I have to go to CMU to take my proficiency tests in a few minutes so I can get my temp job on. Anything with the word test in the title makes me horrendously nervous. So I'm not feeling too good right now…especially since I'm coming to grips with the realization that I don't know dick about Excel or Access and I'm about to look like the total moron English major that I am. Fuck.
I don't mean to make fun of anyone's pain, but late at night, when I'm bored and just perusing live journals, I find a lot of people with these very intentionally dark and depressed entries. They're often in the form of really awful poetry. Let me see if I can make up an example:
You do not know my arms
Burning flesh.
Darkness is everywhere.
Sometimes I think it would be better
If I were to sink into a hole
Like a cat
With an injured paw.
Or something like that. Entries like that are mostly in the journals of teen girls. Now, I remember my teen years and I remember that they kind of sucked for the most part. Definitely not a time of life I would want to revisit. And I'm sure if I dug up my poetry or writing from then I'd be very embarrassed. I'm just kind of glad mine isn't on LJ for cynical old broads like me to stumble upon.
Anyway, must find tylenol
Bad headache this morning, also woke up without a voice. SARS? Let's hope not.
My son and I had had one of “those” crazy moments a little bit ago. Just as my headache was reaching full force, he fell and bumped his head, then my nose started bleeding, apropos to nothing. Unsure of what to do, I ran in search of Kleenex, only to find that we have none. The best I could do was a rough-ass paper towel. It was very absorbent, though.
Today I'm going to go see the Esteemed Ms. Laskas and ask her some questions about being a mom and a writer…how does she handle the uneven hours, travelling, does she sleep, etc. While I'm at Pitt I'm also going to get my hands on some of that free software. I need some Office XP. I can just download it from Pitt's site, but I'd rather have the discs for after graduation. I'm hoping to get a new computer around that time (I say as this one creaks and groans). I also need to practice some Excel and Access before my proficiency tests at CMU's temp services tomorrow. I know I can dazzle with my MS Word knowledge and typing but that other stuff is kind of rusty. Lots to do the next couple of days…writing, church, writing, writing. Paco and I are supposed to have dinner tomorrow night but seeing as I have no money I think I'm just going to invite him over here. That will be easier, anyway, as far as WW goes.
Ugh, I feel like crap. Hopefully the fresh air will clear that up.
My son has the absolute best laugh in the entire world. The past couple of minutes he's been grinding his teeth *shudder* just to get the freaking-out reaction that he knows he'll get out of me. I squeal and tell him to stop, he cracks up. He throws his head back and his laugh varies from a high-pitched squeal to a kind of cackle. That, in turn, makes me crack up so he starts grinding his teeth again.
He is so strange.
So yesterday I mentioned that I wanted to ask my teacher for a *tiny* extension. Last night, I settled into my seat at the Cathedral and prepared to work up the nerve to ask the Esteemed Ms. Laskas for this great favor. The girl that sits next to me is a former therapist and I suppose that explains why I always feel the need to talk to her and tell her weird things about my life. Most recently I asked her if she thought I had an OCD due to my addiction to picking at my lips. Hey, I don't have insurance, I have to take the free medical advice when I can get it.
Anyway, the Esteemed Ms. Laskas walks into the room and one of the first things she does is write the new deadline on the board: Wednesday at 5 p.m. Sexcellent. She also gave us until the 14th to revise any of the three pieces we've done in order to get a better grade on them. Supersexcellent. I need to revise the profile I did of the girl from PAAI. I only got a B on it and I should have been able to get an A. So hopefully I'll be getting an A in this class. My QPA could use that little shot of adrenalin. A-drenalin. Ha. I made a pun.
Since I always seem to do a little recap of class, here's this week's:
We were doing class workshops last night of a few immersions. Overall, pretty good and they were excellent examples to show us the difference between scenes and just telling, if that makes any sense. Then the girl that I don't particularly care for starts passing out her story about an evening at the Voodoo Lounge's strip club. Her piece was in the first person and it was basically just her ripping the dancers a new asshole. She's talking all this trash about how she almost vomited upon seeing these girls on stage. It was pretty much this long editorial about the state of nudity in the U.S. vs. the world. It just didn't make any sense. And I was offended at her judgment of the women. I told her to go back and ask the strippers how they felt about another young woman coming into their workplace and judging them, without a knowing a single thing about their lives. She turned a little red at that remark. Then she also talked about this one stripper by saying that she looked like a Russian immigrant. What? We asked her about that and she just said something like, “Well, she was skinny and looked kind of poor.” Well, it's always nice to let your racism shine through in your writing. Anyway, I talk too much shit on that girl…but this is my journal and I rule here.
