The Most Dangerous Time of the Year

If you are a recovering candy freak who loves sweets in nearly every shape and form, the time between Halloween and Christmas sucks ass. Okay, that's not true...more accurately, it's sweet, delicious, evil torture, because everywhere you go, there are tons of treats. Whether it's the homemade brownies, cakes, whatever your co-workers bring in, or all the free shite advertisers send you (like the time at Columbia we got a ginormous solid chocolate bar in with a New York Times front page imprinted on...oh my god, I'm salivating remembering it even now. It doesn't help I'm patiently waiting for my dinner to be ready because I'm SO HUNGRY...but I digress), or the sweet sweet limited edition holiday candy that comes out, it's all irresistible to me and like many people I wind up gaining five pounds or so over the holidays.

Well, not this year! Colon Full o'Carrots has balls of steel and I completely admire her for them, because I'd pretty much resigned myself to not losing anymore weight between now and 1/1/07 (I've been in a holding pattern since mid-September or so, which is when the worst of all the not having a job and everything else angst kicked in) and just focusing on not GAINING any this season. Colon, however, is determined not to give up, and emailed me that we should work on it together in solidarity so that the holidays don't become a sucky reminder of our weak-willed selves. But her willingness to stare down holiday sweets is only half the reason I admire her--the other half is that she actually posted her weight on her blog, something most people I know (myself included) are still hesitant to do. But since she did, I must as well, and so I plunge off the deep end of the pool and say...

My starting weight for our adventure is 151. My goal between now and December 31? 4 pounds. It was going to be 3, but that's when I thought I was going to be 150. Damn you, week of sickness and no exercise! I guess it's true...if you don't do anything from Wednesday to Sunday but sleep 10-12 hours a day (plus naps!) and eat nothing but candy on the rare occasions you actually do feel like eating, you won't lose any weight. If only it DID work that way.

A new day, a new job, a new life

I cleaned my house. I started to look at, and then promptly put aside for the day I can't delay it any longer, my new health insurance information. I figured out what I'm going to wear tomorrow. I went shopping for groceries and miscellaneous supplies and came home with a new winter coat and set of accessories (scarf, gloves, etc). I watched all of Disc 2 of Arrested Development Season 1.

Yep, it's back to my old Sunday routine. This is exactly how I used to spend Sundays in Cincinnati (okay, I didn't come home with a new coat EVERY WEEK...but more often than not I found myself buying clothes or otherwise spending money frivolously). And it. Feels. AWESOME.

I am SO ready to start the new job!

Memories of Oberlin

"Recently I attended an eightieth birthday party in Vermont for my freshman year roommate, and there met someone of that age who had gone to the University of Michigan, which in his day had some 10,000 students and today has 30,000 or more. He was astonished that many of those in the room had been close friends for six decades, having met first in an Oberlin dining hall. He had not, he told me, heard from a single classmate since his graduation."

I love reading personal histories from way back whenever, and this Oberlin Heritage piece about life as a student in the 1940s is no exception. What I find so cool about my Oberlin experience is that I thought the sort of situation I graduated with--having made friends every year, friends I still have today and consider my best friends--was typical. It's only as I meet new people in the real world that I realize that no, it's really not. But we didn't know that at the time, so it's not like we all walked around thinking we were special or something. It was just how it was. And it's only now, with the knowledge of how rare an experience I had at college, that I can appreciate those memories even more than I already did.

Don't Do This

Five Don'ts to remember when going for a job:

DON'T tell your prospective employer that since your dream job doesn't exist in nova, you're trying to talk yourself into accepting reality and taking a non-dream job position that seems like it might be okay.

DON'T eat a mini-Kit Kat while waiting to be called in (for the all-important sugar rush, you know) because it only leaves weird little crumbs that don't easily brush off and make you look sloppy. Nestle Crunch, however, is much less messy and therefore will do just fine.

DON'T forgo the thank-you note just because you're ambivalent about the job. When it re-posts two months later and you are now desperate for anything remotely in your field so you re-apply, guess what they're remembering? That you're the asshole who couldn't be bothered earlier.

DON'T start reflecting on dating disasters and your sad little broken heart en route to an interview and start sobbing hysterically on the highway. Or if you must, don't wear a lot of makeup (thankfully not a problem for me), and do it early enough in the drive to pull yourself together by the time you get there and have the telltale red eyes fade a bit (this, gentle readers, is one of the advantages to wearing glasses--not as obvious when you've been bawling your eyes out).

