaining, especially since the first half of the year was spent losing freelance clients and worrying that i would be laid off. others, of course, had it way worse. in truth, there is not much i will miss about 2009. easily, the highlight of the year was the roadtrip to Portland, where i saw my baby cousin get married. my springtime trip to new york wasn’t shabby either. low lights include the leaky fridge kitchen disaster in March and watching both my parents, countless friends and 15% of my coworkers get laid off.

when midnight arrives on new year’s eve, i plan to smile wide with the knowledge that this shithole of a year has been left behind. i will then kiss my Mo and smile wide with the knowledge that fabulous things await in 2010. there will be plenty of home improvement and personal development and leisure time and published writing and lottery winning. i will also finally clean out the garage. before that, i will write the final posts chronicling my roadtrip. but first, a nap.

Still Counting

right after i blogged about my seasonal battle with insomnia — an entry the universe surely read — i was subject to a string of restful nights of sleep, plus a weekend full of naps. yes, you read that right: NAPS! they weren’t particularly long naps, averaging maybe half an hour, but they did plenty to replenish my sleepy self. so yay for NAPS! my new band name is NAPS! did i mention i took NAPS! over the weekend?

these restful nights lasted exactly one week before evaporating, so if you’re still reading this, universe, please come back and perform the insomnia exorcism again. we didn’t expunge the demon all the way last time. he’s still lingering in my bed, eating crackers unapologetically and demanding that we watch all-night marathons of Tales From the Crypt together. i think he’s even possessed Mo, who now also complains each morning of “sleeping like shit last night.” i see some midnight scrabble tournaments in our future.

but this insomnia is different and doubly antagonistic because it has as much to do with anxiety as it does with the weather. this is not unusual for me, as stress has ruined many a night of sleep for me in the past. and thankfully this time isn’t as bad as that one winter i spent “being a freelancer” (read: unemployed), when i was grinding my teeth each night and had to get a mouth guard. so no need to cart me off to the sleep clinic just yet.

but there are a few things occupying that usually empty space three feet above my ass, and because the universe has proved itself to be a Milla Times reader in the recent past, i’m hoping that disclosing my list of stressors here might invite another exorcism, one that brings satisfying sleep to my bed and bags of money to my doorstep. here’s hoping:

• money: duh! this is an obvious, enduring concern for me, as it is for almost everyone, but it’s been more bothersome lately for a multitude of reasons. home loan notwithstanding, this was supposed to be the Year of Paying Down Debt, which i have indeed done, but not to the point of eradicating it as i had hoped, only reducing. i realize that reducing is better than nothing, certainly better than accruing, but the dent should have been much bigger. though given the fact that my company fell on hard times and forwent raises this year, it couldn’t be.



• home repairs: this goes hand-in-hand with money worries and has the unfortunate side effect of accruing debt instead of eradicating it, but i’m comfortable with this because 1) home improvements typically increase a home’s value, which will come in handy when i sell many years from now; 2) many of these improvements will increase the house’s energy efficiency, which will ultimately save me money and also qualify for all sorts of tax credits and consumer rebates; and 3) a pleasant home environment will impact my mental health in positive ways. when i try to explain all this to the myriad lenders i’ve called in search of a HELOC, i’m met with testy brokers who say, “if you bought your house last year, you’re probably ‘underwater,’ so unless the house appraises for more than you paid for it, you’ll never qualify for a loan. call us once the market turns around.”



• work: just days after last month’s layoff came to decimate 10% of my company’s staff, the rumor mill starting churning again, predicting evil tidings for the fall. as with all rumors, i take these with a grain of salt, whatever that means. seriously, though, why would we take uncertain news with a grain of salt? vicodin and cocktails i can understand, but why salt? i don’t get it. in any case, i’m too sleepy to react in any meaningful way to these rumors, but because i’m not dead, i can’t say that they haven’t unnerved me.



• technology: now five years old, my iBook is beginning to act like a menopausal woman with hot flashes who overheats when three applications are running. and whenever i try to watch a video online, out comes a curmudgeonly old man who’s apparently never heard of streaming video and says, “what is this YouTube website you kids like? i don’t have the bandwidth for that. let’s freeze up your screen instead and maybe you’ll use this time to call your mother.”



• ants: please spare me the obvious advice because i’ve tried everything: ant traps filled with poison, spray bottles filled with vinegar, sealing the openings with caulk, dousing the area with cinnamon and cayenne, eliminating all food and water from the premises and so on. these methods have been effective and i haven’t seen an adult ant in weeks, but now the babies have hatched and come for revenge. these are so tiny that they managed to wiggle into the (supposedly) air-tight container i bought to store the dog food, which now makes TWO 40-lbs bags of dog food ruined by ants. even my dreams are populated by ants lately. when i open my tired eyes each morning, ants are my first thought and usually the first thing i see when i step into the kitchen. i wonder if they can be trained to make me a cup of coffee. it’s the least they could do.

okay, universe. your turn.

Countdown to Fall

i thought i was ready for the summery weather, even excited for it as it meant my pasty white skin could turn a healthy pink, but now i find myself making peace (again) with a fundamental truth of my life: the sun and i are not friends. at best, we’re frenemies who get catty with each other the longer we hang out. plus, that bitch has got some fat ankles. i could never be friends with a sun like that.

the worst part about this heat is how it totally obliterates my sleep. it’s been several weeks now since i’ve had a satisfying night of slumber. when i go to bed each night, the first thing i can count on is a fun-filled hour of shifting from one uncomfortable position to another. then when sleep finally does come, it’s light and fleeting, punctuated by more tosses and turns, frequent pee breaks and sometimes nightmares.

i’m not normally prone to insomnia — i’ve always fancied myself a Champion Napper — but every summer it finds me like a collection agency finds a debtor. and when the calls start coming, they disrupt EVERYTHING, including otherwise calm moments when the phone isn’t ringing, like during the day when sleep is neither a priority nor a possibility but is still tormenting me with weary eyes and gnawing fatigue. i’m exhausted all the time. focusing is difficult. sometimes i forget my own name.

night times are even worse. around 3am, i’ll find myself wandering aimlessly around the house, trying not to wake up Mo by tripping over furniture in the dark. often i’ll step onto the deck to take in some fresh air, which has the cruel side effect of waking me up even more. at this point, one or both dogs will join me and stretch across my feet, yawning.

i’ll sit there for minute or two and look around nervously. it’s eerily quiet at 3am, the type of quiet that exists right before a meteor hits the earth or a dirty bomb incinerates los angeles. at these moments, i’ll begin thinking that something dreadfully awful is about to happen and that i’m going to be the only one awake to witness it.

in fact, i’m convinced that the only reason i woke up in the middle of the night is because i alone saw The End coming, and i needed to be awake to do something about it. though i’m never really should what i should do, so i don’t do anything and instead stand on my deck just waiting and waiting for something to happen. and when it doesn’t i crawl back into bed, annoyed that the sleep deprivation is now making me incredibly paranoid.

on other nights, i feel more mystical than paranoid. i’ll stare up at the big summer sky while contemplating the twinkly stars and mysterious universe. i’ll think about the earth spinning on its axis, with me as just a tiny speck among many that amount to both nothing and everything, and how the stars and i are made of the same organic matter, and wouldn’t it be cool to be a star in the sky with a view of the earth. it’s like being a bird but better because you don’t have to worry about foraging for food when you’re a star. you can just sit, twinkle and wait for people to pin their wishes on you.

i’ll make a few wishes of my own while sitting in the almost twilight, which provides the perfect backdrop for thinking Really Deep Thoughts, original thoughts i always want to write down because i’m sure they’ve unearthed some previously unknown truth about the inner workings of the human soul. but that sounds like too much effort to make in the middle of the night, so i end up crawling back into bed, annoyed that the sleep deprivation is now making me incredibly pretentious.

The Sads

aside from that first week spent in new york, i had an intense case of The Sads all through april. i think the new york trip played into this considerably in the way that vacations tend to produce depressions fixated on the idea that life should always be a vacation.

i became fixated on the idea that my life should be, as well as the lives of my friends whom i would visit in various cities around the country at a moment’s notice. together, we would go out to fancy meals, drink pricey bottles of wine, visit museums, see movies and plays, and enjoy each other’s company without ever having to worry about the scary Excel spreadsheet waiting for us at the office.

but the scary spreadsheet beckoned and i soon found myself in the office again, immersed in daily shit storms that brought long hours and endless office drama. add to that the looming threat of layoffs “any day now” and the nonstop rumors on how big they would be. (“bloodbath” was the term bandied around the most.)

then add to that a rocky home life born of the leaky fridge drama and the fact that Mo and i had been bickering about everything and nothing for weeks. plus, my birth control pill was making me a complete lunatic, no doubt intensifying my Sads into a case of The I Can’t Do Anything Rights.

i even saw people grabbing their children and running away from me on the street when they saw me and my unhappy aura walking toward them. it got so bad that my own dogs wouldn’t play with me despite the steak i attached to my neck. and there was that piece of spinach always stuck to my tooth and the pile of poo permanently attached to my shoe.

i seriously felt like the Sad Girl in those commercials for antidepressants, the one who walks around with a little cloud raining just over her while smiling children frolic in a meadow nearby. i even thought of taking some antidepressants despite my disbelief in them. ultimately i opted not to.

