just some randomness.
I am thoroughly hungover at the moment, trying to work overtime at the office all by my lonesome. And all I really want to do is crawl back into bed and stay there till tomorrow. I think I'm still drunk. I stopped drinking 12 hours ago.
Best part of Turkey Day: My grandma was talking to me in the kitchen about how much she hates commercials "these days." She recounted this Pepto Bismol commercial which I hadn't seen and said "Like the Pepto Bismol commercial, there's this lady dancing around with her bottle of Pepto Bismol. That's ridiculous! Pepto Bismol sure as hell never made ME want to dance." And when she said "dance" she put her arms out and shook her ass a little. Awesome.
Next best part of Turkey Day: en route on 281, I came up beside a very normal sedan that was being driven by a very normal 50-something couple EXCEPT that the man driving was wearing a helmet. One of those aerodynamic bicycle types. Just driving around on turkey day wearing a helmet in his car. His wife was not, in case you're wondering. They were wearing their seat belts.
I have recently been engaging in premarital spooning. It's pretty much the best thing ever. Put a little spoon in your life.
Wendy's is no longer putting tomatoes on their spicy chicken sandwiches. The first time, I thought it was a fluke, but when I went for my hangover food a little while ago, yet again - no tomato. The gods must be smiting me.
Last night, when I was waiting for my friend Shelby in some random apartment parking lot (with my car and lights off), I was talking to a friend on the phone and some guy pulled up in a shiny black 4-runner. Then he did something I was not expecting. He turned on the interior light and craned his face up to the rearview mirror and started working on a zit. He spent like 2 minutes trying to pop this thing. I'm pretty sure he didn't know I was there.
Sideways was a good movie. It just might have the only cinematic full-frontal male nude scene that I've ever truly appreciated. Go see for yourself.
hi and lo and in between
a few strange things have happened today, no more strange than happens on any other day, but for some reason today i was struck by them. i just got back from the grocery store, had to pick up some Lone Star for joanna's potluck and such. anyway, i was in the express lane waiting, and i kind of glanced at what the guy behind me put down on the belt. in a neat row were four items: an avocado, a can of sardines, a banana, and an odwalla food bar. they were all perfectly aligned across the width of the conveyor belt. does that strike anyone else as just completely bizarre? it took every fiber of my being not to turn to him and say "is that your dinner?!" ok moving on.
now i know people who have told me that i often come off as standoffish, that they can't get a read on me or what i think of them. but i also know that a lot of people tend to trust me very quickly and often end up telling me things they don't tell other people. i'm a good listener. well i went to costco this morning to get a couple of things (some chicken salad and cheap salmon). mind you, i think i was the only person in there spending less than $100. it was exactly what you'd expect the weekend before thanksgiving at a discount family food emporium. i ended up in a long line in front of a woman whose basket was brimming with pre-packaged sustenance. she asked me about my chicken salad, said it is soo good, she'd searched all over for it and couldn't find it, i said i'd done the same thing and eventually asked an employee where it was. we talked about how they'd changed the packaging and the fact that it was next to the spinach dip now. she said she had gotten the spinach dip and the artichoke dip, and i said i tried to avoid those, and she said that she could eat as little or as much as she wanted, but it would never go to waste because of her kids. she looked about 30. she had brown hair and was kind of plain but pretty, and had a kind of fragile edge to her. we ended up talking about the fact that she had to work on thanksgiving, so she was doing thanksgiving this weekend instead. i said that it was really too bad she had to work on thanksgiving, and she looked at me and said "it's not that bad. at least i have a job." then she went on to say that on thursday, she'll send her kids off with a thanksgiving dinner in bags to spend the day with their father at his house. about that time, the checker asked for my card and i turned to take care of that. after i'd paid, the woman called out to me and i turned around and she said "it was really nice to talk to you. have a good weekend... and a great holiday." i thanked her, wished her the same, and then left. i was really struck by her and have spent a lot of the day thinking about what her life must be like and the fact that, if i didn't have a job, i have family who could help me out, i have no one depending on me. too late i thought about what an interesting person she would be to do a documentary on. i wanted to know if she would have said anything if it had been someone else in front of her. and i wanted to know if she was sad.
