What A Week… July 12, 2008

Currently, I am sitting in a hotel room in Orlando, Florida.  My parents and my little brother are sleeping not five feet away from me, and in my usual style, I can’t sleep before 2 a.m.  Boo.  My dad had his 65th birthday today, and to commemorate such a Big One, we hopped in a rental car, and came to Disney World.  Disney has always been a secret desire of my stepmother’s (she has always loved Cinderella, since she was a girl) but I have a secret notion that this trip was really formulated for me and Little Man to make some good memories before I move away to my new life in the Big City.  We needed some quality time together, and we certainly got it.  He had never ridden a roller coaster before; in fact, he swore he hated them and couldn’t ride them, but dontcha know…watching his big sister ride Space Mountain all by her lonesome got to him, and he agreed at last to try it, and he loved it.  We had a great time.  We rode every ride in both the Magic Kingdom and Epcot.  We even managed to get my dad and stepmom on a couple.  It has been a really great time, aside from the fact that my broken ankle certainly isn’t getting any better by ignoring the fact that is, indeed, broken.  I have to go to the doctor’s this week.  Like, immediately, upon my arrival back home.  

And speaking of home, I returned from my one week stint at summer stock on the beach (the puppets actually worked!! It’s some kind of miracle that I actually figured out the mechanics correctly to rig twelve puppets to one point, so that one operator could make all twelve move, just by pulling on one, tiny, itty bitty piece of monofilament.  It’s one of my biggest artistic accomplishments to date.  I’m feeling quite proud of myself!), only to find that my house had been ransacked by burglars.  The fuckers had been unable to gain entry through either the front door or the back, although they left plenty of evidence of their attempts, so they splintered and busted a window on the front side of my house, right into my living room, and then propped it open so that they could really take their time.  The house was empty for a week, so who knows how much time they spent perusing all of our belongings, but it was quite clear that they had gone through everything, and I do mean everything.  My bed even looked like someone may have slept in it. How gross is that???  The sheets were all wonky and the bed had been pushed out from the wall, and the contents of my beside table were strewn everywhere and all my drawers had been opened and rifled through…some crackhead touched every piece of clothing I own.  My jewelry box had been pilfered, but the idiots stole only the junk jewelry, leaving the three actually-valuable pieces exactly where they lay.  Idiots.  I’m glad they’re idiots, but still.  They got away with all of my SLR cameras (I had three), all of our electronics, most of my good DVDs and Playstation games, a couple of D’s turntables, a both of our change jars.  I discovered all of this when I arrived home, alone, at 2 o’clock in the morning.  I was terribly shaken up by the ordeal.  D won’t be in the house at any point for the rest of our lease, and I can’t bring myself to stay there alone, ever again, anymore…which is a great shame, because I really loved that house, and it’s the only place that’s really and truly felt like My Home since I moved out of my parents house.  We made it three whole years with only minor incidents, and two weeks before we vacate forever…this.  

I am so so terribly tired of not feeling safe in my own home.  I am sick of being too poor to afford housing in a neighbor where I won’t have to worry about finding crackheads on my front porch when I come home late at night (it’s happened plenty of times).  I am just devastated that I haven’t had one single house in the last eight years that hasn’t been a target for a break-in.  All I want is a warm, safe place to lay my head at night, cook some good meals, and do some good work.  That doesn’t seem like so much to ask.  Apparently, it is.  Most of all, I am cracking under the strain of feeling like someone is always watching me.  I’ve had the feeling of constant surveillance for about a year now, due, I think, to the fact that some hobo has taken up residence in the a tangle of bushes on the backside of our parking lot.  I had the nice police officer trek up into the bushes at 3:30 in the morning to check it out, but he said he didn’t find anything.  I think he was looking in the wrong place.  And for the second time in my life, I had to offer up a vibrator to a forensics team as a ’smooth object that I could definitively say I hadn’t moved myself’.  Do you have any idea how horrifying that is? Pair that with the fact that I made the decision to offer up D’s glass bong as another ’smooth object…’ and it makes for One Traumatic Early Morning In My Life.  The cops, at least, had a sense of humor about both objects.  The fingerprinted the bong, and bypassed the vibrator.  I didn’t get a possession ticket, so the night could have gone worse than it did, I suppose.  