(of course, i speak only for myself in poo-pooing antidepressants. if you take them and they work for you, more power to them and to you. i just don’t want to take any mood medications because i don’t believe i have a chemical imbalance that needs correcting. you might, though. but trust me, i’m not crazy. so what if i speak to aliens you can’t see? it only means you’re not as perceptive. where’s that voice coming from anyway? it’s commanding me to eat cheesecake. weird.)

these Sads were getting out of control and too often became The Mads that turned even the usually cute things the puppies do (Pinko talking) into a source of tremendous frustration. i didn’t feel like writing, and when i tried, all that came out was, “this blog entry sucks.” i began thinking i would never again have a day when i woke up feeling optimistic. instead it was all irritability, all the time. even cheesecake didn’t help.

and then it happened. May happened and the tide turned. two huge work projects finally launched, making the workday feel more like a workday and less like finals week in college. suddenly i could breathe a little easier. then the kitchen flooring finally arrived, as did a new refrigerator (photos forthcoming). then i got news that my mom found a job after months of unemployment (pops is still out of work). then Mo and i had a series of great days when we kissed and made up, which lead to more kissing and even some heavy petting.

gradually i woke up each day feeling better, calmer and more optimistic, charmed again by Pinko’s incessant chatter. it’s amazing what a little heavy petting can do. also amazing is what a little yoga can do, and also a pill switcheroo courtesy of my doctor. plus, i picked up some mighty nice freelance work that made me reconsider applying for that part-time job as the Towel Girl at the Y. the universe really does provide!

i’d like to think it provided me with a shitty April so i could appreciate a spectacular May, but with the month not even half over and layoffs still looming, i can’t be sure. what i am sure of is that the last 11 days have not sucked hard enough to make me respond to the Starbucks barista who always says “good morning” to me with, “yeah, what’s so good about it? huh, bitch? tell me because i’d really like to know.”

i only hope this trend continues, though i doubt it will because, clearly, the Entire Universe Is Against Me. now if you’ll excuse me, a strange voice is ordering me to eat cheesecake. i must obey.

Shitty

if this blog is good for anything, it’s good for keeping a tally of when i’m actually right about things. and right there in my Annual entry, immortalized in 10-point arial font is my prediction that 2009 will be a shitty year. granted, it’s not living-on-the-streets-in-a-cardboard-box-eating-out-of-trash-cans shitty, but allow me some creative license here and rest assured that each time i enter into woe-is-me mode i do remind myself that i could be stuck in Ukraine, growing a tail from the Chernobyl explosion.

despite the fact that i have no such gangly tail growing — which seems sorta cool the more i think about it — 2009 has started rough. admittedly, the roughness has hit others more than it has hit me, but because i am a sensitive soul who feels every discomfort in the universe, i’m bummed about it, too.

it all began when my mom got laid off from her job as a mechanical engineer. technically, it was a forced leave of absence (unpaid), so she may be rehired, though i think that’s doubtful considering her company has not invited back the first group that was forced out. needless to say, she’s been sad beyond sad, as she’s spent 15 years with her company, loving on her work and her colleagues. plus, my superstar mom was always the primary moneymaker for the family, so the elimination of her paycheck sucks harder than it would if my pops were laid off.

a week and a half later, my pops was laid off. shit squared. this was a surprise as his company still seemed busy while my mom’s had all but shut down operations. so now both mom and dad are out of work, just years shy of retiring, their savings eroded by last year’s market implosion, their hopes dashed for a comfortable retirement.

i visited them as soon as i found out, took them to lunch and helped with their resumes like a good daughter would have, all the while feeling guilty as shit for the money i owe them, money they could use right about now, money i cannot yet repay. to assuage my guilt, i brought them some food, some flowers and did all i could to cheer them up while they sat sullen, shocked and unamused. finally, i offered to give them all the money i had in my account, but they refused like the good parents they are, reminding me that their 40 years in the workplace has made their account slightly more robust than mine. “hang onto your cash, Meel,” my mom said as she clipped coupons at the kitchen table. “you might need it this year.”

two weeks later, my company had its own round of layoffs, which wasn’t a huge surprise as there were hints galore that cuts were on their way. the day of the layoff felt like an eight-hour funeral, with people huddled in corners, speaking in hushed tones, and wearing darker colors despite the 80-degree weather outside. the good news is that i escaped unscathed (this time), though 500 of my coworkers did not.

there were large meetings held, where the big cheeses sat at the head of a very long conference table, promising nothing about the future. i’ve already been told not to expect much of a raise this year, nor is the profit-sharing bonus my company doles out each June likely considering we made no profits last year.

sorry, Mom and Dad. that raise and bonus were earmarked for your pocket. i guess we’ll all be clipping coupons together at the kitchen table this year. sorry, laid-off coworkers. that totally sucks. i know i’m the lucky one in all this and i don’t take that fact for granted, not even for one second. and i still have hope for 2009. with 11 months to go, it has plenty of time to make up for the shit storm of the past five weeks.

(p.s. i’ve been hustling like a whore in church to find extra freelance work, so if anyone knows/needs help with proofreading/copyediting/copywriting, email me asap! reasonable rates! fast turnaround! references provided! thanks!)

Annual

i must have been one of the only people i know who didn’t want 2008 to end. everyone around me was aching for that ball to drop so they could claim a fresh start — a year when things would surely be better! — while i stood grumpy, almost weepy, wondering how i could squeeze another month out of the last few days of december.

a fresh start sounded awful to me. a fresh start sounded like an opportunity to fail. surely, i could never top the banner year i just had, the year of the shiny new house in Highland Park and new job that i was handpicked for. like a dessert you dread taking the last bite of, i needed 2008 to continue in perpetuity, maybe forever. but the days piled up like they tend to and selfishly, 2009 came in to much applause from everyone but me.

when it did come in, Mo and i were at The Verdugo drinking. the dj announced the countdown and the year flashed before me — the house hunt and escrow, the remodel and subsequent move-in, the LA Landing and 4th of july, the new job and down economy, the hits and even the misses. a second later, they were tucked behind the bookend of a new year. i leaned toward Mo for a kiss.

a week and a half in, 2009 has proved itself unremarkable. work has been hell, sleep has been elusive and i’ve been reluctant to stick to my resolutions, one of which is to take a yoga class weekly, particularly when i’m pissy about being overworked sleep-deprived. but my grumpy ass never made it to class. next week, for sure.

i’ve also resolved to spend less time in front of my computer. this is another one i’ve failed at. i worry that the only way to pull myself away from this warm machine on my lap is to subscribe to cable TV, a luxury i have not enjoyed in many years. no point in paying for cable, i figured, when i can get streaming video on my computer for free. if only books could stream MTV.

another resolution is to pay down some of the astronomical house debt i’ve acquired in the past year. extra cash will have to be funneled first to my parents, who’ve been watching their retirement savings plummet since the summer. this has brought me all sorts of guilt, given their generous loan to help with my home improvement. i’ve vowed to be a dutiful daughter and begin repaying them this year.

continuing the home improvement would also be nice, but considering the lousy economy and the fact that freelance work has been slim, filling my yard with those fancy, rare hedges i fell in love with at the getty center garden is unlikely. also unlikely are monthly massages and lobster dinners.

what is likely for me in 2009 is time spent with the same good friends and family i’ve been in love with for years. there will also be cozy nights at home with Mo and the furry babies. if i’m lucky, i might get one lobster dinner in there somewhere, and perhaps a weekend getaway to some place relaxing. and i guess that’s enough for me.

Recession Depression

i’m convinced that this recession is the new black or at least the new election, maybe even the new Sarah Palin. it’s become one of those inescapable, overexposed topics that spits in your eye and pisses on your leg all day long. the feeling is similar to the campaign fatigue i had earlier this year, where i would turn on the radio or load up the Times to find endless stories on swing state voters and Katie Couric interviews and Obama’s terrorist ties, now replaced with foreclosures and layoffs and bailouts.

and hey, let’s make sure to examine every angle of this topic and interview an unemployed worker in each of the 50 states to see how they’re handling being out of work, and let’s interview every grandmother who’s lost her retirement in the market crash and is now facing foreclosure. let’s ask her how she’s managing the high blood pressure she can no longer afford medicine for. to balance things out, we can throw in a feel-good story on how you can stretch your pennies by making crafts this christmas instead of buying that flat-screen you really want.

come on, media people. is there no other news happening in the world? aren’t there Nobel prizes being awarded this month or some medical breakthroughs to report? how about just a cat being rescued from a tree or photos of the new baby panda at the zoo? i know journalism is known for its “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality, but when the whole damn news hour is a bloodbath, i begin to wonder why i should get out of bed each morning knowing that my day will be filled with dismembered limbs instead of rainbows.

i know i can just turn the news off, and rest assured that the radio station my alarm wakes me with every morning has now been set to mexican ranchero music rather than NPR. Mo and i have also found an awfully fantastic eighties station that we blast on sunday afternoons as we tool around the house, baking bread in our own uninspired attempt to follow the penny-stretching crowd.

yet i still can’t escape the bad news bears. they were out en masse at my company’s christmas party the other week. they looked a lot like my coworkers and stood huddled in corners, whispering about the bad economy like it was some secret, asking strange questions like, “think this party will have half as many people here next year?” someone even asked me what i would do if i got laid off. “well,” i replied, “this is just my first guess, but i’d probably look for another job.”

i know it’s serious stuff out there, folks, and that grandmas are losing their homes and i might even lose mine if things get really bad (though i would rather sell ass on the corner before i allowed myself to lose my house — not my own ass because i doubt anyone would buy it, but someone else’s ass, as i’ve always thought i would make a good pimp), but i don’t need daily reminders of how much worse things are getting.

if they get much worse, that’s ok. not like i didn’t see it coming. and if i get laid off — and i have no reason to believe that i will — that’s also ok because i’ve been laid off before, twice in a row actually. the first layoff was from the dot-com disaster eToys. it was right after christmas, early 2001 during the days of “dot com death toll” headlines. the CEO, a harvard MBA, called a company-wide meeting to announce that Toys"R"Us had made more money than we did during the holidays, which meant leaving our Aeron chairs, unlimited Snapples and free weekly massages behind because the entire company was folding in a month. i went home and cried that day. a year later, i was laid off from The Hollywood Reporter. i went home and cried some more.

and while i do remember those times sucking immensely, the days of crying and weeks of feeling like a loser, i also remember not having to sell any ass. i remember the world not ending.

