the wrong side of the bed

last night as i was being dropped off at home, we passed by a kinko's which was closed. in madison everything has to close early, i guess, even places that are allegedly 24 hours. it wasn't even 9PM, but i guess there are no late night photocopying needs in our city. even the kinko's in the woodlands (tm) was open 24 hours a day. it was one of the few things that was, at least before you hit the highway. i remember one night when my best friend from high school and i were driving around trying to think of something to do. we wanted to get coffee, but there really weren't many options. there was a diner, but i can't remember why we didn't go there. i think that we had been warned away from it by our parents because there were a lot of truckers there. anyway, clare* eventually drove us to kinko's because they had a table where you could sit and compile things and a machine that dispensed cappucino. we sat there for about an hour laughing and drinking disgusting flavored cappucino until the weird looks from the employees drove us away. i guess they sort of expect you to make copies.

i don't know what clare and i would do for fun in this town. maybe we just wouldn't have any fun at all. am i not having fun and i just don't notice? what does fun feel like?

* this was really my friend's name. it is not a pseudonym and it shouldn't be confused with enthusiastic claire, who spells her name differently anyway, if you'd taken the time to notice.

yes, i am totally lame for watching crappy television, but i do it. tonight i watched E.R. while i practised the craft we are doing in girl scouts tomorrow (making our own lip balm with beeswax and some other hippie crap). anyway, a character in the episode shoots himself in the head. ick. they showed it in a pretty graphic way. i feel sort of ill now. i don't think that is something i like to see. so, please, if you are going to kill yourself in front of me, well, don't do it in front of me. let me at least turn my back to you before you pull the trigger. or just take some pills.

alright, i'm done being all weird and stuff. sorry.

i am tired and starving. i have to start my fucking day now after having taken a 30 minute nap. socks and shoes, dorotha. then scarf and coat. walk down street and buy coffee and a bagel. you can do it!

okay, remember my previous post expressing hapiness at being up early and all that? well, sometimes it blows. i mean, there is no one to talk to. often i find myself becoming morose on sunday mornings. they are a really hard time for me. i feel especially lonely and isolated on sundays. i guess that is why i was particularly missing gaby today. anyway, what did i do this morning instead of being sad and self-indulgent?* i cleaned my fricking bedroom! you don't understand, this is huge for me. i live in filth. i'm the grossest person alive. i'm the kind of person who would stack an empty pizza box on top of the clean and dirty clothes piled on top of my bed. so, yeah, my room is clean. not perfect, but much improved.

yeah, so fuck you, gaby, for living in another state. i don't need you!!!!

*i might have been a little self-indulgent. i listened to meredith louise miller's ifihadahifi. i especially recommend the song "whole" because it makes me cry every fricking time i listen to it.

so, i feel like blogging now, but i might not later. you should still abandon me for claire. i think i like her better than me right now and you should, too. even though she is sometimes sad, i think her general outlook on life is better than mine.

anyway, here's what i feel like posting about:

when i was an undergrad, i had a friend named gaby. we liked to get breakfast early in the morning. i think i once met her at 5:30AM for no particular reason at all, except maybe because we were both willing to do it. i don't think i would agree to a 5:00AM breakfast - that's a bit too early - but 5:30AM is beautiful. i'm not going to bother to find the link, but i have posted before about how much i love to be awake early. it is fantastic. the world is calm. i am not a calm person. i'm rather intense. when i am happy, holy cow, i am ecstatic. when i am sad, watch out, moping is going to ensue. when i am angry, there are no holds barred. i need a little bit of calm inserted into my life. i will take it wherever i can get it. if that means a 5:30AM breakfast, then i am happy, but not ecstatic, to meet you for eggs and toast.

gaby and i where friends when we were both having difficult times with people that we were (sort of) dating. we were both seeing people that we seemed to care more about than they did of us. we were both seeing people who seemed to like to jerk us around a bit because they could (this is how we felt at the time, in retrospect, i don't think they were that malicious, i think we were just so pathetic that we pestered them into seeing us, and, actually, in gaby's case, she did a lot of the jerking around, too). there was a lot for us to talk about. just tons of stuff. lunches and dinners wouldn't have been enough. we needed those breakfasts, too.

gaby and i would hang out with each other when we wished we were hanging out with our respective love interests. as a result, we hung out a lot until we both started dating people more seriously. when we went through the period in which we were, seemingly by necessity, inseparable, we would joke that we had a co-dependent friendship. there was even a song that, at the time, we both loved tremendously, about co-dependence. we listened to it loudly in gaby's truck while we would drive around austin.

gaby, i know you are in upstate new york, but could you meet me for breakfast? i'd do anything for you. i am too intense and too hungry to face the day alone. i am also too lazy to make my own breakfast.

i'm not in the mood to blog. i may never be again. i think you should all give up on me and just read enthusiastic claire. she's seems to be like me, but without all of the cruddy bits. it might be a nice change for you. healthier.

my brother-in-law got me "ella fitzgerald sings the cole porter song book" for christmas. i've been listening to it over and over. it is really phenomenal and i think you should all definitely own it. i have one problem with it, though. no matter how many times i listen to "let's do it (let's fall in love)" i can't figure this part out:

The Dutch in old Amsterdam do it
Not to mention the Fins
Folks in Siam do it - think of Siamese twins

okay, sure, people in all of these countries fall in love. i'll go with that. but, um, did cole porter mean to suggest that siamese twins fall in love with each other? or is it supposed to be more of an issue of us thinking of siamese twins and sympathizing with what must be an awkward situation when one of them falls in love?

earlier this evening i was looking through a box of notebooks and office supplies for some blank notecards. since i keep new office supplies mixed in with old, i found the notecards right next to... my old poetry journal from high school! i swear, if you people don't treat me right, i am going to start posting the angsty writings of my youth (as opposed to the angsty writings of my relatively young adulthood) to this blog. don't make me do it!