In an attempt to find a silver lining in this horrible situation, I have decided that perhaps this is the perfect thing to detach me from my beloved home, my beloved roommate, my beloved state…a kick in the ass, angled north.  I will no longer have a hard time walking away from that house.  I am ready to leave it, now.  It has been a good house, a perfect space for the work that needed to be done in the three years that I lived there, and now I will say goodbye to the Crackhead Surveillance, and my most perfect kitchen.  I will miss the house, for sure, but I will not miss laying awake at night, wondering, What Was That Noise?

The good news is: FireBall found me an apartment to sublet for the month of August, conveniently located just blocks from her own, new abode.  Sometimes I think she’s too good to be true, like I will squeeze my eyes shut tight, and she will blink out of existence, just a figment of my imagination, formulated by my brain under the Extreme Duress of graduation and the end of a two year relationship.  Lucky me…she’s real, and she’s not going anywhere.  Except maybe back to South America, at some point.  The sublet is pretty perfect, if it pans out the way I think it will (it’s not set in stone, but the tone of the emails and phone messages from the woman whose looking to sublet is distinctly positive), I will be afforded the time to find something more permanent, without really stretching my bank account.  $400 for the month, utilities included.  I mean, does that even exist in a good neighborhood in Queens?  The answer is yes, yes it does, and my kind, resourceful, ingenious Not-Girlfriend has located it for me.  I think it’s adorable how much she misses me, and the lengths she will apparently go to, in order to make this transition as quick and as smooth as possible.  I could sing her praises all day long, but I’d rather just kiss her upon arrival in Queens. 

Queens makes me think of one thing (okay, well, one other thing) and that thing is Coming To America.  Remember?  Before Eddie Murphy sold his soul to childrens movies and stopped being funny?  Just let your soouuuuuuuuul glow…

Flip On A Dime July 3, 2008

Yesterday was a funny day…I woke up with a r a g i n g hangover, due to a dinner with my temporary roommate (departing tomorrow forever) and our teacher and his partner.  We ate fresh summer salad and grilled corn in their beautiful backyard garden, and lord did we drink some wine.  Phew.  It hurt.  So I get to work, can hardly see straight I’m so hungover, but I slogged through til lunch, I just had to sew for four hours straight, which feels good anyway.  I ran to the bank at lunch, and stopped by chik fil a for some of their delicious nuggets, and although I know better, I tried to eat the nuggets fast, in my car, on the way back to school.  

If there’s one thing I can’t do anymore, it’s eat fast.  I know this.  The result from eating too fast is immediate vomit.  Soooo, I pull in the parking lot, followed by the entire carpentry crew returning from their lunch as well, and I just barely have enough time to pull in, put my car in park and throw myself out of the car before I’m spraying barely-digested nuggets all over the staff parking lot.  In front of people.  Explosively.  Luckily, they all had the good sense to leave me alone, and let me vomit in peace.  

So that was lunch.  My day until two o’clock was pretty atrocious.  Then, I get a phone call from the production manager.  Apparently, he was unaware that I was the only one who could do rigging for these shadow puppets, making my presence a necessity.  They hadn’t anticipated that I’d be traveling to the beach, not at all.  He’s super disorganized…  So the deal he struck with me was an extra 1K of salary for what amounts to one extra day of work.  Plus, travel and a per diem for food.  Plus they ran out of the shitty housing they normally put students in, so they are going to put me up in the luxury condos that they reserve for the designers and the production manager…private room, private pool, private beach access, my own shower.  I am still giggling at that turn of events. 

Shortly after that bit of good news, my stepmother called me to tell me that they had cancelled the beach trip that we were going to go on, for my dad’s birthday next weekend. I was disappointed…until she told me they wanted to take me and Little Man to Disney World!!  I might be 30 years old, but I can still appreciate finally getting the trip I always wanted when I was little.  Plus, it will be The Most Fun with my ten year old brother.  He’s convinced roller coasters suck because he’s never had anyone to ride them with him. I have three days to show him the ways.  I can’t wait.  Literally, can’t wait.  

I had an incredibly cute conversation with FireBall yesterday.  She is the most excited anyone’s ever been to meet my parents, when they help me move up to the Big City.  I’ve never had a woman actually be genuinely excited to meet my parents.  No arm twisting, no preparation speeches, just giddy excitement to get to know my roots.  I love it.  Her.  Maybe.  I think.  It’s happy, any which way.