That Time of the Year

lately, i’ve been feeling kinda blue, kinda blah. it’s the normal holiday season stuff where i pop my head out of the trenches, look around and think to myself, “how’d the end of the year get here so fast? why didn’t i do x, y and z like i had planned?” some days i feel as though i’m far too behind to ever catch up to where i should be right now. other days i feel as though my expectations are ridiculous and i should stop whatever i’m doing and find some friends to laugh with while drinking wine and being merry.

i try to tell myself that life is too short and also still long, so i shouldn’t stress over the fact that i haven’t begun writing The Great American Novel or made enough money to retire by 35. i remind myself that, yay, you bought a house this year! yay, your dogs are sweet and well behaved (sorta). yay, you have good friends and family, and love in your life. i try to count my blessings and imagine how much worse things could be and maybe will be in the future. i try to imagine the alternative — a life lived in Russia, eating snow for thanksgiving and growing a third eye from the Chernobyl explosion in the eighties.

but still, there’s an ick and an ache, a melancholy that says things could be better, i could do better. i could be working harder, writing every night, taking classes, exercising daily, keeping the house cleaner. i could be dreaming up the next great invention, or at least perfecting my burrito recipe. i could do more volunteer work, make that any volunteer work, and resist the urge to sleep all day when there are languages to be learned and dreams to be realized. i could be, would be, should be doing everything i can to quit being so damn average.

holidays really drive it home, reminding me of the x, y and z missing from my list of accomplishments. i know, i bought a house this year and that should warrant some backslapping, but it’s not much comfort because i know i won’t be buying a house next year or the year after. as exhilarating as it was to reach that milestone, it created a vacancy, too. and it’s not like buying a house is some extraordinary accomplishment that landed me the cover of Time magazine as its Person of the Year.

maybe i need a long-term goal to focus on, something that will evoke tunnel vision instead of melancholy, providing me with a sense of purpose instead of the stability that makes me restless. or perhaps i need a long vacation to help me restore perspective — i could visit my three-eyed cousins in Russia. a day at the spa would also be good; i could use a little pampering. or maybe i just need a really rich piece of cheesecake.

To Be Filed Under ‘That’s Never Happened Before’

late last week, Juice threw up in the middle of the night. her throwing up has certainly happened before, many times before, usually after she’s eaten grass or chewed up a stick that she found in the yard, all of which reappear in her puddle of vomit, letting me know just what my furry baby was dumb enough to consume.

but this consumed item was something else, something i never want to see again because seeing it again in her pile of vomit would mean i have to clean it up again, and cleaning it up the first time was traumatic enough and brought me to the edge of vomiting myself.

now, i’ve cleaned up A LOT of dog vomit in my many years of being a dog owner, and i’m not complaining about having to do it. it’s the cost of doing business with a dog. they vomit. they poop. i clean it. and i’ve seen many odd objects in both dog stool and vomit, including dental floss, tennis balls, rib bones and a Scrabble tile.

but this was something else. this was something so mortifying that just the thought of it will give you shivers and evoke a huge “ewwww” when i tell you. are you ready? you sure you’re ready? wait for it. wait for it.............. cat poop.

yes, CAT POOP. or, as Juice likes to call it, Almond Roca. i like to call it Thoroughly Disgusting. it’s one thing for her to eat it, which is disgusting on its own, but imagine her upchucking it all over your nice bamboo floors in the middle of the night. then imagine having to walk over in a sleepy stupor, the odor forcing you awake and quickening your understanding of the situation. first came the denial, like noooo, could it be? that’s not right, no way. is that REALLY what those chunks are? really?

yes, that’s what they were. half a paper towel roll and some dry heaves later, i was convinced. my dog had eaten cat shit. then she threw it up, in the middle of the night. a true clusterfuck that could have only been made worse by Juice adding some piss to the puddle. that would have made for the ultimate triumvirate of bodily fluids.

cleanup was a struggle. i waffled between hurrying the fuck up and paralysis by nausea. there was real volume there, both liquid and solid. the smell alone nearly killed me, and Juice kept walking by all sad, sick and apologetic, trying to tongue my face as i balanced on my knees, hand outstretched in cleaning motion with my body as far away from the puddle as possible. Mo was no help either, barricaded in the bedroom, saying, “i’m sorry, but i just can’t do it.”

so i did it. and it was disgusting. thanks a lot, Juice. you bitch.

Unlucky Seven

this year turned out to be a big, steamy pile of dog poop. and not only because a second dog in the house meant double the poop cleanup for me. it’s been poopy otherwise. in fact, i don’t know too many people who’ve had a great 2007. seems like the planets misaligned and caused anguish all around. something about saturn in leo causing a ruckus. at least for me. and some others, too.

this year started shitty enough, with a january funeral when my great-aunt died. then i split with Mo in June. then i endured a summer of bronchitis that had me missing work for weeks while sitting at home medicated. that meant weight gain, doctors visits, workers comp paperwork, disinfecting my house and moving to a new floor at work. then came a shit storm of freelance work that i’ve only recently begun to dig my way out of. finally, the house hunt came and dropped its own scoop of turd on my plate in the form of an ever-growing stress ball.

now, at the end of 2007, i find myself exhausted and perpetually cranky, stuck in a seasonal depression that will not allow me to see a bright side. instead, i’ve been focusing on the negative, ruminating over all the things that didn’t work out for me in 2007 and fearful that they still won’t work out in 2008. it’s overrun me with anxiety and made me want to put my head in an oven.

i’ll be the first to admit that my assessments are not entirely steeped in reality. and i know that i’m complaining like a whiny little bitch when real people out there have real problems, like certain friends i’ve seen who’ve endured deaths in the family and sick parents and job losses this year. thankfully, i still have many blessings left to count and know that i am just in a temporary funk. so please forgive my funk.

bright spots of the year have included puppy Pinko, of course, a nice raise and promotion in March and an October trip to Chicago with Mo that was nothing short of perfect (more on that at a later time). in any case, i’ll be thrilled when that rotten apple falls out of ’07 and into ’08. and i’m positive that the second the crossover occurs, i’ll be smiling wide and full of optimism again. just five more days.

And Now

i’ve made some serious headway this past week, with regard to that whole health and healing thing that’s been eluding me for many months now. my cough has gone from “accompanying every inhale” to “periodic.” i would normally be overjoyed at such a development if the chronic coughing hadn’t been replaced by snot overproduction. but now, instead of coughing so hard that my eyeballs risk popping out of my skull, it’s been my ears popping daily with the nonstop blowing of my nose.

this has left me in a constant state of irritable. i’ve never been a sickly person. in fact, i’ve always prided myself on having a strong russian constitution. i’ll drink milk past the expiration date if it smells ok, take my steaks medium rare and eat shellfish like it’s going out of style. feathers and cats have been my only serious allergies, and i manage to avoid both with great success. but now, i’m using a friggin inhaler to breathe right.

sadly, the disinfection was less than a raging success. febreeze’s anti-allergen spray may as well have been fragrant water because it didn’t do shit. i worry i’ll need to replace my mattress and bedding, all of which i bought new last year. the air purifier, however, does seem to be improving the air quality in my bedroom — somewhat. still, i need to sleep with a fan blowing in my face to keep the air circulating. otherwise, my sinuses impact with snot, causing me to spend the first hour of each morning being intimate with the tissue box.

also, i’m officially boycotting summer. first off, i’ve always despised the heat. it makes me tired, uncomfortable and, worst of all, sweaty. i don’t subscribe to sweating. aside from the few forms of exercise i enjoy, sex and dancing, there is no reason to sweat. it’s unbecoming. secondly, now that i’ve finished all the schooling i’ll ever need, summers are nothing to look forward to. they don’t provide the lengthy break or possibility for exotic travel like they once did. now, summertime means go to work as usual. no big whoop.

last summer i spent tied up in knots at the thought of turning 30, and the summer before was Angela’s suicide, the first big breakup with Mo and my own cancer scare. crapola. can’t wait to see what calamity is in store for me next summer. oh, that’s right. i won’t be observing summer anymore. i’ll be tucked under my covers, hiding from it, and probably still coughing.

ok, bright side. where you at, where you been hiding? one good piece of news is that i haven’t broken out in hives in many weeks. i’m sure that sleeping in full pajama armor has influenced this outcome. also good is that i’ve been exercising more and hanging out in my gym’s steam room, which make my lungs very happy. energy is also back, making me itchy to leave the house more. and i’ve been far more engaged in my work and generally more enamored with living a healthy life.

there. much better.

