theology&geometry

Today has been one of those monumentally shitty days that you swear one day you’re going to be able to prevent but you know all along that you’re an idiot for thinking that. The kind of day where you’re pulling shit out of your “walk-in” closet to find your Pinkerton disc because you heard it in the Pizza Café the other day and it reminded you of high school and how much you loved that album and everything about your stupid teenage life when it came out, and it has held up surprisingly well and deserves a place on your iPod. And then when you can’t find it — the case is empty! — and you realize you’ve pulled everything out of the closet and can’t possibly fit it all back the way it was arranged before you started your excavation, you’re left with two empty boxes and this globe light your sister bought off of eBay that you’ve never been able to hang up, and you’re wondering what the fuck you should do with the light — it’s quirky and has broken glass hot glued all over it and would look awesome hanging up, but you have nowhere to put it and no way to get it attached to the high ceilings in your apartment so it just sits, year after year, in your tiny closet, waiting until you get a house or a step-ladder or something — and you sit in the hallway and have a stupid weepy “what the fuck is the deal with my life and why do I drag such baggage around with me all the time and why can’t I ever really fix the things I know are broken and when am I going to grow a pair and actually DO the shit I sit around dreaming about instead of waiting on clear signs from a distracted, narcoleptic God that success is imminent” moment. Because what’s so bad about a little failure, right, a little rejection? What’s the worst that can happen — a little earnest loneliness instead of the ennui that rots from within when you play it safe and don’t shake up the status quo?

I’m not looking for the holy grail here. I just want to get back to being a person who is content and who has moments where I am so in love with my life that I don’t want to fall asleep at night.

It’s not impossible because I’ve had it before.

[for Wednesday, Dec. 5]

A friend and I were talking today about Christmas and how we’re not feeling so festive. Yet. Yeah, I know getting all worked up about feeling THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT ^TM is cliché now. Whatever. I can remember when I used to get all giddy about Christmas. When carols and smells and lights and wrapping gifts made me feel all warm and fuzzy. It wasn’t that long ago. I miss that. I think it started waning once I moved out of my parents’ house and had to give up most of the family traditions. My Christmas used to consist of several celebrations spread over several weeks among the various branches of my family.

Now, work and time passed have whittled all that down to one day where I rush to drive in and then rush to drive back out in time to come to work the next day (or, if I’m lucky, the day after).

It doesn’t help that I rarely get to make it to any Christmas parties. Everyone knows boozin’ it up helps boost the warm fuzzies.

Project 365

Not too long ago I petitioned Fergie, the Duchess of Skank, to reconsider her careless usage of pronouns in “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” the official radio song of Summer 2007. Sadly, she has not responded to my letter, so I am forced to move on to even more trivial matters: Good Luck Chuck.

While I have tried my best to ignore Dane Cook for the past two years so as to not sully my irrational sentimental attachment to him, it has become damn near impossible to do so what with his newfound movie-stardom and his latest flick, in which he gets to ogle a klutzy Jessica Alba for an hour and a half.

See, this whole time, thanks to the ubiquitous previews, I thought the movie was about a normal dude who falls for an impossibly beautiful yet accident-prone hottie. You know, like, Good luck with that, Chuck. So the lack of a comma irked me. But then I find out that the movie is actually about a guy who’s a good-luck charm for women: Sleep with him and the next dude you’re with turns out to be your true love. So not Good Luck, Chuck but Good-Luck Chuck.

Either way, I will chuck something through the goddamn window if Hollywood copy writers don’t get on the em-effing ball.

Instant update: So, not long after I hit “publish,” I started doubting myself. (Lately, the more sure I’ve been about something, the less likely it has been to actually be.) Grammar wonks, am I right on this? Or am I misapplying the compound modifier hyphen rule?

I’m hungry. I’m waiting on my lunch partner, who’s dealing with yet another car problem. I really think it’s time he considered public transportation, considering that this year alone, he dropped more than $700 on repairs, then got into major legal hot water concerning his license, then totaled the car, and then had to deal with a replacement car that is persnickety and sometimes decides to run out of gas and then not start back up even when gas is put back in it.

Oops, just got the call. The fuel pump is fubar.

Guess I’ll be making myself a turkey sandwich.

Fucking cars.

I woke up with an unbelievably sore neck. It’s like a hundred little gnomes took turns punching me while I slept. Or like I slept with my head turned around 180 degrees. Times like these it would be useful to have a personal masseuse* boyfriend around to work it out for me.

I think my sister found my blog. Hey, sis! Welcome to my Emporium of Ceaseless Whining. It’s where my creativity — and my free time — comes to die! Make yourself at home. Have some cheese and crackers. I’ll make you a Sex on the Beach, like old times.

*I just looked up “masseuse” to make sure I was spelling it correctly, and the definition is “a woman who gives massages professionally.” Is this an outdated definition, Dictionary.com? Or is there an alternate spelling for a man who gives massages professionally? /word wonkery.