The Esteemed Ms. Laskas also entertained us by ripping on Diane Sawyer. She's funny.
baby trauma. bbl.
This cold snap can bite me. I can't feel my feet.
Alright, movies: it was a lean week so we couldn't go all out this weekend. I spent too much money on stuff like groceries, coffee at Kiva Han, fattening food at Fuel & Fuddle. So by the time Sunday rolled around the boyfriend and I were rubbing dollars together trying to make them multiply. I insisted on going to what the boyfriend referred to as my “fourth hipster outing of the week.” The Amnest International Film Festival at the Melwood Screening Room. They were showing this PBS documentary from a couple of months ago called “The Murder of Emmitt Till.” It was very good, although short. It was something of a double-feature, I suppose, since there was this after-school special on after the documentary. It was so awful, but entertaining in that after-school special sort of way. Best quote from after-school special, “I DON'T THINK SO ASSHOLE!” The bad guy was this rather flamboyant, newt-looking motherfucker. Yeah, it didn't make any sense, don't worry about it.
The boyfriend had borrowed “Freddy Got Fingered” from his boss's daughter. If the title doesn't ring a bell, it's the Tom Green debacle from last year. I can't even put into words how awful this movie was. I couldn't even sit through the whole thing so we turned it off. Up until that point, I was huddling under the blankets worried I was going to vomit. Normally, I like to think that I have an appreciation for bad movies which are cool to hate, but this was unexcusable. Tom Green should really be sued for the money this crap cost to produce. It could have gone to a charity, for christ's sake. And thank god Ms. Barrymore got out of that union before they produced any spawn.
Tonight, I'm going to ask my teacher for a *tiny* extension for my immersion piece. It's due next Monday and I wasn't able to go to the church this past weekend. If she doesn't let me have the extension I'm going to have to write the 3,000-word *final* piece in one day, and I just don't think I have it in me. I'm hoping she'll let me turn it in on Tuesday. That would be ideal.
My cousin Danny's 18th birthday was yesterday. His dad was the cousin of mine who just died. He and his mom seem to be holding up pretty well. His little brother is mentally retarded and I don't think he totally understands death. But Danny is an interesting kid. He seems depressed most of the time, outside of the fact that his father just died. He's incredibly overweight and apparently doesn't really have any friends. He wants to be a writer so my mom has been encouraging me to talk to him about that (like I'm a fucking literary svengali or something). I'm not sure what's going on with his life in terms of post-high school plans. I don't think he's getting into any college, except perhaps CCAC. Of course, I'm a big advocate of taking a year off after high school before committing to college. So I don't know. I gave him two books yesterday: Strunk & White's The Elements of Style and Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs. My snobby Uncle Jimmy, predictably, scoffed at the Lester Bangs, but really, what does he know?
My, this is getting long.
Okay, other stuff this weekend. Went to the thingy-thing at Kiva Han this weekend with Frank and Cara. All in all, good times. MSKW1 played some interesting sounds, which meshed well with the DVDs that the fuckhead baristas were projecting onto the wall. Much of the night was spent jabbering in the front part of the coffeeshop, no doubt irritating the hell out of the staff. Like I said, they were fuckheads. I should know, I had a class with one of them last semester. I also had the added awkwardness of being in the same building with #1 Fuckhead, aka my ex-boyfriend. I was cool about it, I think. Pretending you don't know someone can be kind of draining. But anyway, I'm not going to go on about this because it's olllllddd news.
Dinner at Fuel & Fuddle was tasty, but I think I overestimated my WW bank. I was trying to restrain myself, but I was so hungry by the time we got there that I went a little wild. As a result, I didn't lose any weight this week. Oh, well. I'm not discouraged.
Alright, my son stinks. Got to go attend to some poop.
Last night was pretty fun. After the somewhat frustrating day that I had, it was a good release. The baby never went down for a nap until around 6 when he passed out in his playpen while eating a Girl Scout cookie. It was pretty funny. Judging from his position, it looked like he was sitting and then just keeled over to the left. Poor kid.