Aggressive Upper Respiratory Infection

a few weeks ago, doc said it was “acute bronchitis aided by bacteria.” next stop on the infirmary train would be pneumonia if i left it untreated, but to me it already feels like pneumonia, or at least its seedling. i’ve been coughing for six weeks. no joke. i also haven’t had a solid night’s rest in six weeks, being that i’m awakened countless times throughout the night to get a good cough out, wet my irritated throat with water and take a few deep breaths to return the oxygen to my brain.

until i saw the doctor earlier in the week, i had convinced myself that i had TB and would need to be quarantined. i feared that i might be arrested if i didn’t do the quarantine like that guy who was in the news a month back for flying with TB. i wondered if i could have crossed paths with him and been exposed. maybe he was that drunken guy from the Knitting Factory in early June who stood too close to me at the bar. i swear that guy breathed on my drink. i even began to prepare for the quarantine, trying to figure out who could watch my dogs and wondering would they have WiFi at the TB clinic?

i’ve begun my second round of antibiotics, with this one being some super strong antibiotic made for horses or something. when i went to fill the prescription, the pharmacist was like, “wow, do you have pneumonia?” i guess the sub par Amoxicillin of the first round just won’t treat such an aggressive infection, one that’s causing my lungs to crawl up my throat in an effort to escape my diseased body. plus there’s the Mucusin that is forcing the — yep, you guessed it — mucus to crawl up along with my lungs, maybe to better lubricate their journey. and there’s also the cough medicine with codeine that is giving me some crazy dreams, including a very surreal semi-nightmare the other night that had me on a roadtrip with all my ex-boyfriends.

i feel dumb, like it’s my fault. even strangers on the street think it’s my fault. a few weeks back as i was walking to Whole Foods, coughing my brains out, i passed an old russian guy on the street who heard my bark, looked right at me, finger pointed and yelled “don’t smoke!!!” in russian. startled, i kept walking, took a moment to process the event before turning around and yelling back, also in russian, “i don’t smoke!!” what a fucker. i haven’t had a cigarette in months. before those months maybe, but that has nothing to do with now. neither does having been a heavy smoker for six years back in the day. i mean, come on.

am i complaining enough? please humor me some more, because that’s what good blog readers do and you guys are the best blog readers in the world. i also have a story about the trip to the doctor’s office, which sadly didn’t include a lollipop or bright sticker at its conclusion like it did when i was a kid.

instead i had to visit the USC Health Sciences campus just north of downtown for a coveted same-day appointment, which means i get to see a different doctor every time as well as the ever-friendly med students who do the intake. the one this time looked younger than me and seemed scared as hell to talk to or touch me. she began by asking why i came in, and i kindly supplied her with a demonstration of the barking cough that has been charming those around me for weeks. i went on for about five minutes rattling off a list of my symptoms only to have her nod vigorously without writing a single thing down.

she then stopped and glanced down at her blank sheet, looking defeated. “i’m a third-year medical student and this is my first day ever working with patients,” she smiled meekly. “and the doctor wanted me to finish your intake in 15 minutes so he could leave by five.”

i had to appreciate her honesty. she seemed so genuine that i tried not to let her inexperience irritate me. but after another five minutes of her looking lost and apologetic, i had no other choice but to grab the clipboard and write down a list of my symptoms, saying, “don’t worry about a thing, sweetie. i’d love to leave by five, too. let’s get this party started.”

she seemed relieved, thanked me for being “cool” and eventually resumed control of her clipboard, but she still managed to prolong the intake to 25 minutes by asking every last question on the sheet, including “are you having homicidal thoughts and is anyone abusing you?”

i wanted to say, “sweetie, is that the intake sheet for teenagers? because i’m here for a cough, so no, my daddy’s not touching me weird. is the doctor free yet?” but instead i smiled politely and showed what i believe to be an alarming amount of self-restraint by breathing out a simple “no and no.”

finally the doctor came in and damn was he ever cute — and in a very not-my-type sort of way, meaning he looked a bit Aryan when i generally prefer them darker. still, i began to entertain the idea that i would need a house call later when i could try on his white coat and test out his bedside manner, heh heh. but i quickly dropped any illusion that our interaction was flirtatious when he began talking about the diarrhea all my new medications could cause.

and so far the only thing the medication has caused is insomnia. note the time stamp. i can’t sleep at all.

What I Need

a vacation: i have been holed up in hell-lay for too long. a three-day weekend in SF happened four months ago, last November, and i haven't had cause to use my passport, which just expired, for the past four years. i'd be happy to spend another weekend in SF or maybe Mexico. hell, even Oxnard would work right now. calgon, take me away!

money: broke like a big, broke joke. credit card bills been coming, borne of christmastime indulgences; new C&B super chair also came, with a hefty oustanding balance; new printer/scanner/copier multifunctional ass-kicking, tree-killing machine for home office arrived from amazon, on sale but not free; and Costa Mesa tech class also came with costs. where is that tax refund?

zsa zsa gabor: i wouldn't mind if she called me again. it was kinda cool the other two times it happened.

sustained focus: motivation for the Secret Project has been waning and i've still got miles to go until completion. i could and should be doing more, but instead i pursue distractions that lead into more distractions until the day is drained. plus the purpose is murky, making the dedication hard to muster.

domestic bliss: Mo and i have been swimming in a beef stew lately. relationship flareups, bustups, bickerings, exasperation. no good reason behind it. no easy resolution to it. maybe we both need a vacation, one with romance.

conditioning hair treatment: the mop is getting sloppy, despite my religious use of overpriced Aveda products. be it age or overprocessing, the hair on my head keeps thinning, graying, frizzing -- ensuring more bad hair days than good.

time: there's plenty on the clock, i just need to get better at managing it. not sure why, but only about half the items on the to do list get done lately, and poorly. and then comes the scramble of finding extra time -- for myself, my relationships, the housework, the gym and all the other forsaken items and obligations that were avoided in the original to do list.

a brighter bright side: wtf is up with the moon, the tides, the ides of march? i'm all whines and woes, focusing only on the suckage. i'll come around, i'm sure. it's just tension passing through, as it tends to at times. it doesn't detract from all the goodness in existence; it only eclipses it momentarily. a sunrise is still scheduled for the morning. or something. whatever. i don't feel like writing anymore.

Happy Blue Year

i’ve resolved not to make any new year’s resolutions anymore, at least not publicly. instead i’m subscribing to my buddy Jeremy’s assertion that it’s better to talk about results instead of goals, otherwise “it’s like telling the universe what you expect to happen, then trying to sit back and watch.”

reading over last year’s list of the things i didn’t do (enough of) is yet another indication that achievement doesn’t always follow on the heels of good intentions. i tend to start strong and finish weak. i tend to fantasize about perfect outcomes, a magical dream life where my potential is limitless, dedication enduring. unfortunately, the hard work required for my fantasy outcomes never actually appears in my daily reality, where inertia is king.

i’d like to say that this year will finally be different, but i need to be realistic about my own track record, which weighs heavily on the hot air side, slim on the achievements. plus, i’m not discussing resolutions publicly. instead, i’ll turn them over in my head, trying to reconcile what i want to do with what will likely happen. it’s a big divide, and it’s been making me blue.

i had the week between christmas and new year’s off. Mo was in houston visiting his bro, and my other peoples were scattered around the country visiting family of their own. that week off was very relaxing, very bourgeois, as i spent the days shopping the after christmas sales alone, getting a facial, massage, all the while thinking, thinking, trying to answer the age-old question of what i want to be when i grow up.

in my office at work, i have a smaller version of this poster printed and tacked onto the wall. my old officemate and i rallied our coworkers into signing the individual fries with their names. people always jump at the chance to sign it, as if being part of the small fry club were some great honor. and as they stand for a moment choosing the perfect fry for their names, i wonder how OK they are with it, how i can be more OK with it.

new years tend to drive it all home — the realization that time is no longer on my side, that things change less over the years, that i must conform to adulthood without complaint. and then come the counter-thoughts right on the heels — quit your whining, your life isn’t bad, accept your potential as a function of your limitations.

i keep thinking, hoping, waiting for the time when my restlessness will transform into resolve and make my dream life happen, make the entropy assume its next form. maybe this year. maybe not.

Tidings

farking hell, december already. i don’t know why time and its passage still surprise me. the way the days pile on top of each other to turn into months and now, almost, a year. not like i could expect a different outcome. but here i am again with the requisite, “oh, where does the time go? oh, the days move too fast.”

i remember how dreadfully slow time moved during childhood when i would count down the days until winter recess, summer vacation. the school year seemed so long and dreary, like adolescence itself. and though i don’t miss being a kid one bit, i do miss the nervous anticipation that accompanied every new calendar year, which signified the approach of a birthday, one year closer to emancipation at 18, to ultimate freedom.

nowadays, new years signify tax season and the need to put 2007 instead of 2006 on my checks, which will trip me for months. they signify the end of holiday gluttony, with the scattered picked-over party trays and dried-up poinsettias. then come the repercussions in the form of credit card bills, increased gym visits, crusty fruitcakes.

not to scrooge. i’m quite content with the present state of things, which, by all measures, is delightful. i have goodness all around me. i feel stable, secure, loved, in control and... bored.

the days are predictable: wake, work, sleep, rinse and repeat. and next year will be no different. i also feel perpetually sick, having just shaken off a cold that kept me home from work for a few days. i had gnarly sniffles that moved me through a box of tissues a day and left me with tender nostrils. when i went in for a haircut last weekend, my hair guy seemed alarmed by their redness, and asked whether i had a “colombian hangover.” now it feels as though the bug jumped from my nose to lungs, making me wheezy.

while home sick, i roamed around in my polka dot pajamas, looking for low-effort things to do between naps. at some midday point, the phone rang and i went to grab it, checking the caller ID as usual before answering. “Zsa Zsa Gabor,” it read. fuck! “hello! hello?” dial tone. fuck!

it was the highlight of my day.