DON'T start talking about your accomplishments with a difficult student population, because apparently that is the kiss of death in nova. Silly me, I thought it would imply I learn quickly and am a hard worker and can be successful with people completely different from me. Apparently THEY think it means I can't deal with Johnny IV's politician dad and high-powered mom and their demands to get Johnny into Yale.

Looking back on these don'ts, and yes, I did, at one point or another, do every single one of them, I'm sure it's very obvious why I've been unemployed for so long. Of course, there were some good interviews along the way and near-misses, but these don'ts are the ones that continue to stick out for me and seeing them laid out like this, it's a miracle I even managed to find a job at all. But find a job I did! Starting on Monday I will be working with high school students who are low-income, first-generation college bound, and helping them with all the steps to get into college. Once they're actually in, then I and my co-workers provide academic and social support to make sure they actually stay in as well. It's like, the perfect job for me, the only downside being my lifelong dream of summers off has once again been thwarted. But really, who gives a shit--I'd rather work 12 months at a job I love than 9 at one I don't, you know?

I have been vacillating between utterly excited and utterly terrified about starting something new and all the anxiety that comes from change. Mostly, however, I am just relieved. Happy that I feel like I can start to develop a routine and feel like my life is a lot more stable. Happy that I don't have to look at my ever-dwindling bank account and weep for the day it approaches zero. Happy that I'll be doing what I spent so long in grad school wanting to do, and that I can rebuild some self-esteem and belief in myself and my abilities.

And of course, this coming just in time for Jesus's birthday makes it all the better. Hey friends, guess what? You're getting more than cookies from me this year!

When I’m dreaming of you

So much of my life is moving away from people and established patterns and completely starting over. And that’s hardly a revolutionary thought or circumstance—plenty of people do that all the time. One of the many contradictions that make me so unique and fascinating (ha) is the fact that despite my transient life, I long for stability and long-term established ways of living at the same time. It’s the main reason why once I get into a job, or an apartment, or whatever, I will rarely shake it up and change it.

I am also not so naïve as to think that when you leave a bunch of work friends behind, you will be as close as you were on the job. Part of your bond is fighting it out in the trenches…I’m being sarcastic, but really, while you like the people, half of what you do with them is complain about whatever it is about your job that sucks. I said good-bye to everything in Cincinnati once by, well, leaving it, but replacing those friends with new, an old job with a new one…all of that means saying good-bye to it again. And it’s a much harder prospect than I thought it was going to be. I keep having dreams about my former students and I wake up wondering what they’re doing now, if they’re okay in school, if the one who was eight months pregnant at graduation had her baby (okay, she better have, or else she’s a medical modern-day miracle), if the ones who were my favorites survived the transition to college, if the one whose mom had cancer is okay. Whenever I turn on my television and see Notre Dame playing a college football game, I want to search for the student who’s now there on a full, four-year football scholarship. When my screensaver photos float by and I see ones from my community service club, I feel a sense of loss that is so sharp it sounds melodramatic to describe…but it’s there.

I miss the students like crazy, and I hate not being able to see firsthand what kinds of choices and paths they take. But that’s the problem with leaving a life behind…you don’t get to pick and choose which parts of it you hold on to. Of course I can still email friends from the staff, and I do, but just as obviously, it’s not the same. I’ll get part of a story (“Guess who broke up, and why!”), but not the whole thing. And one of the biggest downsides to working with high school students is that I’m a part of their past now too. But unlike me, they’re not particularly inclined to keep in touch. Our bond isn’t built on mutual caring, it’s built on me caring for them and helping them through to the next step in their lives. They don’t think, “Hey, I’m so glad I graduated, except I need to keep in touch with my former college counselor.” That’s the way it should be, circle of life, blah blah blah. But it doesn’t make me miss them any less. It just makes leaving them behind a little more sad.

Speaking of If I Did It...

The police are questioning Howard K. Stern about the death of Anna Nicole's son! Sweet, sweet vindication! He totally did it!

If I Did It

So the OJ Simpson book and interview "If I Did It" has been canceled. If you live in a cave or can't figure out by the title, it was a recently published book and upcoming accompanying interview set to air on television detailing how, if he actually HAD murdered Nicole and Ron, he would have done it.