If you said “the electrician,” you’re so right it makes me want to vomit. In fact, an electrician won’t be coming until Monday. I take no comfort in knowing that I totally called it, especially since I’ll be having visitors tomorrow through the middle of next week. I mean, of course we wouldn’t sit around and watch TV the whole time, but it might have been nice to have the option.

So, anyone know of any good, well-managed apartments for rent in Midtown to check out?

Instant update: Okay, perhaps my “Well, I’m having people visit this weekend but I guess we’ll figure out what to do” was a sufficiently pouty response to my landlord’s “You’re not mad at me, are you?” because now he’s called back and said he’s got another electrician lined up to come today. I will count those chickens when they have hatched, grown up free-range on a farm, and landed deliciously deep-fried on a plate in my kitchen.

If I happened to be in charge of an old apartment building and one of my tenants told me she’d tried to change a blown fuse — in a fusebox in the very small wood-lined closet — and the damn thing sparked and popped when she touched it, I would probably fall all over myself trying to get someone out to have a looksee at the problem.

Clearly I’m not cut out to manage anything, though.

The electrician won’t be coming until Saturday afternoon. Which, if I had to place a bet, means Monday.

I’m a patient person (okay, kind of), and when I talked to my landlord yesterday afternoon, I told him I had no problem with waiting until today (Thursday) for him to get a professional out to look at it since it was acting so weird. I joked that I could do without my TV until then. Which I can. But fuck. Saturday ain’t Thursday, and it’s not just my TV that’s on the fritz. It’s everything that plugs in in all rooms but the kitchen and bathroom.

I really like my apartment, but I swear. It’s always something. Wiring problems, phone problems, cable problems, plumbing problems, parking problems, leaks, mold, AC issues, stupid-ass drunk neighbors, etc. I know you can and will have those issues anywhere (and I know that this issue was technically my fault for letting heathen animals run loose in the place). But it seems like it takes a long time to get things taken care of here. I’m not saying my landlord is a bad guy; quite the contrary. He’s very nice. It just seems like he’s got so much on his plate that he’s never really able to get to my issues in an acceptable amount of time. And I’m too fucking nice to bitch-wrangle him into prioritizing my problems above all else he’s dealing with. I mean, remember this? Maybe it’s time to move on.

Of course, now that I think about it, both places I’ve lived in Memphis have given me unbelievable trouble (Lynnfield was a carnival of fun home repairs). Time for lucky No. 3?

Is it even possible to buy a bra that does not piss me off? I doubt it.

First off, I’m pissed that I have agreed to give in to the cultural mandate to wear a bra. I don’t actually *need* a bra insomuch as anyone actually *needs* a bra. I’m not ashamed to admit that; I’m quite relieved that I don’t have to worry about all that extra baggage. I’m sure I have plenty of back problems to look forward to anyway.

So, my wearing a bra is a purely calculated move based on my desire to assimilate into and move freely within society by incorporating female drag. Same reason I wear makeup sometimes and wear my hair long and “ladylike.” Some female drag I have incorporated into my routine; some female drag I have not. I suspect most women pick and choose which bits of typically feminine crap they want to bother with.

But if I’m going to wear a bra (which, I suspect, most of us do on a daily basis mostly to shield the world from the occasional outline of a — gasp! — nipple), is it too much to ask that the frigging thing a) not evoke images of Madonna with their torpedo cups; b) not be stuffed with so much padding that my humble size begins to look a bit more ample than it actually is; c) not come embedded with wires that puncture my lungs every time I move? (I haven’t bought an underwire in many years, but it seems that the tradeoff is a bra with copious amounts of unneeded padding.)

Does there exist a bra that does not seek to pump up my modest B into a generous C?

I sure as shit can’t seem to find one.

Oh, and, should it exist, I’m not fucking paying more than $20 for this mythical swatch of fabric, either. What a crock.

When I am Queen of the World, UPS will be required to use doorbells so that no one ever has any reason to drive down toward the airport amid the depressing industrial squalor on Airways/Brooks/etc. to pick up a package — as instructed on the handy sticky note stuck to the door right beside the doorbell, which was never once rung during the three attempts to get the package to its rightful owner, who sat inside her apartment mere feet away — that, in fact, won’t be there until between 8 and 8:30 that night, so could you please come back then? No, actually. No I can’t. I’m having dinner with friends and then ignoring “Heroes” while probably getting drunk on cheap Italian pinot grigio, right around 8 to 8:30. But thanks for the generous thirty-minute offer of convenience.

Anyway, the futile trip to the UPS warehouse gave me a chance to shoot incredibly depressing and boring photos out of my window, all of which, predictably, came out horribly. So I cheated. Shocking, I know.

So I introduce you to the world’s most apathetic yet permissive roadsign.

Yes, it really does say that. No, the sky was not an alarming shade of muted pink.

OK? OK.

Project 365