My Right Foot

having an ingrown toenail pretty much tops the list of ridiculous ailments. it’s one of those things that should be endured instead of admitted to, like an STD. it’s quite silly and i would have thought nothing of it if it didn’t hurt so damn bad. but it hurts really fucking bad, bad, bad and bad.

it’s like the hand of g-d is electrocuting me at the toe, flooding my entire nervous system with pain when even the smallest amount of pressure is applied to my toe. walking makes me very unhappy lately. it’s so difficult that i’ve thought of attaching a pillow to my mouth for biting.

the nails on both my fingers and toes are something bionic – they grow super fast and stay super strong (an unfortunate contrast to my hair, which grows an inch each year and is damaged from years of processing). mom and sister also have these crazy growth nails, much to the envy of our brittle-nailed female relatives. the dang things are also sharp as hell, causing accidental scratches galore. i’ve always considered them my secret weapon in a catfight. they can really cut a bitch up.

point is that when the big toe on my right foot started to bother me on monday, it was just a negligible pinch at the corner. on tuesday, it became red and swollen. by wednesday it was throbbing and purple, and when i finally saw the doctor on thursday the fucker was black and crusty with puss and blood. gangrene seemed on the horizon. amputation would surely follow.

“wow, that’s really infected,” said the doc when i removed my band-aid to unveil my toe.
“it really hurts, doctor. please fix it. but whatever you do, don’t touch it!! please don’t touch it!!”

i was near hyperventilation as he put on his latex gloves and approached my toe to give it a squeeze. my foot began to jerk wildly. i held my leg down at the shin as he poked around to my chorus of “ow! ow! ow!”

“you’re going to need to see a specialist.” i got the feeling he was beginning to hate me and just wanted to make me someone else’s problem. i tried to toughen up, shake free of the crybaby i had (suddenly?) become.

“can you put me under to do your exam? you can remove the nail while i sleep and send me on my way.”

sadly, it wasn’t that simple. the swelling needed to subside before the open-toe surgery, scheduled for soon, which means i have to consume antibiotics for a few days before the specialist can remove the nail. doc sent me on my way with a 10-day supply of Keflex, some weak-ass painkillers and a cane.

being dehabilitated by an ingrown toenail is embarrassing enough, but the cane is the cherry on top of the shit sundae. it’s not even a cool wooden cane i could rock like a pimp, it’s an aluminum orthopedic cane with a foam handle built for grandpas.

problem is it helps; my gimpy, limpy ass needs it. for some authenticity i’ve decided to wrap my ankle in an ace bandage and tell people who ask that i fractured my foot rock climbing. to make matters worse, this is the week when all the painting has been going on in my living room, meaning the room is a minefield of paintbrushes, buckets, scattered trash and a big ladder, with all the furniture pushed together in the center. this leaves me cranky as hell, frustrated as fuck. it just makes me want to use the cane for pure evil.

but i can only use it on myself, as i’m the one to blame. it’s as though my body is poisoning itself with itself. perhaps it’s karmic retribution for not fasting on yom kippur this year, for not even taking the day off of work like a dutiful jew. maybe g-d is pissed at me.

i’m fucking sorry, Man.

Notes to Self

• finish getting your bedroom in order. it's starting to look nice now, with a new bed and new bookcases, a fresh splash of paint on the walls. all that's missing are the new dresser and nightstand. don't lose motivation and settle for that crap dresser you've had since college. keep hunting and the right items will pop up like they always do.

• pay more attention during meetings at work, even though you'd rather be anywhere else. stay focused and engaged in your work. that way, when people ask you a direct question in a meeting, you'll have heard what was said and won't look like an idiot when you ask them to repeat it.

• get that FICO kit you've been meaning to get since the start of the year. how much longer are you gonna sit on it? it's so simple to order.

• argue less with Mo. it's been too much petty bickering lately, and you know it's not all his fault. stay calm and genuine when you argue. make your point, apologize when appropriate and keep your pride and defensiveness out of it.

• get your ass to the gym more. you were doing so well before and now you're starting to again indulge in the sweet treats left all around the office. fear the office ass. you don't want to look like that super fat chick in Meeting Planning.

• throw out that pack of cigarettes you recently bought. don't start smoking again like before, and don't fool yourself into thinking social smoking doesn't make you a real smoker. how many times have we been over this before?

• try to be more upbeat. you're truly a lucky duckie with much to be thankful for. never lose sight of this and pour it into being more positive, because your pessimism is unattractive and people don't enjoy your negative remarks. it's not cute. it's sad.

• return the DVDs you rent to the store on time, so you won't have to pay late fees each week. or look into getting a Netflix subscription, loser.
(and there you go being negative with the "loser" thing. why can't you do anything right? i just said to quit being negative and you default to it right away. sheesh, when will you learn? no, no, you are a winner who's lost her way. you'll get back on the right path soon enough. slow down to rein yourself in. you're ok. you're ok.)

• set aside time each week to write the thing you want to write. you know, that thing you think will legitimize you as a writer, since being a legitimate writer is your life's dream.

• don't worry so much about money. remember that it's not the key to happiness and that saving takes time -- you won't have your dream house overnight. you're not destitute nor homeless, and the things you're eyeballing you merely want, not need.

• quit wasting time making elaborate to do lists and start doing some of the shit on them.

Bipolar

been a weird week, one that's had me alternating between these moments of self-satisfaction and irritability. no real reason behind it. none that i can pinpoint, at least. i had this great day midweek when i got home and engaged in some light housework. then i just stood for a minute and looked around. my dishes were done, floors were clean, trash taken out, healthy dog lounging on her bed while gnawing on a biscuit.

it was a calm, quiet moment in the twilight. and i felt pretty damn happy with myself. i made it, damnit. i was an adult, living on her own, taking care of bidness -- very Mary Tyler Moore. i relished in the thought that i had finally taken ownership of my own life. not that it had belonged to others before. i just don't think i had the wherewithal and maturity to realize that it's always belonged to me. that it was mine for the taking and making. one of my more personal resolutions this year is to speak the fuck up. surely, i'm no wilting violet, but even i act demure at times when i shouldn't. now i see that if i'm unhappy about something, it's my own damn fault.

that was followed by the worst day at work. i felt cranky and irritable and had to resist the urge to tell people exactly what i thought of them. i wanted to trip the office micromanager and reply to the needless "how are you doing?" pleasantry with "shitty. not that you really care." the worst thing about mondays is not only that it signifies the start of a workweek, but that you have to deal with the endless barrage of "how was your weekend?" from scores of coworkers you'd never tell the absolute truth to. it's a wasteful exchange. all small talk is, and i've never been good at faking enthusiasm.

in any case, a bad day followed a good day followed another bad day and good day and onward. i had a great saturday with my mother -- a half-hour massage, then lunch, then mall shopping. then i woke up on sunday with a sore throat and stuffy nose. on one weekday morning, i conducted a little experiment, where i cracked open my front door and trusted juice to walk out and take care of her business unsupervised while i scrambled to get ready for work indoors. she did just that and returned home a few minutes later, just as a cat would. i was proud of her -- and of myself for finding a way to streamline my morning ritual.

the next day i tried it again. but this time, the bitch saw my neighbor's cat and bolted after it like a torpedo. so i bolted after them -- very unlike a torpedo -- and made it to the sidewalk where cat and dog were nowhere to be found. my heart dropped with fear. i didn't know which direction to turn. i knew juice wouldn't run away. she's just not that adventurous. i knew she wouldn't hurt the cat either. she's just not that vicious. she'd only want to sniff its butt. but i did fear the cat would hurt her in a desperate moment and that my dog would return to me with a missing eye.

then, i heard the clang of a collar to my right. a moment later, juice trotted out of a driveway, her eyes intact but wide with apology. the cat must have gotten away. i was livid, but relieved. i dragged her indoors and dropped some mighty discipline. then i felt guilty all day. it was my own damn fault and i knew it. my inclination toward morning laziness was no match for my dog's instincts, nor was it an excuse to jeopardize her safety. so much for having it together and being an adult. i was still a child looking for shortcuts.

and again, i remind myself: this is the year i will turn 30.

Life's Little Cruelties

that will be the title of my unwritten masterpiece -- the great american novel that is just aching to escape my guts through the manicured hands that spend countless hours pounding away on this here keyboard. they say there is a novel in each of us. but they say a lot of things. i say a lot of things, too. who should you believe?

Me. (duh.) and i have something to say about the cruel way life has been educating me these past few weeks. i like happy surprises as much as the next gal, but the unhappy ones, not so much. so it's with great sadness that i report on the infiniteness of my own stupidity, which still manages to impress me after all these years. it was Einstein who said, "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

it's good to keep raising the bar, they say. it's good to be good at something, they say. and i say that i can do dumb pretty damn well, as the following examples illustrate.

