Monday, August 29, 2011

Flattened. And melting down the stairs.

Why can't I write?

If we had chapter titles for each phase of our lives, that would be the current title of the chapter I'm living now. WHY CAN'T I WRITE? I used to be able to wait for the inspiration to come to me and then I'd just fucking sit down and write it. Hormones. Unrequited love. That must have been it, considering the only poetry I ever wrote worth a damn involved some dramatic yen for someone on the opposite pole of the earth. No one exists like that in my daily life anymore. And ok a) that's just sad and b) that's also kind of fortunate b/c I'm in my mid thirties and really, if I was proclaiming about rainbows and cricket stridulation, mooning over some dude in a coffee shop, well, that would just be pathetic. Yet, there goes my muse? Most women my age are mooning over their newborns or their I don't know...I guess most women my age aren't mooning anymore. Most people aren't blogging about their "glory days" as a writer of anonymous, unrequited love poetry.

In the last week I experienced my first earthquake, a hurricane that had me evacuated out of my house and the realization that neither of those things planted any kind of creative idea in my head. So, consequently, I am a little depressed. And  yes, relieved ok that nothing of mine was lost or damaged and I'm ok but jeez I feel like being a child for a minute and whining about my first world problems!

Along the lines of the type of things that used to inspire me, this morning I watched an episode of Louie. In among the hilarity (the show makes me laugh that true laughter, the kind that starts at the bottom of your stomach and lifts your whole body and you still feel it weeks after you first laughed about it) was an extremely heartfelt scene wherein Louie proclaims his love for this woman who is his friend and who has no interest in being anything but his friend and resists every second of his proclamation. They are standing outside in a flea market in cold weather surrounded by people bundled up under the grey NYC winter afternoon and someone is playing an out of tune, broken, flea market piano. He tells her, among other things:

Look I know you don't feel the same way about me. I know that. I'm not stupid..I don't..it's fine I'm actually fine with the way things are, that i'm in a constant state of agitation. It's actually better than any real requited love sex thing I ever had.

Nail,  you've been hit on the head.
I think if we had yearbook quotes, that would be mine. Not exactly dating site fodder though, is it? Maybe I should just stalk Louie CK since he knows what's up and would consistently keep me either laughing or turn my heart into a Bugs Bunny type comedy accordion, you know, flattened and melting down the stairs. We'd be the perfect sad sack couple, we would.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

A numbered list of 5 random thoughts to jumpstart my brain...

1) As a general rule, I have a lot of faith in the stability of the country I live in and the ability of the government both local and national to handle crises. Yet I am never surprised by that small, but insistent stab of panic whenever something like today's relatively minor earthquake happens. Maybe I've seen too many post apocalyptic films or read too many novels that take place in the aftermath of the collapse of a society's infastructure. Or maybe I'm just a naturally neurotic person in whom the  neuroses lies dormant until kickstarted by things like the Pentagon closing or the gadgets that have become a surrogate mortal coil simply not working.

2) I just finished an "erotic" book by Nicholson Baker called the "House of Holes". The following is taken from my review posted last night on Goodreads.com:

reading this book was like being trapped inside a Salvador Dali painting only with a lot more semen everywhere

and honestly that is true. But it also makes it sound more intriguing than I actually found it. I found it equal parts ridiculous and hysterically absurd. I often think that sex is equal parts ridiculous and hysterically absurd so in actuality, I should amend my rating from 2 stars to 5 stars because I may have stumbled upon a great metaphor for sex, you know, without all guilt and shame afterwards. Too bad the metaphor is so long and really, really gross. (Again, apt words for certain sexual experiences.Ok, now I think Baker is just in my head and I need to read the Lives of the Saints or something equally chaste to cleanse my soul.)

3) In other book news, I saw the film adaptation for "One Day". That particular novel was my favorite one of last year and the reason is because I so closely identified with Emma that there were some passages in the  novel that literally gave me chills of recognition. I was nervous to see the film version of it because some of that connection is taken away when you put a famous face on it. Never did I picture Emma to have the gigantic doe eyes of Anne Hathaway and this is all on me but the most recent of her films that I've seen was "Love and Other Drugs" so I kept expecting her to take out her boobs. Thankfully the filmakers were more restrained. Aside from that, the film didn't connect with me in remotely the same way as the book but how could it really? It doesn't surprise me that a lot of reviewers don't connect with the film, as the story of Dexter and Emma is best told through all the beautiful internal dialogue of the novel. Not everything is improved with visual representation (please see random thing #2).

4) Last year I bought a CSA share at an organic farm because I was feeling all environmental and local farm supporting and healthy. It worked out well because my friend and I live close to one another and can share the absolutely enormous amounts of vegetables we get every week. We bought it again this year and I have to say, even though the hauls every week are the same and the produce is generally delicious, I'm finding the whole thing just downright annoying. I like to pretend that I have the stamina, time and money to be organic and local and earthy and good with everything but every week when I get my big bag o'veggies, I really just have an urge to throw them at passerby or from the roof of a tall building. In fairness, I usually pick them up from my friend after a really long day at work and I'm cranky and hungry and nothing in the bag can be eaten without proper washing, storage and cooking but still, I choose to blame the vegetables.