1). What a surprise! Did anybody REALLY think this special would air?
2). Rupert Murdoch called it "ill-considered." Gee, ya THINK?
3). Judith Regan (publisher) says she considers the book "OJ's confession." Um, is it a blow by blow (no pun intended) account of how the murders actually DID occur? Cause I think almost everybody by now knows/thinks he DID do it.
4). Is that title grammatically correct? Cause the "if" obviously implies the use of the subjunctive, but it sounds weird. I'm sure Bill's Evil Twin (whom I only threw in there so I can say, happy birthday Bill's Evil Twin!), grammar Nazi to the stars--that's a compliment, by the way--will be happy to tell me whether or not it's right.
5). The whole thing is kind of weird and gross. I feel bad for the kids. Yes, my cold cold heart weeps for the children...in this case.

Stress and Anxiety

So I've always known I have a tendency to get depressed and upset about things, but I had no idea how prevalent anxiety is in my day to day life until I moved here. It totally sucks, man. There's no eloquent way to say it.

What gets me anxious? Well, right now everything, but more broadly, just not knowing what's to come. The unpredictability of other people. Knowing some things are beyond my control and having to try to live with that ambiguity and uncertainty, and trying to balance and temper my feelings to prevent future disappointment down the line. Trying to manage happiness and optimism so that I don't feel blindsided later when something goes wrong.

Obviously that is a completely fucked up and unhealthy way to live. The point of life is just how unpredictable it really is, how you can't control everything. How once in awhile you should be able to enjoy things as they are and not worry that it's somehow "fake" happiness.

Sometimes that is a successful endeavor, and sometimes, like today? Not so much. Unfortunately when you have errands to run, and long-awaited college recommendations to write, and things to do in anticipation of the professor's visit, you can't just lie on the couch, cry because you're incredibly stressed out about everything in your life and you don't know how anything will turn out, and wind up dehydrated and not in the mood to eat anything except maybe some candy. I guess that's actually a good thing--not wallowing--but in the moment? It's awfully difficult to concentrate on that list of chores. As evidenced by the fact I just sat here and wrote this whole long thing rather than tended to some of them.

Walking Down Memory Lane

This weekend I found a bunch of floppy disks with Creative Writing and grad school stuff on them, so I'm putting them on my computer while re-reading stuff I literally wrote 13 years ago. One, fuck man, I wasn't a bad little writer! Seriously, I'm looking at some of my stories and thinking they're kind of good. But two, and more relevantly to this entry, I found one I'd written for non-fiction that is kind of eerily prescient, because it's exactly what I've been saying all along ever since I moved back this past July. Who knew?

It ends kind of abruptly but I'm not bothering to fix it. Posterity, ya know? According to the time/date stamp still embedded in the file, I last accessed/edited/printed this on March 18, 1994.

Where I Live
Fairfax County, Virginia has this dilemma: while it is geographically and historically a Southern state, its inhabitants consider themselves Northerners. Who can explain why? There's no single moment in the history of time, no one instance to point to and say, "Ah-ha! This is when we changed." I can say only that the transition occurred far enough in the past to plant itself deep and grow into the consciousness of all who live there, myself included.

There is a complication in living where I live that you would not expect could exist. Should you drive through any number of cities in Northern Virginia, you would probably be unimpressed. "God," one friend from college said when he came to visit me, "Welcome to Leave it to Beaverland!" It's true; I freely admit this. It's like an overzealous baker got out his cookie-cutter and stamped a whole bunch of cities before getting bored and moving on to chocolate mousse or something. Houses are stacked almost on top of each other; the multiplex theater is always crowded with pre-teens smacking their bubblegum playing the video games and small children with their grandparents, lining up to see the latest Disney movie. If you were to drive through Northern Virginia, leaning out the window with a video camera, when you played the tape the next year on your VCR, you probably wouldn't even remember exactly which city was which.

But don't despair! There's more to life in Northern Virginia than the grim prospect of a generic existence. There's the identity crisis to think about! Yes, we're back to that. But I don't want to convey the wrong impression. It's not as if we sit around saying things like, "God, those Southerners are so dumb. Thank God I'm a Northerner! Yeah, Northern Virginia! Let's party!" I'll be the first to say that we are arrogant in our regional pride. Who are we to conclude that the South is a bottomless well of heat, racism and Bible-thumpers while the North is a bastion of intellectual giants and money-makers? The methods of establishing this distance are subtle. In fact, I wasn't even aware I had such feelings within me until I came to college and found myself reacting negatively to comments such as, "You don't sound like a Southerner!" (Me: "Of course not. I'm from the North!") I was programmed to spout the Regional Propaganda, but how I was is beyond my understanding. And deprogramming myself? Well, I don't know if I'm even capable of such a thing.