It's important for you, my loyal readers, to understand how essential the baby's nap is to my day. Without it, I don't get a shower. Usually if I just leave him in his crib and go shower he cries the whole time and I feel like a horrible mother. I also don't get ample opportunity to sit at the computer and get work done if he doesn't take a nap. So by 5 p.m. yesterday we were both losing our minds.
But anyway, a little after 7 p.m. I headed down to Emma's coffeehouse on Butler St. I had never been there before but it's simply a charming space and the coffee is very tasty. I had a cappucino with a shot of hazelnut and they put just the right amount of syrup in. Scrumptious. The Shanleys were there (I know she doesn't go by that last name but I've forgotten hers. apologies), she for a meeting, of what sort, I never thought to ask, and he for transportation, coffee and conversation with yours truly. My cappucino made me extremely hyper and talkative, but that was okay because I always have plenty of dumb shit to say.
Emma's is sort of this “we're-cool-and-laid-back-about-everything” place so I guess I shouldn't have been too puzzled when some folks filed in and started playing Celtic music. They were pretty good and amazingly Shanley and I got used to yelling over the bagpipes and flutes.
From there we went to this event at the Rex Theatre on the South Side called Character. It's hard to explain but it was basically an audience-participation game show to find the biggest character in Pittsburgh.
Now, before I go any further, I need to say that the gal bartender at the Rex makes a mean Cosmopolitan. So mean, in fact, that by my third sip I was already thinking in sentence fragments. When I was called upon to be a contestant, I became instantly nervous…not because I was afraid of being onstage but I realized that due to the drink all of my wit and wisdom was floating around somewhere in my bladder.
During that round I was competing against a girl named Helen who was into hardware. I remember looking at my shoes a lot and then the host, Sturling, asking me about different celebrities I'd like to shtup. At one point, I became dumbstruck and stared at Sturling, clutching the microphone while he stared back at me through these goggles. For a brief moment, I thought, “Where the hell am I? And why can I not think of one goddamned thing to say?” For what it's worth, Helen wasn't a whole lot sharper.
When it came time to judge, Mama, the official judge did pick me. However, in the spirit of democracy, the audience was allowed to rebuke and rebuke they did. Helen was pretty popular among the men in the audience so I was sent packing with a Tom Jones record as my consolation prize. I guess the consolation prizes were supposed to be ironic but I was pretty happy with it. It has some jams on it and is in very good shape. I put it on the boyfriend's pillow when I got home as a little surprise.
Shanley and this gal Ginger got to the final round and today I was thinking that it would have been rather silly if Shanley and I had to have the final face off. But Ginger ended up taking the crown.
Mama entertained the crowd with some music and tap-dancing, wearing this rather fabulous red dress. Her evening wear never fails to make me green with envy.
Overall, it was a very fun evening. When I woke up this morning I was so tired, though. I got a decent amount of sleep but I was having trouble just opening my eyes. I'm not sure what the problem was.
Alright, enough fooling around. Gotta go get some stuff done.
A couple of years ago, Frank gave me this goofy bandana thing from the Gap. It's the standard paisley, but it's hot pink in color and has these little rhinestone details. It resurfaced the other day after spending a year or so stashed in a random box. Since my hair is at this weird length I've been wearing it to keep the hair out of my eyes. A ponytail isn't really feasible. Today I'm wearing it kind of low on my forehead and I realized that if I stick my tongue out and look to the side with my eyes open really wide, I look like that Little Stevie guy from Bruce Springsteen's band.
Books that I'm reading: Keeping Women and Children Last: America's War on the Poor by Someone Sidel; Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs; 5001 Nights at the Movies by Pauline Kael.
I'm such a dork.
The baby won't take a nap. I hate when that happens.
I forgot to mention that on Monday my dad stopped by in remarkably good spirits. Turns out that the EEO got wind of his termination from the Postal Service and decided to take it up with his bosses. I can't remember all of the details of what's going to happen but basically there's going to be something called a resolve. If my dad wins, which it sounds like he probably will, he will get his job back, along with all of his back pay, benefits and lawyer's fees. Good stuff. He's trying not to get his hopes up just yet but it's looking pretty good for him. Now he can stop being depressed. It's too bad that a person's job would be the keystone to their entire happiness but I guess that's just how some people are.