****

Situation: the only phone jack in your entire house is, inexplicably, located behind your refrigerator. you are having problems with your DSL connection because the phone company hates you. you need to move your fridge away from the wall and check the connection because having a phone technician visit will cost you $60 for 15 minutes if the tech deems the problem to be your fault (thanks, SBC!). with a few strong jerks, you pull the fridge away from the wall, forgetting that you placed a bottle of red wine atop the fridge, which is where, you know, you've always placed your bottles of red wine. said bottle then falls and shatters into a zillion pieces behind your refrigerator.

Aftermath: at first, you will want to cry, because the thought of cleaning up broken glass, red wine, two years' worth of dog hair and all the other frightful things that reside behind refrigerators is absolutely dreadful. but you do it because you have to. in the process, you try not to vomit from the smell and sight of the mess you're standing in or think about the fact that you ruined a perfectly good towel for something preventable. you also try not to think about what these incredibly dirrrrty, indefinable objects and organisms you're cleaning up really are.

Lesson: when moving a heavy object, make sure to first clear off all surrounding glass bottles that contain alcoholic liquid. otherwise, you will have nothing to drink after your cleanup is complete. and you will need a drink very very badly.

*****

Situation: you are stoked about your weekend jaunt to san francisco, which you have been planning for months. it's just you and your iPod making the journey up the 5 this time and you're excited for the opportunity to listen to your new music at full blast. to prepare, you visit Fry's and buy (what you think) is the adapter that allows you to play the iPod through the car stereo. when you hop into the car and plug your iPod into the adapter and the adapter into the area for the cigarette lighter, you wonder why your iPod doesn't play. after a few minutes of head scratching and technical finessing, you consult the packaging that accompanied your $40 purchase and discover that, in fact, you bought the iPod charger, not adapter.

Aftermath: you slam on the brakes and return home immediately, where you load up a paper bag full of CDs you've heard a million times before, because you cannot stomach a radio appetite of christian rock and country music for 12 hours, which is how long you will spend in the car.

Lesson: pay attention, dipshit. this was almost as bad as the time you went to amoeba and bought the wrong CD two times in a row. or how about that time you accidentally bought decaffeinated coffee and kept drinking it for a week, wondering why the hell it wouldn't keep you awake, before you looked at the label and discovered your error? god, you're lame.

*****

Situation: you think you are a rock star at work. everyone loves you and wants you to come to their parties. you strut around the office like a peacock, thinking you can do no wrong and that you have your job mastered after 8 months. one day, you notice something funny about the financial stats on this webpage your company maintains. they look outdated and this concerns you because you are a good employee who wants a big raise next March. so without hesitation, you sound the alarms and notify the proper people of these seemingly outdated stats, which are, like, so a violation of federal law or something. people around you take you very seriously because of your good reputation and jump on the case immediately, while you secretly begin to imagine all the steak and lobster dinners you'll be having once you get your raise. a day later, someone returns to you with an update on the situation. you quickly switch from your lost-in-reverie face to a concerned-employee one and say, "yes, how is that going?" only to hear "those stats are updated every three months, not monthly like you said."

Aftermath: you suddenly feel very small and dumb. as a reflex, you flash your brilliant smile that's gotten you out of so many jams before but soon realize that will do nothing for you now as you got this bad news over the phone. stumped, you just mumble, "oh, sorry 'bout that. my bad."

Lesson: do your research.

*****

Situation: you're not having a very good day. earlier, you moved your fridge with a jerk and caused a bottle of wine to fall and shatter. it's later that night and you need some wine to calm your frayed nerves. you're at the liquor store with your boyfriend, Momo, who just walked in with coffee from starbucks in a venti cup filled to the brim because he doesn't take it with cream. you are at the counter ready to pay for your bottle when you find yourself fascinated by a music video on the TV that hangs overhead. it's paula abdul's video for "straight up" and you haven't seen it in ages. you find yourself hypnotized by her tap dancing and can't peel your eyes away. but the clerk wants your money, so you extend your debit card and in the process knock over Mo's hot coffee so that it spills all over the clerk, the counter and the conveyer belt that holds other people's groceries.

Aftermath: the clerk hands you a roll of paper towels and you get to work right away mopping up the mess. the clerk is pissed because the coffee landed on his pants, making him look like he peed himself. the other customers are pissed because their groceries are wet. and you're pissed because you made an ass out of yourself in public. and all the while, friggin "straight up" is playing in the background.

Lesson: paula abdul can be fascinating.

****

i will take my bow now.

Where I'd Rather Be

this is actually where i would be -- hawaii -- had i not been my glorious retarded self. i was offered a last-minute opportunity to fly out to hawaii by my flight-attendant friend kiana, who flew in last week and was awaiting my arrival. she's got buddy passes for flying standy, which means get to the airport early and stand the fuck by for an available flight. my best chance, she said, was the friday 8:30am flight out of LAX, the flight plenty of bozos miss because they oversleep, leaving many empty seats to be snatched up by standbyers like me.

"get there early," kiana advised. so what do i do? i get there late, and miss my check-in cutoff time by about four minutes. i became the bozo i was trying to beat. i also became quite flustered and nearly belligerent with the clerk who couldn't seem to comprehend why i should get special treatment.

"you missed your check-in. go see about getting on the next flight out," the clerk says and points at a long-ass line with her acrylic nails. "no way am i standing in that line. i need to get on the 8:30 flight or else i won't make it out at all today, so i need to talk to someone who can help me go through security and get to the gate," i tell her with great confidence. "you missed your check-in," she replies, unimpressed.

not one to be deterred, i bypass this clerk because, of course, i know more about flight policies than she does and i will allow no woman with a bad attitude and acrylic nails to ruin my one shot at a weekend in hawaii. i find another clerk and explain that i didn't really miss my check-in because it was only by four minutes, so it's too negligible to consider "missed." and i go on and on about how i don't have time to go on and on because i really need to be at that gate, so just let me through to the gate and help me get to the head of the security line because it's far too long a line for me to stand in right now because i'm running late and need to just get on the plane already, because i am a non-paying customer flying standy on a buddy pass, and don't you know who i am? i am a legend in my own mind, so you should really give me a break.

next thing i know, i'm standing in the long-ass line clerk one pointed me toward with those acrylic nails. an hour later i'm at the front with a new clerk who seems to have painted on her eyebrows with a sharpie pen. (why are these airport clerks so ghetto?) "the next flight is at 12:30pm. it's oversold and there's already a wait list for standby. you will be 31st on the standby list." i turn around to leave.

the weekend didn't end up too bad. i spent some of it at resfest, had dinner with my girlfriends and went to the gym, where i sat in the steam room. it's been humid in hawaii so it was similar. well, not really.

:-(

Out With a Whimper

it came in with such a bang. i swear i heard trumpets. the parade was underway, with all its fantasy and wonderment. but then came the stormy weather. nature doesn't relent and history tends to repeat. which is why i found myself in quite the familiar environ the other night, when i sat alone in my living room at 1 a.m. on a monday night. i had a glass of red wine in my hand. the boy i loved had left an hour earlier. we had had chinese food and he told me he couldn't be with me anymore because he could never see himself married to me, so he didn't want to invest time and effort in the relationship.

i'm calm and dry-eyed. hysterics won't do me any good. practice has taught me to make friends with my reality. and if there's one thing i know, it's breakups. i do them more often and better than anyone else. i could teach the class. i know that the quicker they are the better, and i recognize the point where conversation should cease and saying everything on your mind becomes futile, an exercise in vanity. once he closed that door behind him, i locked it from the inside, and then sat for a long time. i was sad, but moreso amused. this is how my life is. this is how things go.

why: same why as every single time before -- just not the right people for each other. there was a good while when that didn't seem to be the case. we had two months of bliss, where i would awaken to love notes on my dry-erase board and he would be greeted with fresh flowers upon my visits. we'd hold hands while we walked and spoon each other through the night. lots of phone calls, long conversations, steamy nights. and then... i don't know. the bubble burst. arguments ensued and escalated. they'd last hours at times. then would come a short reprieve where we would try to clamor our way back into the bliss, but something had died, was amiss. then the clouds returned, another storm. the romance soured, the arguments kept coming. the new love was in ruins. unsalvagable, the only option was to walk away.

so we walked calmly away with promises to continue the friendship, promises we'll likely honor, eventually. no regrets, hard feelings or messiness. two months isn't two years. it's not the end of the world and he's not the last man on earth. i will perservere as always and gain strength. no man will bury me. i know this with great certainty.

but still, the sadness comes to nest. the knowledge that i humiliated myself (again) on this blog, where our relationship originated. the thought that the more he got to know me, the less he liked me. the fear that i'll always be alone and that love for me will be one disappointing relationship after the next -- that i'll always be That Girl, the unlucky-in-love girl who could never get it right because she was too difficult, too opinionated, too much of a "pitbull," as Momo once called me.

this is pathetic. i do realize this. bear with me and mock me later when i can laugh with you. come, perspective -- don't fail me. sleep will help. hermitism. i draw tarot cards and keep drawing the ace of swords again and again -- the card of a new beginning cut from a place of truth. i listen to one of my favorite songs again and again -- "the truth" by handsome boy modeling school. the truth is that he was right that we shouldn't be together. i don't question that. the truth is that i will certainly meet more new people in the course of my life. the truth is that we tried and we failed. these things happen, to me as much as to anyone else.