I think that like most places, the distinctions that make it special are apparent only to those who actually live there. And what makes Fairfax County special to me is that my personal history is rooted so deeply there. The movie theatre isn't just another movie theatre filled with obnoxious people. It's the place I spent an entire summer there, seeing every movie that came out for free. It's the place I worked at for two nights before quitting in a panic, unable to handle the stress of remembering one large popcorn with butter, one medium without, and two large Cokes. And the houses? Maybe they all are architecturally alike, but mine is the only one I ever locked my sister out of after she ran outside in the snow, barefoot. But the biggest reason it's all so special to me is that Northern Virginia is the only place that's instilled the senseless, overzealous type of pride you tend to associate with football players and fraternities--the one rooted in being, not in doing. I never cared if my high school sports teams won or lost their games. I certainly never waved a flag and screamed, "America is #1! American is #1!" But I am damn proud to say I'm from Northern Virginia.

100%, baby!

Whoo whoo, I can do math that 13-year-olds do!

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Okay, I can do math, but I can't correctly link, apparently. Go here to find out how s-m-r-t YOU are!

It's all so dorky I can barely stand myself

Because the law student and I are geeks, somewhere along the line we invented this "game" where we'll be in a bookstore, look at a given shelf or display of books, count how many of them we've read, and compare notes--not just the number we've read, but which ones we liked, didn't like, whatever.

I mean seriously people, whenever in the future I wonder why it's hard to make friends, I need to look back at that paragraph and slap myself in the face. Repeatedly. Because that's not something Normal People like to do.

But now, check this out: the past few days I've been emailing and texting and IMing a guy who is probably just as avid a reader as I. Tonight's the big meeting date, and he suggested coffee. Well, I hate coffee, so I said how about ice cream, and he said cool, we could go to this place, and then check out the Barnes and Noble and see what's new. Of COURSE I had to then tell him about The Game, and gentle readers, he seemed just as into it as the law student and I are. So then I had to text the law student the news that this was quite possibly the most perfect date EVER.

Law Student's response: "It's true love!"
Mine: "Well, true nerd at least."

Truer words had never been spoken, that's for damn sure.

Rock the Vote

So I've been having this whole philosophical debate with myself about whether or not to vote (spoiler alert: I did, fret not!), because I hate the Senate candidates so much. Let's see, there's George "maccaca/I never used the N word/I love, no wait, I hate, the Confederate flag!" Allen vs. James "there's no major Reagan policy I disagree with...but I'm running as a Democrat" Webb. You can see why I was weeping on a daily basis. I definitely didn't want to vote for either of those no-talent assclowns, but I was worried that not voting at all meant that rather than conveying a message of deep disgust, I would be conveying a message of indifference to how my country was governed. Not to mention, as a feminist, it didn't seem right to throw away something my gender had fought long and hard for the right to do, nevermind people in other countries who still don't have that right even now.

Then half of my new pals Chrishawn reminded me that there was an anti-gay marriage amendment to be decided, and of course after that the point was moot. I had to vote against it, despite the fact I'm sure it will pass, just like it passed when I voted against a similar one in Ohio in 2004. But my anti-homophobia voice was going to be heard! And as a special bonus, there was a Green party candidate in the Senate race! Aw yeah, baby! So I didn't even have to leave that category blank, as I was planning to do until some last-minute research yesterday revealed it wouldn't be necessary.

Of course, all of this ruminating and philosophizing about "making my voice heard" went out the window when I saw this headline:

Britney Spears Divorcing Kevin Federline

I have always found Britney Spears absolutely hilarious. Back in her prime, she was cute as a button, had abs of steel and bitchin' dance moves...but one interview and you'd see just how much of a robot she really was. Sweet, but dumb as a post (which is what happens when Mom pulls you out of formal schooling at a ridiculously young age to make you a STAR), and obviously incapable of Deep Thought, let alone critical thinking. Then she decides to break free from Mom's chains and marries Jason"not the one who played George Costanza" Alexander, only to have that act of rebellion thwarted by an annulment. Hormones running amok, she then latches on the grossest, sleaziest guy known to man, gets married in a nasty, classless ceremony (bathrobes saying "Pimps" and "Hos"??), and two short years later, is so not ready for primetime it's not even funny. Not brushing her hair? Chomping on gum like it's her lifeline? Unable to say anything more significant or thoughtful about her marriage other than it's awesome? Nothing but good times, my friends, nothing but good times. It all goes to show you that $123 million can buy you a lot of paparazzi following you, a wannabe rapper husband to mooch off you and record a "music" album, and two kids within 2 years, both with ridiculous names, but a little dignity is apparently priceless. And now that she's about to join Jessica Simpson in the ranks of dumb blonde mediocre singers who are single, I cannot wait to see what happens next.

