I'm a sensitive inner-person and I need a nap

This is going to be an exercise in brevity because I am determined to get my daily allotment of blogging done before I have to leave for work. Since this was my plan, you’d think that I would have scheduled time for writing it. Alas, I slept in. I have an excuse, however weak for sleeping in though. I didn’t sleep well last night and frankly I haven’t slept well in a couple of days. I think that it’s the stress of starting a new job (everyone knows that I hate being a door-hoverer and question-asker) and a few other random stressors. Whatever the reason, I haven’t been sleeping well and I’m the sort of lout who needs her sleep.

I use the word “lout” because I like the sound of it so early in the morning and because I am a little ashamed of being the kind of person who needs to log a solid 8 hours of sleep. I remember long ago when I was in high school I would always overhear my classmates talking about how they hadn’t started a homework assignment until 10 p.m. the night before and that they’d been up until 2 a.m. finishing; in college the situation was similar, only my classmates enjoyed bragging that they’d never been to sleep at all. It’s a rite of passage strewn with wasted time and 5-Hour Energy tubes.

At the risk of sounding like a goodie-two-shoe (WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?), I’ll admit that I never had much to contribute to the pissing contest of late nights. I’m not really much for planning and I’ve never been much for marathon studying, but somehow, I always got to sleep at a decent hour. I guess the sad thing here is that I would rather go to bed at midnight than eke out a few more percentage points on a test. And I always slept awesomely. That’s a lack of resolve right there.

I’ve written before about how I used to sleep in such an amazing way – that I used to just fall asleep on couches and bean-bag chairs and sleep uninterrupted through the night. Even when I met my main squeeze 3 years ago I was a champion sleeper; we would sleep twin bed in a room with no air conditioning and I would drool into my pillow as he laid wake.

Sometimes I try to reason out the difference between now and then. Obviously this was before and at the very beginning of my random night-time carpal tunnel pains; my perpetually tingling fingers and the splints (which I’m always determined to try sleeping without and then regret it) are probably factors. But then again I think it might be mostly stress. It’s easy for me to get stressed out, squash it all down inside of me as I traipse cheerfully through my day and have it erupt in random, tense awakenings. Stupid sensitive inner-person and stupid sleepless nights.

Alright, I should get ready for work. I hope that this proclamation to write before work doesn’t just lead to many entries on my sleeping habits. Those are bound to be worse than the many entries on my much-debated showering habits.

Yo Amo NY

Today is the first day of my tentatively amped up blogging schedule and I would like to note that I am dressed in a way that completely undercuts any attempt to make that sound like an ambitious statement. I know that I don’t usually discuss my writing attire here (it only accents how I will never will my secret dream of being a photo-a-day blogger) but it’s Sunday and as mentioned previously, I am notoriously lazy on the weekends. So, space cadets, to my attire and beyond.

I am seated at my computer desk in a pair of flannel pants, an oversized shirt that reads “Yo Amo NY,” a robe and some slippies. This is not what I usually wear when I blog, or for that matter, what I am usually wearing at 6: 45 on a Sunday night. But tonight is a strange night because today was a strange day; I attended and overdressed for a livestock show today and this, coupled with having a hurried meal at an Applebee’s off of the freeway in Lodi, made me eager to shower.

I stand fully behind the logic of my fashion choice for the evening, but the fact that blogging in my slippies requires mention unearths an entirely different issue. Slippers and blogging go together like biskits and gravy, no? Perhaps for your normal well-adjusted blogger (haha….ha), pj-bloggin’ is a fact of life. That is not, however, the case for me.