i'm not big on fairytales of The One. the divorce rate makes that laughable. he might come, but shit, he might not. i can find contentment surrounding myself with dogs and my girlfriends and good food, music and books. if that's my lot in life, alright. it could certainly be worse. but i'm human and i want what we all do -- a love that's real and meaningful, one i can cherish and honor.

what i've learned: that love has to be all or nothing -- Mr. Almost Right will not substitute for Mr. Right. that love has to be unconditional and unqualified. i am not watering it down, nor will i compromise my standards or rewire myself for anyone. i'm too old and smart to waste time stuffing a round peg in a square hole.

i've learned that the best relationships are relatively self-sustaining and don't require constant work. i've learned that the flipside to intensity is drama, that reality corrodes fantasy, that love alone cannot make a relationship functional. i've learned that not all men are simple, that arguments can produce insight and that my love is worthy and my heart still beats.

i want to stay awakened and alive. this relationship flooded me with emotion, and i'm thankful for the opportunity to reconnect with my old self, even the unpleasant parts like the little masochist i thought i put to bed years ago. she's still around, lingering, languishing in the misery, letting it snake around her. i'm not sure how to handle her, but i'll work on it.

what's next: i'm glad to get off this ride, because it's been fucking exhausting. i couldn't sustain it for much longer -- having this student boyfriend with his vampire hours. it felt like college again, sitting on a guy's blue futon until midnight on a thursday, smoking out while bob marley played in the background.

i clock in at 8 am, and i am useless without adequate rest. it's still all very sad, yes, but it's a dull ache that's tempered with relief. it will dissipate with time as it has too many times before. i need to attend to my own life. i should also move to the westside because i have too many exes cluttered in hollywood. momo lives a block away from pablo who lives a mile away from yogaman. i'm sure i'll run into all of them at a starbucks eventually. it'll be neat if it were all at once and they all had new girls on their arms. i'd be wearing sweats and no makeup. that would rock.

on second thought, forget the westside. i could never live there and dating a fratty brentwood yuppie doesn't appeal to me on any level. i like hollywood boys best.

i feel myself hardening. i can't help it. my mushy center has congealed overnight. my mistrust of men deepens and i can add another carry-on to my relationship baggage, which is beginning to occupy the entire cargo area of the plane. expect no new love affairs anytime soon. the detached girl is back. i should take a vow of celibacy, as i've tried to before, but being that i have the libido of a teenage boy and a paralyzing fear of being alone, i'm sure someone will materialize sooner rather than later. and i probably won't give a shit about him. and i'll continue to carry on about it here, because i know it's amusing and i must enjoy making a spectacle of myself. masochistic exhibitionist. that's how my life is. that's how it goes.

Still Going

funny how time refuses to stop for you and accomodate your need for more of it. i was telling zee that i feel like a soccer mom lately, minus the kids and soccer. but lately there always seems to be a place to go, a task to do, a fire to put out. sitting down only complicates matters. sitting down causes that fire underneath me to intensify, so the idea of getting rest remains just that -- an idea.

this weekend i shall finally rest, i told myself. this weekend my only task will be taking care of myself, i told myself. but instead: this week my computer had a meltdown. and i'm thinking, what a fucking upstager! that meltdown was supposed to be mine. but NO, my iBook had to get all dramatic and blow out its motherboard. i had hoped it was something simple like the power button. i took it to the computer hospital and spent the day worrying about it like it was a child, awaiting the diagnosis from the geeks at maclandia. the verdict: upwards of $600 in repairs, because no, it's no longer under warranty and no, your motherboard was different from the one apple recently recalled.

so there will be no rest this weekend. there will be a weekend spent shopping for a new computer, as salvaging the one i have seems dumber than going for an upgrade. a G4 powerbook, i'm thinking. oh yeah, baby, titanium. oh shit, expense.

the rats in my yard are still going, too. but the best news about them is that they are really mice. juice helped clue me in to this fact when she caught and killed one of the little critters. i found him all stiff and punctured one morning and considered putting his head on a stake to serve as a warning to the rest of the mice bastards living in the hedge. i shoveled him into the trash instead and have since reconsidered the whole poisoning-them thing, lest my dog decide to chew up any more. reading up on ultrasonic rodent repellents has found that they don't work, if message boards can be trusted. so i've basically done nothing to address the problem because -- as the wisdom of 29 years on this planet have taught me -- ignoring a growing problem is the best way to solve it.

there's been other bullshit going on. still heartbroken over Angela. a health scare i'm not ready to discuss. disagreements with Momo. my skin looks bad. i'm sleep-deprived, malnourished and unfocused. i've been having these George Costanza the-whole-universe-is-against-me type moments.

i'd like some good news, please. i'd like happiness to return and i'd like to quit sounding so pathetic. but at this point i'd settle for a piece of cheesecake.

the one worthwhile thing has been Juice's Oscar-worthy performance in Momo's irrationally intense short film about dodgeball that he made for his film class. give it a whirl. it's truly something else. then visit Momo's blog to tell him if you like it. then send me a cheesecake. or, better yet, a bottle of wine.

I Got Hit

Goings On

it's been nonstop stuffs lately. i've barely had a free moment to relax and swing in my hammock. until today, that is, when i forced the moment upon myself. i tried to be all meditative and zen, allowing the breeze to rock me gingerly, but i couldn't just be. not with my mind racing as it was, the spider crawling up my leg, the pollen from the overhead tree landing in my eyes and nose, the dog from the neighboring yard barking at juice. it was the most frustration i've ever experienced while relaxing.

"fuck it," i say and head toward the door back into my house, the door that has somehow managed to lock itself. "fuck!" perhaps i left my front door unlocked. i didn't. i hope my landlord is home. he isn't. so i sit in the yard for a moment longer, wound up by my own volition, locked out by my own stupidity. "i'm a retard," i say aloud. seems like i've been saying that for years. i look at juice. i get the feeling that she agrees.

i remove the screen from my open kitchen window and begin to haul my big ass -- which hasn't seen the gym in two weeks -- over the filthy windowsill, landing feet first into the pile of dirty dishes in my sink. so much for relaxing.

in other, less retarded news:

-- my job is stressing me out. the magnitude of this stress should diminish soon enough, but i'm not a fan of stress in general. (i'm much more a lady of leisure.) it's good that i'm rockin my noggin and feeling productive, but it can be overwhelming at times. like being in college at the end of the semester, where you have papers to write and finals to take. too much stuff. i find expletives floating out of my mouth with much more ease, which is a no-no in such a corporate zone. my coworkers are also starting to crack, as evidenced by their responses to my questions lately. before, we'd always pow-wow and reach an informed consensus anytime an issue needed resolving. now my attempts at beginning the dialogue are met with, "i don't care. do what you want."

-- i saw the brazilian girls at the avalon in hollywood last friday night. go buy their CD if you haven't already. the music is terrific and the lead singer is a crazy babe full of mojo and stage presence. one of the best shows i've seen in ages. i think i might have to stalk the lead singer and get her to marry me. she is unbelievably hot.

-- in case you haven't noticed, millatimes.com is under construction and should be looking more spiffy in the coming months. my darling cesar, from new york, is helping me revamp this shit depot, and if i give him some adequate direction, you should be seeing a completely redesigned millatimes.com by fall hopefully.

-- er...the biggest news tidbit is something i can't provide many details on just yet, not until i figure out where i stand and what i want to say. but know that "the emperor" from the aforementioned tarot reading has indeed arrived and made quite the impression. these past few weeks have been intense. i'd like to say more -- and plan to say more, just not now.

keep tuned.

If You're Going Through Hell, Keep Going

don't stop to check out the scenery, because the scenery sucks and there are no roses to smell. just keep going until you make it through.

that's what work feels like right about now. it's a hell to endure until july 15, which is the first big deadline. but little deadlines follow so i won't be entirely out of brimstone until about mid-october. then comes a vacation to anywhere relaxing. it couldn't get here fast enough, because i feel spent. i'm cranky and in chronic, dire need of a nap. the bright side is overtime pay and...hmm...i guess that's the only bright side. the dim sides are too numerous to mention. good news is that i've successfully staved off this cold that's been trying to put its hands around my scratchy throat for the past week or so. thank you, Airborne.

and thank you, fuckers, who showed up to my birthday party the other week. for the record, they are indeed real, and it just takes a terrific bra to bring out their best. also for the record, i am indeed 29 and not all that bothered by this fact. life gets better each year, because i get smarter and stronger. i also, apparently, because less shameful, as evidenced by the last few posts on this here blogger. (thank g-d my mom stopped reading this thing years ago.)

my new goal for the next year and beyond is to become the best possible version of myself. with my newfound spirituality -- induced largely through studying tarot -- i see that some of my old shitty habits no longer serve me. i think i can still keep my edge while being a kinder, gentler me. i'm not sure what all that means yet, but i'm working on it.

and where better to work it out than here?