sometimes i wonder if there are strangers out there that i've made a lasting impression on. there are a few that stick with me: a girl who was friends with my ex's ex, who i met only a handful of times but always felt like we should be friends; a british firefighter who was too nervous to talk to me last year and got his friend to come up and ask if they could sit with us. he later asked if i'd go out with him the next night, his last night in town, and he gave me his london number, with an open invitation to come visit him; a girl at a party who i talked to about the band "olive" and spent the whole evening with, even though we were both there to see the same guy; then there was a guy i met in an elevator that wasn't working real well in cleveland when i was 17. he worked for an airline and liked my blue mascara and when we flew out of cleveland, i hoped and hoped i would see him at the airport - i had grand visions of walking up to him again, talking and arranging to meet in another city. it'd be interesting to know if any of those people remember me.
as i was driving to dinner yesterday, it was all rainy and cold outside and the only logical thing to do at such a time seemed to be to listen to the chris isaak album "
forever blue." it's not so much the rain that i associate with this particular cd so much as the cold. the funny thing is, it started this chain reaction of sensory memory of a church ski trip i took in 1997. hand-in-hand with the memory of the intro guitar chords to "somebody's crying" was the feeling of wearing after-ski boots at the end of the day, my feet feeling light as feathers and my body not quite grounded. and then there's the icy wind against bare skin still hot and chapped from the clothes and the cold. i hear those songs and i can taste raspberry honey which i ate out of a little jar from the gift shop. i ate it on the elevator.
when i listen to tool's "aenima," i can never really separate it from driving with my friend Mary in high school in the summer of 97. we'd cruise through the sweltering west texas heat with the windows down, because how else could one possibly appreciate "eulogy" but with the dust blowing and the sun beating down? and summer rain always makes me remember jumping on a trampoline on a choir trip with the rain pouring down, with "silent all these years" and "happy phantom" by tori amos playing through the open window.
can someone remind me why we have to grow up and work again? spend 40 hours a week in front of a computer screen? does anyone have a trampoline?
counterpoint
so i realize it's been 2 weeks since i posted, so i figured i should fill you in on what i've been doing. a ridiculous sum of bubble baths have been had, a shocking amount of alcohol has been consumed. and while these things can be quite lovely when indulged in for their own sakes, they have been bubble baths and beers of escape. escape from my Hellacious Co-worker. i have been so stressed that i've been doing everything possible to try to relax, including not working on my grad school applications, going to bed at ridiculous times (twice so early as 8:30 p.m.), watching mass quantities of Jag, and the aforementioned drunkenness and bubble baths (sometimes at the same time).
So, HC, as i like to call her, is pretty much everything you could possibly want in a hated co-worker. she's dumb (has had to ask
three different people how to cut and paste on the computer - yes, that's right, and she was hired as a
writer for a
website), she asks people to do things for her instead of figuring it out herself, she sounds like selma and patty on the simpsons (except more breathy than husky, and also more annoying), she talks about things which i don't want to hear about (out-of-body experiences, her dogs' bowel problems, the clean-up necessary for her dogs' bowel problems, her own bowel problems (that's right, she doesn't have a colon) and about how she hasn't found her voice as a writer. she's FORTY-FIVE!!!), and a couple of weeks ago, she actually threw something at me to get my attention rather than figure out how to work MSN Messenger or stand up and walk to my desk. she also has phlegm issues and sits not 3 feet away from me, so, even when i have my headphones on, i am subjected to this incessant throat-clearing, not to mention the long conversations she has with herself, and the vast number of phone calls which she engages in, despite the supposed courteous cell phone policy we're supposed to have. in short, she is the anti-christ. i have not written about her previously because i try to avoid talking negatively about people i work with on here, but i can't keep it in anymore.
there. i feel much better. time for wine.
smells like teen spirit
alright, i never wrote about my heinous rilo kiley experience on here, but let's just say that it consisted of lots of teenage angst, elbowing and shoving, with a healthy portion of "please god don't let the rainwater pouring from a vent onto my shoulder get on my $1200 camera," and not nearly enough of "hey i really love this song, what a great night!" like i'd hoped. anyway, i promised some of you the Most Unattractive Pictures of Jenny Lewis Ever, so here they are. please don't think less of me as a photographer. click on the pics for the full effect. i'll throw in a decent one at the end and try to get some of my dignity back.
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hallelujah. see? that's what she looks like in person.