CMU: I went there yesterday to talk to this guy in Human Resources. It went really well and I think I'm going to have a job there by the summer. Next week I'm going to the temp services at CMU and getting hooked up with them. My plan, albeit a tentative one, is to work for a year or so, saving up enough money to get some bare essentials (place to live, car, hopefully). I'm also hoping to do some free-lancing in the meantime in order to keep the writing thing going. Then once things feel a little…grounded I'm going to uproot everything and try to go to grad school. But I can't really think about the whole grad school thing right now because it just makes me too nervous.
War: I've been trying not to comment too much on it because I don't want to go off on rants that make little to no sense. But I just wanted to say how sad I was when I saw the headlines this morning and all of those civilians had been killed. Man, I bet there aren't any international terrorists itching to blow up our entire country now.
So I feel kind of silly talking about jobs and grad school and whatnot when people on the other side of the world are getting killed for no good reason. It's just too confusing to think about sometimes.
Last night I had the rather enjoyable experience of seeing Sigur Ros live at the Byham Theatre. Sigur Ros are from Iceland and I think they're one of those really divisive bands. Anyone you talk to either really loves them or flies into psychotic rages at the mere mention of their name. Of course, that just might be a characteristic of the circle in which I travel because everyone I know is absolutely out of their fucking minds. 🙂
Anyway, I really liked the show. It was an odd time, though. Sigur Ros' music isn't exactly condusive to dancing or going buck wild…it's more of a sit-in-your-seat-and-let-your-emotions-and-memories-take-hold-of-you kind of deal…Of course, I just made it sound like a Lifetime Television for Women movie. Oh, well.
I think many people would be inclined to call them the Icelandic Radiohead and I suppose there's an element of truth to that statement. Sigur Ros seem to have just skipped right over Pablo Honey and The Bends and gone straight to the weirder sonic experiments on OK Computer through Amnesiac. (And another thing, I don't know when it became “deck” to hate Radiohead but you can all bite me.)
But the main thing that I came out of the show thinking is that, way more so than on their albums, you can really see that they go just completely balls-out trying to make as many different sounds as they can. However, it doesn't result in a cacophony of garbage. It's actually quite beautiful. The lead singer has this somewhat creepy high voice and spent much of the show screaming stuff like, “AWAAAAAOOOOOOOOO” and “EWWWWYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” It felt a little overly emotional at times but I think Iceland will do that to a person. I remember seeing some show one time that talked about the drinking problems and depression of people up there due to the weather. I'm pretty sure it's one of those regions that spends half of the year in darkness. I could be wrong, though. Maybe that was Greenland…no, isn't Greenland just like a frozen tundra? I remember hearing that the Vikings discovered them both and named Iceland Iceland to confuse people into going to frozen Greenland, thereby keeping nice little Iceland to themselves. Those Vikings were devilish, weren't they?
Of course, this being Pittsburgh, there were a few hecklers. One guy ran up to the stage and held a sign up to show the band. No idea what it said…the bass player just sort of looked at it and gave him a “Okay, please leave me the fuck alone” grin. Then a guy sitting directly behind me and to my left screamed, “ALCOA GO HOME!” At first, no one could understand him so he repeated, “ALCOA GO HOME! LEAVE ICELAND ALONE!” Someone told him to shut up, ala Michael Moore at the Oscars. I thought it was kind of a dumb moment to start a protest that might, at best, sound quite condescending. If only Bjork had been there. She could have smashed in that guy's head with a safety deposit box. Bjork = rock.
But I spent some time with Bradford, who I hadn't seen in ages, and his ever-present companion Molly, who's looking more and more like a tackle box every time I see her. Molly, I seen the needle and damage done, you know? Give the piercings a break. But I find myself not as annoyed by her behavior as I have been in the past. I think, like most people, she just hates the boyfriend and tends to take that out on me. Because, you know, a woman is nothing more than her man. Misogynists.
Well, my son seems intent on doing harm to himself so I have to go intervene. I'm also going to CMU later to talk to some guy at Human Resources about getting a job there. Military Industrial Complex, be damned. I want their bomb-ass health insurance. My baby needs shots.
Later