5) I really hate it when a quirky question or observation that used to guarantee cutesy conversation between friends or someone you casually flirt with is something that can easily be googled, thereby prematurely ending the conversation and/or causing everyone to whip out their smartphones instead of making eye contact. This is happening to me all the time lately. You would think a shy person like myself would enjoy not having to look at people in the eyes but amazingly enough I miss it. I suppose that's why I'm blogging this instead of calling someone up to tell them. O the irony.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Skeeters and such

I'm running right into the same brick wall of not having much to say that happened with my last online blog. I am not sure what has happened to me in the last five or six years but posting in my journal and before that, writing in my journal used to be of such vital importance that it would often supercede sleep. In an effort to be even remotely consistent, I am today just going to post about a bit of nothing, a bit of something.

Firstly, this evening finds me at work, where I live in a corner of the room, surrounded by the ashen remains of the freedom I once enjoyed as a young girl. Ha ha no I'm kidding! If anything, the remains of my free time are smoky and not ashy in the least. No but seriously, while I am thankfully gainfully employed in an abysmal economy, often feel like work is a leaden anvil on my chest. OK, it appears I am headed for a labyrinth of hyperbole so I'ma gonna stop talking about work and move on.

Secondly, for the last three days I have been itching the roughly 230 hot button mosquito bites found along the vast landscape of my legs and arms. I mention this only because I have had to stop typing this particular entry four times to surrender to the sweet nectar of relief to dig my nails into my skin and stifle the groan of yesssssss that accompanies each turn. And now that that's done I can move on to...

Thirdly, I have so much going on in my life, so many things that need to be done that I often hearken back to a poem I wrote after first becoming a librarian at one of the busiest libraries I've ever worked in (and probably ever will):

i stamp
and collate,
i arrange
and disseminate
discuss and
advise
with my lower half
hidden.
at the top
i feel
dizzy as
a pinwheel
but not half
as bright;
part of me
steadfast,
the other
a whirl in
perpetual
spin.

Don't get me twisted, everything I have to do is wonderful: Paris, a close friend's wedding, little trips and dinners and time well spent and everything that makes life good. But it is the sheer volume of goodness that feels just a tad bit overwhelming. Maybe I could stretch it out a bit next time? Doubtful. I'm prone to first world problems apparently.

What else, what else? I'm reading a Paris travel guide in preparation for my trip. The major points I've gleaned from the book are:

1) Paris is the city of lights.
2) Paris has a lot of wine and cheese.
3) I will have to move to Paris for at least a year.
4) Frommer's guides have a fair share of typos.

I think taking those points to Paris with me will be beneficial and helpful at every turn, droit et gauche!

This is truly a useless post but hey, at least I posted. I'll find something better tomorrow after I've cut out each one of the mosquito bites from my legs and arms and the crook of my right hand just under my pinky. Au revoir!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Get my cave ready (or, How I'm on my way to becoming a troll)

Ahhh, summertime. A season of bbqs, bikinis, swimming pools, fireflies, packaged meat slurry and the incessant trolling of the Yahoo news comments sections. What? Like you don't do that during the slow summer work week? Liar!

In truth it never occurred to me how entertaining/soul crushing it would be to read the accompanying comments left by the Joe and Jane the plumbers out there until one day recently I came upon an article about the legalization of gay marriage in my home state. Flush with excitement I read news article after news article about this great step forward in civil rights. As I scrolled down on the Yahoo news story I saw the top most comment which received something like 157 "thumbs up" and it was something supportive and positive so I got optimistic and read the second, third, fourth and fifth comments, each one getting less supportive and more, let's just say utterly bigoted. I've long known that the anonymity of the internet gives people the green light to be the biggest assholes they have in their power to be, but I suppose I naively never really gave it much thought. Conversely, I also didn't really consider the fact that posting anonymously on message boards of news articles would be like a vortex, the magnetism of which is fueled by each conflicting comment, a verbal cesspool of stupidity if you will. And, apparently, I did.

Don't get me wrong, it isn't like I set up a Yahoo user account for the sole purpose of replying to the comments of bigots and ignorami (GREAT band name). Nope. Did not do that at all. It also isn't like I spent about 2 hours of precious sleeping time reading all the responses to the article, which numbered in the thousands. Nope. And don't for a second think that I will regret never getting that time back again for as long as I live or that I felt unwashed for a few hours afterwards. No siree.

Don't plan an intervention...yet. I am not an internet troll...yet. But each time I read a comment, written solely for the purpose of riling I feel my arms getting longer and my feet getting hairier and I suddenly have an unquenchable desire to find a big wooden club and go around smashing things in the virtual landscape of the  comments section. So I guess the cheap ploys of internet trolls work on me to an extent. But honestly? How many times can one read, without any regard to subject matter of the article, that our current president is a socialist? I swear, the other day I was reading something about how there is a bill pending that will allow more space for chickens being raised for their eggs (the current space they are given by most poultry farms is unconscionable, btw) and I could comfortably say that 15% of the comments indicated that OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST. Even if you (inexplicably) think that, just why you are commenting that on an article about chicken space is a mystery to me. It also makes me a wee bit stabby. What is worse: that those comments have any effect on me to begin with or that I keep going back? Perhaps this is the transformation period that occurs when an everywoman gets bitten by a troll, thus becoming a troll herself. Classic story.

I also just realized that this very blog has a comments section! I don't, however, have enough readers for this post to become a bitter irony...yet!