I read an essay by Sarah Vowell earlier this week in which she defended her decision not to drive a car by saying that her joy as a journalist didn’t often require her to wear shoes, let alone drive. This passage stuck in my mind because it so keenly contradicted all of the self-help-y stuff that I have read about writing in the last six months – most of the Dear Abbys in the world instruct getting fully dressed everyday to secure productivity, and some of the more romantic suggest that you are getting dressed to honor the art form that you practice; thus I pull on my jeans, socks, and sneakers everyday to honor pounding in frustration at my keyboard. I brush my hair to honor peeks sneaked at my email and I iron my blouses because I don’t want these blog posts to know that they are hours stolen from the golden gauntlet of billable projects.

I am going to shore this sucker up because I have a lot of work to get done tonight, whatever my wardrobe might be suggesting about me. I just caught a glimpse of myself in the yellow-framed mirror hung opposite my desk; I was shuffling back into the office with a water bottle, hair wet and slippers fuzzy, the tails of my robe dragging on the carpet behind me. Although this is probably the last time that I will ever blog thus, I encourage you to picture me writing every blog in this exact fashion.

Old ladies with studded belts are my peers

If it wasn't enough that I have many signs of old age in physical maladies (carpal tunnel) and disposition (tendency to yell at neighborhood kids for having their music too loud and driving recklessly), I seem to be developing some senility.

Para example: last weekend I was in a used bookstore (teeny aside that is too large for a mid-sentence parenthetical but I don't care: why can't I work in a used bookstore with middle aged ladies with untamed grey hair and studded black belts ala Good Charlotte?) and I was having trouble remembering whether I had read O Pioneers! by Willa Cather.

Once I slid the book out of the heavily populated Cather shelf and looked at the back-cover I remembered it as the story of the inventive sister amongst stagnant bohemian brothers. When pressed I could even recall the vaguest hint of a romantic subplot involving an equally forward-thinking neighbor boy. And though the plot took shape with concentration, I was still floored by my initial indecision. Through my entire academic career (one far more lengthy and arguably more successful than my career-career) I was known for having a good memory for texts. When talking about books I am more likely to name favorite descriptions than to outline actual plots. Don't get me started on my love of re-reading descriptions of milking pans, gin-based alcoholic beverages mixed before 1960, patent leather saddle shoes and medicine cabinets.

All of that nonsense washing around in my brain and I can't remember even remember if I have read a novel!? In a strange desperation I wanted to re-read Oh Pioneers! and also This Side of Paradise, the plot of which beyond prep school fraternities and poetry vaguely alludes me.

I suppose that the difference in my comprehension is logical and the reason two-fold. Primarily I have less time for reading than I once did and so must shove it into lunch hours and the customary time before bed when I have chatted Kevin into stupification/sleep. More than anything I am an endurance reader (less than anything I am an endurance runner). And so these disjointed and episodic reading binges make a novel stick with less cohesiveness than one read in a single, lemonade-y sitting.

Secondly I have been pushing myself to read things that I don't particularly fancy but that I imagine will further my "education." Thus I read Hardy's Far From the Maddening Crowd and Woolf's To the Lighthouse in recent months. I have yet to decide whether these things really further my understanding of anything. Mainly they further a tendency to gloss over descriptions of landscape (a feature that you will notice is consipucously missing from the list of things that I love to read).

So here's to re-reading the classics (term used with ample grain of salt) and never making mental progress.

Old-town-of-work

Last week I went back to the town that I used to work in for the first time in over 6 months. Strange as it may seem, I felt oddly nostalgic for the surroundings of my old job, though not the actual building, my sentiments for which are recorded earlier in this very blog.

The creeping nostalgia began as I got on the I-5. After months of trolling up and down 50 and 80, I was struck by the recollection of crossing the causeway on foggy mornings, partially awake and very grumpy. Living in Midtown and working in Woodland was my first taste of commuting, and I hated it with every bicycle loving fiber of my being. And yet I caught myself thinking with near-fondness of my trial-and-error theories for selecting the best exits and routes.