"oh, wait," dorotha sulks "that will only drive off the few readers i have left."

last night i was talking to a friend about my problems with motivation. i am trying to finish an incomplete from 2 semesters ago, and the only thing that is moving me forward on this is that i promised this friend that i would get it done this week. a promise like this might work for this paper, but how many more papers, projects, proposals, etc. must i face in this life? countless, i am sure. i can't enter into weird promises and contracts with my friends forever. eventually, i am going to have to stand on my own and just write! i know that there are people in my program who have some sort of internal drive. how else do they manage to get things done? i know that what is driving them isn't always pretty. in fact, i suspect that it is often fear of failure. don't i have this, too? can i cultivate it?

my friend sean worked at Popeye's (love that chicken from Popeye's!) when he was in high school. for many years he has maintained that this was the best job he ever held. everyday he knew exactly what to expect (with the exception of the man who threw chicken at him, but even that seems sort of predictable). every night at close he knew that he would finish tasks in a particular order, mop the floor, and leave. the store would be ready to open the next day the same as it was the day before. i understand the appeal of a job like this. have i ever had a job like that? i guess when i worked at the grocery store in high school things were pretty routine. i wish i had known to appreciate, but at the time i was struggling with some pretty bad agorophobia and cried every time i had to go to work.

my question for you, my dear readers: how can i make academic work seem more like fast food employment? if that isn't possible, can you think of some kind of motivation other than fear or ambition that might get me through my life?

with great power comes great responsibility, right? those of us lacking in any talent, myself, for example, are then free of responsibility, right? please say yes! it occurs to met that, if this is the case, i don't need to feel quite so bad about sucking. people with greater ability should have to do all of the neurotic hair-pulling and hand-wringing. i can sit back and relax. so i won't get very far in life? who cares! let's leave that for those with the real skillz. i am so amateur-ville that i've been elected to and subsequently fired from the job of town treasurer. who ran off with the $12.75 we raised for the town moldy tupperware festival? dorotha!?!?!? she's fired! oh, but look, she seems to have fallen asleep in the vestibule of the courthouse. poor thing never made it out the front door. now we won't have to ask for volunteers for the dunking booth this year. well, if we ever got around to getting a dunking booth.

i think i will have mac-n-cheese for dinner.
i wonder if i should change out of my pajamas.
should i take a nap? i'm not that tired, but i sure am bored.

do you know how long it has been since i read your blog? shameful! i really ought to catch up on these things. um, soon. maybe.

what the hell is my problem that i always want "pedagogical" to be "pedagological"? why? can someone do something to fix this?

this morning i walked into the kitchen to get breakfast (vegetarian corndogs and a diet coke) and heard the end of a show on NPR. the show had been sponsored by Wal-Mart. i was sort of shocked. i didn't think that Wal-Mart gave to NPR, but i guess it makes sense. why not get middle class liberals shopping at your store, too? my mom walked out of her room at that point and i told her what i had heard. she got very upset and told me that NPR also accepts contributions from Halliburton. mom proceeded to march into the kitchen and switch the dial to Pacifica Radio, declaring that they, unlike NPR, are not sell-outs.** my mom loves Pacifica Radio. in fact, they host one of her favorites, the prison show, which claire and others can listen to on the web.

* not really. like good liberals, they are pacifists. they would probably try to reason you out of it. when pushed, my mom can be really intimidating. she used to be a substitute teacher, but not the push over kind. the kind you feared. kids would regularly tell me that they hated my mom. dumbasses. my mom fucking rocks!!!! ask anybody. well, don't ask joel gilmore. in fourth grade, they had a lot of clashes. no, thanks for asking, it didn't help my popularity.

** despite this reaction, my mom still shops at Wal-Mart. huh?

when i miss my texas homeland, i have so many songs to think about. i desperately want to make a mix cd of songs about texas, but i lack the technology. when i pine for my home, i hear the songs in my head. but what happens when i long for the frozen north? nothing. i have no soundtrack for this.

right now, i am just about tired of being in texas. i think i can handle eating the traditional new years meal with my family, i do need the black eyed peas to bring me luck, but, please, could i leave before my dad starts watching the rose bowl? and could i leave before my mom makes me take down the christmas tree?

madison, you are no texas, but i miss my own bed. and i want my brand of soy milk instead of the one my sister prefers. and could my parents turn off the radio? sometimes i just need a little silence. why does my mom listen to farm talk and prison radio anyway?**

* please let me know if there are.

** actually, the prison radio call-in show is fascinating. family members and friends of inmates in the huntsville correctional facility call-in to give messages that didn't make it over the phone. it is hard for prisoners to get telephone access, so they just listen to the radio show and people call to tell them things like "michael, we still love ya. ma and cindy are keeping your room off-limits to the cats cuz of your allergies, but it is getting harder to keep billy out. he misses you so much, you know. i think he just likes looking at your stuff and thinking about ya. or else he is pawning your stuff at the pawn shop! you used to have a guitar, didn't you? well, not anymore! just kidding, son. anyway, we love you and we miss you. we will be at your parole hearing on the fifth."