Another Brilliant Weekend June 29, 2008

Friday was fantastic…it marked my last day in the paint shop at school, ever, and although I feel tied to that place and will miss it, I’m ready to move on.  Friday night, Anchors, Matty and I went to try and see Get Smart.  Steve Carrell is funny and I can tolerate Anne Hathaway, mostly.  Get Smart was sold out, and the next closest movie time was for Kung Fu Panda.  Now, I love Jack Black.  However, I never would have spent the movie and seen that movie if I weren’t already at the theater.  I am glad for this happy accident.  Kung Fu Panda kinda rocked.  The three of us were the only group without children in the theater, that was interesting, but we all laughed our faces off (spurred on by a three year old in the row in front of us, who would laugh whenever we did, which just made me laugh harder).  I approve of Kung Fu Panda.  I might even go so far as to say I recommend it.  

Saturday, I woke up, had lunch with Anchors and my roommate, and then started the tedious process of packing the studio.  I officially want to Poke My Eyes Out.  I hate moving, the physical act.  It fucking sucks.  It’s hot and sweaty and dusty and nostalgic and I’m tired of it already when I’ve hardly begun.  Soooo, to make things better, a group of us went down the hill to the bar at about 7:30, and by 11:00, we were at the titty bar up the road from school.  I, myself, had never been to a strip club before.  How did I make it to almost-30 without going to a strip club?  Friends, you may have failed me.  Better late than never, though…better late than never.  I was pleasantly surprised that there was nary a fake boob in sight, and the woman who was the headliner for the evening was the plumpest of the bunch.  There were only a handful of skinny girls, and the rest were just…normal.  A few would have even been considered overweight from a medical stand point, but mostly, they were all hot.  Except for the headliner.  She liked Anchors, though.  Didn’t even want her money after she rubbed her head in her crotch… Giggety giggety.  

Today, I woke up with a bit of a hangover, and promptly engaged in the best cure known to man: lazy river tubing!!  It was pretty perfect.  We were running late, as usual, and the people running the shuttles were not happy with us, and then it looked like it would storm, but we had perfect timing, in the end.  The rain didn’t start until ten minutes after we’d gotten out of the river, and we arrived just in time to catch the shuttle back to our cars.  Idyllic, really.  I love tubing more than most things in this world.  Really, I do.  

Tonight, I’m having dinner with a few friends, and then I’m finishing up work on all the puppets for the Pied Piper.  These past few weeks, ever since graduation really, I can’t shake the feeling that my life is charmed, that I am so lucky to get to do what I do, with the people I do it with, and that I ought to give thanks each and every day that somehow, this life is working out in a most spectacular, unconventional, magicalmystical way.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  

Is this what happiness feels like?  Boundless gratitude for simply existing?  

Oh, and Amanda…that old post, your memories through someone else’s words, I didn’t ever imagine you’d read those words.  I hope you know I meant you no ill will.  Quite the opposite, in fact…

Weekend Warriors June 24, 2008

I’m on a too-short lunch break, but it’s been a few days, and plenty of things have happened that deserve mention.  

The Wedding Weekend was really pretty perfect.  My roommate (D) and his girlfriend (L) and I all piled into D’s incredibly hot classic BMW and raced to the mountains on Friday after work.  It was late-ish when we arrived in Town, so we caught a quick dinner and called his friends, my friends, and eventually, we all wound up in the same place, round about 1 a.m.  It was pretty excellent.  I got to see The Minister and The DJ, who I hadn’t seen in exactly a year.  They both seem happy, and they both looked fabulous.  The Minister and I got sucked into a lengthy, philosophical discussion, as we are prone to doing, and come to find out, that is precisely what my mind been craving.  So, thanks.  D and his friends and I migrated back to the Outpost and stayed up until about 4, sitting on D’s dad’s amazing porch (it’s on the historic trolley tours…the tour guides lie and say O’Henry lived there), laughing and carrying on.  

Saturday morning, we got up, had a late breakfast on the front porch, and then L and I ran to have pedicures (awesome!) before the wedding.  We got to the wedding only a minute before the ceremony was supposed to start, but it was pouring rain (outdoor wedding) so they held the ceremony for an hour and a half, and opened up the bar.  Without serving food.  Poor planning on their part, clearly.  The white wine was really good.  I drank my fair share.  I met the groom’s aunt Jo while sneaking off to smoke cigarettes…she was friggin’ hysterical, and my wedding-stranger BFF.  As there was no wedding planner, FireBall ran around facilitating for the whole day.  It’s understandable, everyone wants her attention, everywhere she goes, so I was not surprised, or ever phased…and she looked incredible in formal wear.  Me and D and L had an amazing time…drinking, dancing, chatting, laughing, going on adventures and missions to sober up…it was more fun than three humans should be allowed at 5 pm on the streets of Small Town Appalachia.  