Dewey Defeats Truman

Sayeth Entertainment Weekly, about Borat:

"Once again, online hype [about Borat] looks unlikely to translate into big-time box office. Can anyone make this work? ... [L]ast week, Fox decided that Borat would open Nov. 3 on 800 screens--1200 fewer than originally planned. In other words, this crazy Internet marketing plan may not be working after all...the movie is reportedly tracking well behind its opening-weeked competition, The Santa Clause 3..."

That's all well and good, except Borat opened at $26.4 million and Santa Clause opened at $20 million! Not to mention SC opened on significantly more screens, so the per-screen average is much, much higher for Borat...nice going, EW. Almost as brilliant as Star running pictures of Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe "happy and in love" at the premiere of Flags of Our Fathers...after it was announced they're divorcing.

Adrienne Shelly 1966-2006

Holy shit, Adrienne Shelly is dead! If you don't know who she is, she was in two movies I LOVED in college, The Unbelievable Truth and Trust, by Hal Hartley. Then she showed up in an episode of Homicide where she worked at an S/M shop and gave hot Tim Bayliss a bitchin' leather jacket after he solved the murder of one of her coworkers. She also was in an episode of L&O, but then again, who isn't?

Anyway, she hasn't done much through the years, but I adore her nonetheless and was in complete shock when I saw her name in the headline. This is also a prime example of the type of shit that gets me in trouble, because the only person I know who would appreciate this sad news is Pants Boy--we had a huge long talk about how much we love Hal Hartley and those two movies in particular. So the first thing I wanted to do when I saw the headline was email him about it and comiserate.

Needless to say, I am not doing that, because he never responded to my email, and frankly the whole pants thing annoyed me enough that even if he did, I wouldn't want to deal with him. Unless we could mourn Adrienne together and then never speak again.

Fighting the world with the power of my WORDS!

Just took an IQ test online and the results were hardly surprising: I am a fricking GENIUS!

Okay, I'm kidding. But this is what it told me:

You are equipped with a verbal arsenal that enables you to understand complex issues and communicate on a particularly high level. These talents make you a Word Warrior. Whether or not you recognize it, your vocabulary is your strongest suit—use it whenever you can. Since your command of words is so great, you are also a terrific communicator — able to articulate big ideas to just about anyone. Your wordsmithing prowess will also help in artistic and creative pursuits. The power of words translates to fresh ideas off paper too. Since you have so many words at your disposal, you are in a unique position to describe things in an original way, as well as see the future in your mind's eye.

In short, your strengths allow you to be a visionary — able to extrapolate and come up with a multitude of fresh ideas. And you are in good company — bask in the brilliance of Word Warriors who have walked before you. William Shakespeare let loose the power of his pen. His ability to articulate the most subtle nuances of human nature and to create colorful characters are why his stories still have a major impact — even 400 years after he first wrote them. Whether you put pen to paper or use your understanding of the words around you to come up with creative approaches to problems, your potential as a Word Warrior is terrific.

Yeah, so freaking awesome is my mighty mighty vocabulary that I had to look up how to spell "existence," since I used it in the title originally but couldn't remember if it's existence or existAnce. Nice.

Bart of Darkness

While I moan and complain about Cincinnati, and most of those complaints are still true, one of the things I always praise about it is its proximity to the Central Time Zone. What was so great about that, you ask? Why, it meant that in the middle of summer it would still be perfectly light at 9 p.m....and on the flip side, even in the dead of winter it wouldn't get dark until after 6 p.m.

I loved that. I think part of the reason I always find January so depressing is the fact it's cold, it's bleak, the wintry air no longer smells crisp and clean...instead, you're navigating gray slushy piles of crap with no end in sight, and you leave work thinking it's practically bedtime, it's so dark outside. But it wasn't like that in Cincinnati--the brightness longer into the night was sort of a visual reminder that spring was around the corner, and I never got as deeply gloomy about the winter as I did living on the East Coast. Unfortunately, in two short years I'd managed to forget a world existed where, at 5:04, I would have to turn on my headlights to drive home. So imagine my horror on Monday night when the full implication of Daylight Savings Time sunk in. Egads, and this is only the beginning! That's what makes it all the more horrifying.

In more positive news, I'm remembering all over again how beautiful fall is here. The colors on the trees are absolutely gorgeous; more so than any other place I've ever been. Sunday I walked around my area and took some pictures, but it was yesterday's batch I took during a break on a photography job that turned out really nicely. This is my favorite one: