Do you ever have that thing, where you’re like wandering around doing normal stuff like snapping off people’s windshield wipers and you have this little twinge of pain somewhere, and you have it all day long, and you think it’s just a tag or a seam. And you get home and you start beating off to Snape/Mrs. Norris slash or whatever, and then you realize you’ve had this GINORMOUS zit in your butt crack all day? Or some crack. And you’re all, “My god, that’s been festering for DAYS, clearly! Where have I been? I can’t pop it now, it’s like it has its own zip code!”
I am starting to realize that the older I get the less I pay attention to parts of my body. I will find some scratch with a big old pile of dried blood under it. When I spawned my first kid I looked down a month later and realized that the spaces between my toes were all filled up with dead skin that was just hanging around. I screamed and started hand-loofahing my toe cleavage which caused the old cheese grater/dirty snow effect all over the rug. We were housesharing with my mom at the time and she walked in and and went JESUS CHRIST! Who can blame her, really?
Point being, I guess, is that I love my body more now, but it is more disgusting in general. Why couldn’t I have loved it before it was covered in pirate scars, Nike ads, and carbuncles? Why universe? Why you play games with hu-mans?
I am upfuckingside down today, because I had an Odd Occurrence which was Quite Unexpected.
You have to stop with the caps. Just stop. I want them to be Dickensian, but they hark back to that Man Lit. from Chuck Palahularamalamadingdong or whoevs.
Okay, so, odd occurrence. I went to Chicago last weekend, and I expected it to be like last summer, where I would come back and be all inspired and writing my face off, etc. Instead, two things have happened. The first is that I have felt depressed, because I was in Chicago, home of “Hi! How are you? Nice weather we’re having! Are you going to eat that?” to here, which is all, “Please, please please, don’t say hello to me. Don’t even look at me. I am invisible! You can’t see me.” I like talking to the other humans. Where I’m from, you at least say “hi” on the sidewalk. Shauna commented when we met up on how friendly Americans are, but I think it’s really regional. My roots have come back to haunt me, and not just the ones that I have to nuke with unholy amounts of bleach every six weeks. So I feel alone.
Thing two is that my friend told me about a job. I am not really looking for more work, since I have the very part-time school gig. But I have been totally shitting the bed on job applying in general, even when good opportunities come my way. There was an internship type thingie that came down the pike last summer, which would have been a good foot in the door for someone like me who did not immediately get a job after graduating, but instead chose spermination, to quote the most evil blogger who ever lived. So I got my references in order, wrote a cover letter, fluffed my resume, and…choked. I did not actually apply. CHOKER.
The good news is, remember how I was dithering about my job title? Well I was forced to create one for my new resume: Operations Liaison. Could that sound awesomer? No, it couldn’t. Watch out fucker, Ima hella liaise your Ops. WINK.
But now, I don’t know. My finger was over the button and I hit SEND before I could throw up or black out or procrastinate with cleaning or something. It’s a good cover letter. I want to hire me. I would make myself sit in my lap. I think I’m ready. It’s a flexible twenty hours a week. And when this sort of thing comes along, and you feel all ready and fired up and empowered and more things that can go on horrible corporate motivational posters, I fear that this is when the universe says PSYCH YA MIND, no interview for you.
PLEASE please please call me before my roots grow out!
I’m from a super friendly smalltown. I always forget that common courtesy and friendliness are not a nationwide commodity. Once when we vacationed in Atlantic City, I saw a woman exiting a Walgreens holding two children while also trying to lift something heavy off of the counter. I offered to help her and got the finger. Yeah. I’m all about throwin’ the finger if there’s a good reason; but that, well, was just rude.
I find it strange that I never appreciated my pre-baby rockin’ body. When I see pictures, I’m like…I can’t believe I used to insult that. I should have kicked my own ass. Now, I just feel like I’m walking around in a borrowed fat suit. Every morning I wake up thinking,”is this damn thing still here? seriously?”
dude. i spent 25 years in shitcargo. believe me, there are plenty of yakkers here…just today i’m yakkin my head off on the kingston ferry with meester poulsbo. when i first moved here i was in linda’s tavern chatting up folk who said “you aren’t from here are you?” i sez: just chat ’em up. let god decide where they fertilize.
I’m from right outside of Chicago and now live in MA. At first I used to complain that people weren’t as friendly here. Now I get weirded out when I go back home. I feel like such a jerk that I didn’t just give you the American Girl doll bed. I was totally distracted because I was waiting for my ride which was late.
Ah yes, The Freeze! So many theories…
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2005/0213/cover.html
The only one Tank and I can agree upon is that although the dynamic is associated with this city and the people who live here, it is not quite accurate to say it is perpetrated by people /from/ here. As a local she adamantly denies being a party to it and I have heard the same sentiment from other locals. There are a helluva lot of out-of-towners living here though — I suspect an insanely high proportion, though I don’t have numbers to back that up — and I think it’s them what be givin’ the chill.
Melting pots are all well and good in theory, but you get too much mixing of people from too many areas, each with their own particular nuances of body language and conversation, those folks get all confused when others don’t seem to pick up these cues correctly. And then their cues atrophy and they regress to this sort of lowest common denominator form of social habit.
Soak ’em in alcohol, however, and they pop right back into shape.
Holy fuck you’re brilliant… just the first paragraph…. dying over here… DAMN.
everyonce in a while the last few days I’m in some Situation and I think:
(((((((BUTTSEX))))))))
and everything gets so much better.
If the Red Bull eight packs don’t help, they also now have Monster in 24oz cans!
Wow. Seattle! Who would think?
I was pregnant and I looked down and my belly button was black! I thought it was some scary pregnancy thing. It turns out it was just dirt. Didn’t find that out for a while.
Operations liason. I want to be one of those. You need to watch La Femme Nikita–operations is the evil overlord of the secret anti-terrorist unit.
Oh verily I have seen it. I forgot that part, though.
I totally get you with the job thing, even though I have had my job for disgustingly ages, really. Fingers, toes, and unmentionables all crossed.
So I’m not the only one who feels like people in Seattle are antisocial people haters? I’ve lived here almost five years and the only friends I’ve made are the male ones that came with the husband, and all their wives are pretty uptight. Suck.
I have a really good feeling about this job application. Don’t know why you should listen to “good feelings” from nearly-complete-strangers, but, there you go.
Meanwhile, I share your experiences in the strange-body-phenomenon department. Especially after having a kid. It’s like, I look down at my body somedays and find a series of 10 bruises inside my right knee and another 10 on the inside of my left elbow. How they got there, I have no idea! It’s embarrassing that I know my kid’s body (since he’s still in diapers) better than I know my own.
As for friendliness, my move to CA from NYC came about the same time that I had a baby, and people are ALWAYS friendlier to kids. But, yeah, I like contact with other humans, too, even if it’s just of the inane “how about this weather” variety.