I cruised into Woodland and observed the scenery during the long stop-lights at key intersections that I had resented so vehemently in bygone days. I was surprised to feel the first inklings of the strange exposed feeling that I get in my hometown Dixon, and to some degree, post-college era Davis. When I’ve lived somewhere and left it, I feel weirdly guilty, (or potentially just embarrassed) to be back there. Thus I shuffle with great stealth around the Safeway of my youth.

So I felt nostalgic about my old-town-of-work, and it was brought to my attention afterward that we might have lived there, if I had gotten that newspaper job back last September. (Remember kids, I didn’t get that job because my car alarm went off without cease in the parking lot for two hours, not because I was under-qualified). Probably in some raunchy duplex, making peanuts and writing Peanuts (the comic, because I think journalists in regional papers just write it themselves to save money).

What is the point of this tirade? Only that things are very strange, and I might have lived in a town that now makes me feel equal parts embarrassed and nostalgic.

How Strange

In the past 48 hours I have received two free [yes, free] Squirts, heard the words "addled," "persnickety" and "babe-o-rama" used in complete sentences, and encountered two women named Wilma.

Those are very strange occurrences.

Can you make money on a Denny's franchise?

Today I managed to get peanut-butter on my shirt hours before I considered eating my sandwich. I suspect that it might have happened during the sandwich creation process, during which I was admittedly half awake and recklessly flinging sticky knives around, but all that I know for sure is that it’s ten-thirty on a Monday and I’ve got Jiffy crumbles on my shirt. Probably this augurs an exciting and stimulating day ahead. Or perhaps not.

While I’m in this vein of discourse, I might as well continue with more of the mundane. Being a determinedly disheveled sort, I’ve never thought too hard about the catalog-type sale of cosmetics. However, this morning an old bitty handed me an Avon catalog as I shuffled through the door to work and I can’t abide rebuking the elderly so I shoved it into my bag amongst the rest of my belongings. [Pop quiz: What are the other contents of my bulging bag? Answer: The Great Short Works of Willa Cather, the aforementioned peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, sparkling new Bluetooth ear piece,* a pack of Big Red gum, a stick of deodorant, keys, phone, woefully empty wallet, two rogue dimes, a teeny thinger of sunscreen, and one chilled can of Ruby Red Squirt.]

Up until today my thoughts regarding person-to-person cosmetics selling were confined to the stereotypes about Mary Kay that I gleaned from reading Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle-Stop Café about 47 times when I was 16. I suppose it’s not too shocking, considering that the novel was instructive in forming a whole passel of my youthful stances, such as my generous opinions about the homeless, my liberal views about same-sex marriage and my distrust of people name Dirty Bird burying fish-heads in the garden.

In short, F.G.T.a.t.W-S.C taught me that if you sell Mary-Kay, you can get a great career and a pink Cadillac that symbolizes your newfound joy in life/acceptance of your own personal appearance/womanhood/blah blah depression in the depression. With this cheerful image in mind I opened my Avon catalog expecting to gape at pricey cold creams and magical lip-glosses. Imagine my surprise at finding strange items intermixed with the cosmetics, like underwater digital cameras, BBQ lamps, braided Comfort Flip-Flops, and beach-towels emblazoned with the motto of every MLB team.

Strangely, I went directly from having zero expectations to being disappointed. I hate diversifying for my convenience. I’m of the mind that I’d like to buy meat from a butcher, and bread from a baker and sneakers from a very mod cobbler. How I covet inconvenience.

In other news, my boyfriend and I threw an inside-BBQ (turkey-burgers via stove top served on Wall-E plates) for the Fourth of July over the weekend, and it was a quite successful, though occasionally mildly disturbing, event. Regardless, in the spirit of the great American Revolution, I give you a picture of the pills just consumed by my esteemed co-worker.

A very patriotic apothocary at work.

*I don't wear my Bluetooth headset! I'm not a dork! I just don't want to be pulled over and have an officer realize that none of the lights on my dashboard work. Too awkward.

Too many knick-knacks.

Further reflections on moving:

There must be some kind of physiological reason that certain disturbed citizens like myself hoard junk long after familiarity has eroded away the novelty. Do I need you, oversized dice? Do I, a tone-deaf and lazy individual, require 4 different harmonicas? Today I tried to find space for silly hats, tool belts, statues of Korean people and a bronze goblet that I won years ago in a crossbow-shooting contest at a Renaissance Faire.

Maybe the thing proclaimed my status in some overwrought script and phrases like “Crossbow Winner” or “Robin Hood in Training” or something I would consider keeping it. Unfortunately, I know that these goblets are just given out to youngsters willy-nilly and without honor, their cost already covered by the hideously inflated prices of the Ye Olde Juice of Jamba served on site.

Can people even drink from bronze? If I wouldn’t want to win a medal of it in gymnastics, then I don’t want to risk my health on it. Plus, that sucker is probably heavy, which is a huge determent where moving is concerned.

I guess the going excuse for keeping these sort of things (things= Gargoyle book ends, llama toy with real llama fur, framed internet comics, Jesus candle from the supermarket) is that they might make excellent conversation pieces.

I’m still waiting for someone to walk into my home and ask me point blank exactly (yet…. conversationally) what my intentions are in keeping a megaphone from my high-school beside an American Girls Christmas ornament, a collection of unclaimed rocks, keys and bouncy balls found on the ground, stacked atop a pile of readers from every course I took at college. Perhaps the ensuing conversation would bring enlightenment.

In other news, I’m reading two short story books cyclically, with no confusion yet. We shall see how this develops.

I could make a pun about "Value" Meals right now

It is sometimes very troubling to me that all people seem to be quite crummy. [I will pause here for a few important notes: a) Obviously there are a few notable exceptions to the previous dramatic generalization b) Don't brackets look bitchin' with Courier? I can't match my clothes too well, but at least my favorite punctuation matches my favorite font] To resume...

People are oftentimes damn disappointing specimens of humanity. Now, I'm not just saying that because I read Catcher in the Rye yesterday and I'm feeling rebellious, or because I couldn't find anywhere to park this afternoon because there were too many cheerful families toting their cheerful veggies home from the Farmer's Market. Furthermore, I give you my solemnest swear that I'm not about to go off on some rant riddled with bolded words and these suckers -->!!!!! about how consumerism and superficiality is ruining Western Civilization. I certainly drink name brand soda (the elusive Ruby Red Squirt) from the cups I bought from Target too often to engage in that type of banter. After all, it's not society that makes me want to hide in my room with a stack of 19th century novels featuring heroines that overcome their social position as governesses to marry their mysterious employers...oh no, it's the people all around.

And I don't want to hear anything about (from you, stupid 2nd person anon. internet) how you can't consider people outside the context of society, because I am determined to stick to my rash statement. All I know is that I love tacky manifestations of culture in abstraction ( Rock of Love; energy drink slushies now available at 7-11; grown women dressing up in Harry Potter costume contests) while people make me want to stab myself in the face. Jesus-in-a-juicebox, I've gotten all emo, and that wasn't at all my point.

Self mutitalating digressions aside, my intent in writing this was not to catalog all of the enormous jerkwads that I encounter daily. Nay, I wanted to discuss a startling generous act visited upon me by my sister today.

I don't mean to be ungenerous myself by saying "startling;" it's just that my sister has the sort of survivalist instincts that would have scared the piss out of Darwin and all of his little finches. So imagine my surprise when she burst upon me this afternoon (finding me full of snot and secretarial rage) and presented me with lunch and a box of cold meds. I was frankly flabbergasted. Not only had she braved the awkwardness of ordering the unlisted 2-Cheeseburger Meal, but she had sprung for both the day-time and night-time pills.

There is nothing like an unexpected Value Meal to restore one's goodwill toward humanity. [Restorative powers of corny novels omitted for thematic reasons].