So Apt

It's Official

i'm overeducated, unemployed, in debt, disillusioned and directionless. where does one go from here?

i know i'm not alone. it seems a good percentage of my generation is also 'lost,' struggling with the quarter life crisis that seems to plague so many of us. we refuse to turn into our parents, live a life of stable mediocrity, but once we enter the dreaded real world and realize that, yes, the gold rush tech boom days that turned twentysomethings into millionaires overnight are really over (and we missed the boat) and that, yes, we'll need to stay stuck in creatively stifling day jobs for years to come because that's how rent gets paid, we get all kinds of depressed. we go on prozac. we lie awake wondering why the fuck we aren't already rich and famous when someone as talentless as jennifer love hewitt is. we sit around with our like-minded peers discussing how much smarter we are than our bosses and how menial our work tasks are. and when we finally, frighteningly realize that we are destined to be cogs in an immutable system, we have a meltdown, move back in with our parents and spend our days lounging around in our pajamas, eating cereal and watching MTV -- anything to take us back to a carefree youth we didn't value enough when it was around.

sound like anyone you know? i'll confess i possessed some elements of this crisis mentality after i finished my bachelor's and initially joined corporate America. i feared i would never find true happiness by assuming my new role (as cog) in my new environment. i figured i'd have to train myself to expect so little from the big world i once expected so much from. Reality Check 101 -- why was that class never offered in college?

this time around, it's very different. there are no pie-in-the-sky, stars-in-the-eyes dreams of being able to change the world with just the love in your heart, good will toward all. it's sad that some of that lofty idealism of youth is gone, but that shit just ain't realistic. the upbeat flipside to this is that while i've learned to expect less from the world, i've come to expect more from myself. there's no false sense of entitlement, no belief in 'meant to be' anymore. steady baby steps sometimes take you farther than long strides followed by inactivity.

that's what i hope, at least. i'm taking my first baby step tomorrow by starting temporary work at a place i wouldn't mind working permanently. (given that i must be there at 6am, i got up at an ungodly hour today, a sunday, to practice for my big 4:30am wakeup tomorrow.) i'm so ready to start working again. ready to be productive, to earn money, to feel good about myself and my place as a cog, to fill my days up with stimulating activity instead of wasting them away at home, where i've been for the past month, sitting around bored, deep in thought over self-absorbed matters that don't really matter much. yes, work will hit the spot right about now, and i won't turn up my nose to the menial tasks or be afraid to work hard or stay late. i'll expect nothing, but give it my all and maybe, just maybe, it'll lead me to the next step.

and if doesn't, there's always my parents' house, cereal and MTV.

Aaaaagh

nothing really to report, still stressed and grumpy. but in about two weeks all should be better. i'm not very motivated with the work i have to do, everything left will be done half-assed, i'm sure. grades are the least of my worries at this point. the thought of a fruitless job hunt is starting to preoccupy me, especially as many of my classmates already have secured employment. i think i'd like to take some time off, but how the hell will my rent get paid? ideally, i'd love to spend the summer in india or something, doing yoga on the mountaintop while feeling all zen and shit. but i don't foresee that happening. i'm at least hoping for a week in new york at the end of may or perhaps another visit to hawaii with my girlfriend kiana. in any case i need to get away, if only for a little while, if only entirely on my own. need to veg and collect myself for the life that lays ahead. i've been all philosophy lately, trying to answer the big questions. it's not working, nothing is concrete -- just some fragments of half-baked ideas. i'm trying to accept the uncertainty of the situation. i'm close to being all zen and shit about it.

i've also been battling some low days lately. not sure why, but i can't seem to get out of my heartache funk. it haunts me, following me around like a cloud that rains down on just me while everyone else gets sunshine. i'm trying to wiggle free, but i can't seem to shake it off. it's an amalgamation of stressors, the culmination of the past few years. i'm full of cognitive dissonance and can't seem to reconcile my heart, body and mind. they're all in different places doing different things -- all unrelated. i need some yoga. yoga means 'union' in sanskrit.

i just want to get there already, pass through the murky existence of the current. i'm trying to imagine some goals i can work toward. they're sharpening, but the process is torture. i've lost interest in most of the people around me and am trying to focus inward, am listening intently for answers, for that moment of clarity. there's pleasure, enjoyment in some things, but they don't fill the void vacated by the other things. it's like i can't come full circle.

fuck, i don't know. i guess i'm just in a strange zone right now. feeling edgy, irritable, yet brazen. i've never felt more driven. it's a driven that borders on the self-serving, perhaps even self-indulgent. i'm making no apologies. trying to both reconnect and detach. is this making sense? it may not be right now at 1 am after three vodka tonics and 10 cigarettes. i guess i'll just go to bed and keep repeating the two mantras that have become favorites lately -- 'this, too, shall pass' and 'the only thing you have is yourself, girl.'

Climbed a Mountain and You Turned Around

i've been so lazy lately and loving it. trying to enjoy the last few moments of my freedom before the end-of-the-semester shit storm hits. i have three major assignments due, none of which i've been taking too seriously, and one of which is due this monday. work hasn't been making much of an impact either -- with the occasional theater review written for NoHo>LA and the occasion work day with the dorks in culver city. so this leaves me with plenty of free time to...

• last tuesday's date was postponed due to scheduling conflicts on his end, moved to next monday. he will be the fifth first date.


• met O. on wednesday night (date #4), and that wasn't too shabby. there's minor chemistry there. highlights include some awkward pauses in the conversation, him telling me i was "a hard nut to crack," finding out i went to high school with his sister, and a goodnight salutation that was very promising. we meet again next thursday.


• met W. again for lunch, date #3 from last week, and that was just lovely. i sincerely do like the person he is, and we have fabulous conversation and connection. it feels very relaxed. but, sadly, there's no animal magnetism on my end, as much as i wish there were since the guy is great. he's definite friend fodder, and i hope we can evolve there naturally.


• might have one other date lined up for next week, though i'd rather hold off and keep it at two dates a week. again, the life stories get too confusing to juggle any more. i guess i won't be going out with chris after all and that saddens me deeply (sarcasm).


• got about four or five other guys in the pipeline, so there aren't many dull moments in this wacky world of internet dating. i'm still amused by it all, as i was when i recently checked my inbox at the personals site and saw a message from new guy "PoetsSoul." i almost peed my pants laughing. of course he took himself all seriously, talking about the many "stacks of papers" his poetry takes up. i almost thought of asking him for a poem (so i could post it up here, of course), but thought better of it when i saw his photo and that he lived in west covina.

otherwise, things have been ok on my end. i had a few very low days awhile back where i sat around downing wine, smoking cigarettes (yes, i began again), and listening to friggin 'landslide.' i began to sink a little and feel too much. but the last few days have been more positive, upbeat. i know time has a way of making miracles happen, and i'll be patient.

Break No More

today is officially the last weekday of my winter recess. this depresses me to no end. the only bright side is that it inches me closer to the goal of graduation, just one semester, three classes and five months away.

i tried to ride out this week in style, doing more of nothing. took in shopping with money i don't have, saw some people i hadn't seen in awhile, listened to music i hadn't heard in a while, still been sleeping in late and being awakened each morning by my canine's tongue or paw.

pabs returned last night from his trip to argentina after spending about two weeks away. though i'm glad to have him home, i will admit that i enjoyed my me time immensely -- big bed all to myself, playing my chick music at full volume, smelling up the house with sauteed salmon, a dish and fish my beloved detests.

this sunday, his parents come into town to stay with us for a few days before zooming off to phoenix for his dad's work conference. this means that we will spend all of saturday scrubing the apartment down from wall to wall, ceiling to floor. gotta wash the dog, do all the laundry and ironing, dust the blinds, etc. back to the mundane. the break really is over. ugh.

Happy Friggin Hangover

i was ready to decapitate myself this morning. anything to get rid of the throb in my head. three liters of water and half a dozen tylenol later, i still feel crummy. why does a shitty morning usually follow a fun night?

yeah, it was fun and all. thanks to those who showed their lovely faces -- zee, nick, doug, beth and avi. i must admit i was a tad worried when i first arrived at 10pm, as the club was virtually empty and the DJ was playing eighties music. but in what seemed like a half hour, the space filled up and the beats began blasting. we entered the new year, noisemakers in hand, to basement jaxx's 'red alert,' a song i really like. unfortunately, i couldn't sneak in my puppy for the requisite midnight smooch, so i hugged nearby strangers instead. at that time, i was uncharacteristically sober for such an event -- only had a few drinks and a shot of vodka at my parents' place earlier, but on the whole i felt together.

then i'm not sure what happened. i do know that i left the club feeling more sober than i did when i got home -- as if all the alcohol caught up with me on the drive back. it was bizarre, because i know i left the club feeling relatively clear-headed, but by the time i arrived home i could barely walk straight. not sure what happened in between. i have a vague recollection of making drunken phone calls to various friends looking for an afterhours party, which i never found.

(Public Service Announcement: the Milla Times does not endorse driving drunk, and in my own defense i'm very conscientious about these things. i know my own limits, and i've never gotten behind the wheel fully wasted, only slightly buzzed. if i'm too drunk to drive myself home, which is rare, i never do. i wait it out or find a sober driver and urge all to do the same. thank you. drink responsibly.)

this morning, i awoke at noon to a 65-pound dog pawing my face. sparkly confetti was scattered throughout my bed and stuck onto my face and torso. my throat was as arid as the sahara. i was not in the mood.

at first i resisted and tried to play dead. but the pawing became intrusive quickly. most mornings she licks the face, which is so much more pleasant, but on those certain days when she knows it'll be harder than ever to get mommy out of bed -- wham! -- a stinky paw will land in my eye and slide down my cheek, as if it's trying to pry my eye open. so i slowly crawled out of bed, careful not to make any sudden moves with my head, and took the little fucker out. i've had a headache ever since.