After the bride and groom left, the wedding party and my party migrated to an Irish pub.  FireBall came out of nowhere and jumped in the backseat of D’s car with me, as I was in the middle of a ‘costume change’, from dress to jeans.  I haven’t talked to her face in weeks, and the first time we have a real encounter, I’m half-naked in the backseat.  We had a good laugh over that.  Proceed to the bar, where we spend the next very short hour and change pressed as close to one another as humanly possible (we still haven’t kissed, even…she’s telling me she’s scared of feelings but what difference does that fear make when The Feelings are clearly present and accounted for?)  The award for most precious moment of the evening:  one, sweet instance where FB simply leaned forward a few inches and pressed her face into my chest, and held it there still and quiet, our breathing in sync, my arm around her waist, my face pressed in her hair, and I could smell the Third World on her then, in the clean, sweet, spicy way that’s unique to her.  She lifted her head when the drinks came, and I told her I missed her.  She told me she loved me.  We ate L’s french fries in silence, trying to sober up, our knees and thighs and elbows and arms pressed so close it almost hurt.  

When we said goodbye a few minutes after that, D and L stood a few feet away, trying, respectfully, to fade away.  She hugged me once, took two steps back and looked in my face, and then hugged me again, longer and tighter, before quickly retreating inside the bar as I walked slowly to catch up with my friends on the sidewalk ahead.  It was sad to say goodbye, but knowing I’ll see her soon, I was left with a feeling of elation as we drove home that night.  I like her so much.  Our thought processes are so similar, our methods and our madness so closely related that I come away from every interaction feeling like I Get It/She Gets It.  

The next morning, our last in Town, D’s dad made us delicious pancakes with fresh-from-his-garden blackberries, and sent us on our merry way, tired, hungover, and all of us grinning in the glare of the sun.  Pretty perfect, excepting the fact that we couldn’t find a roof to fly our trick kites.  

Eff. May 21, 2008

I just had the most amazing, spontaneous date of my whole life.  Without going into details, I would just like to state for the record (and amusement purposes of others) that steel wool is flammable, and makes for the cheapest, longest lasting sparklers a person could hope for.  She shook her head at me, laughing, and called me a First World Citizen as she held the lighter to the steel wool, running and swinging the sparking steel in wide arcs that split the dark blue night.  The sparks hurt when they landed on my skin, but it was brief; the Wonder Factor is high with this trick, and I quickly forgot to flinch. You have to keep moving.  You have to keep spinning.   

Yeah, tell me about it.  

Frizzy Hair and Frazzled Nerves May 17, 2008

It’s Friday again.  How did that happen??  Seriously!?!  Time is funny…I wish I could articulate how much time amuses and tortures me, but I don’t think I can do that right now.  All I can do is hang on and lean into the curves.  

My to-do list is still daunting, but it’s getting pretty short.  The light at the end of the tunnel is starting to feel warm.  I still don’t know what I’m gonna do.  I feel unsettled that I don’t have a job, but it’s a bit too early still to start looking for jobs in August…I mean, I’m doing research, but so many of the job postings are for fairly immediate positions, and that just doesn’t work for me right now.  Stupid lease.  

Actually, I’m happy I have to stay here for the summer.  I have 30 years of living in this state to package up, not to mention the time I need to thoroughly enjoy one more Hot Southern Summer.  I don’t want to live my life always in a hurry to get to the next step…I’m trying really hard to appreciate the present.  Life is fleeting, after all.  

To date, I have lost 75 pounds.  It’s kinda crazy.  For the first time in my adult life, I purchased a dress that not only looks super cute on me, but I actually feel confident wearing it.  The dress creates the illusion that I have a (gasp!) waistline.  I kid, but it makes me really happy.  I weigh less than I did when I graduated high school.  I like that.  I went to my doctor last week for another saline fill, and he opted not to do the procedure (glory) because he feels I may be in the fabled Green Zone.  I have definitely figured out that there are certain foods I Just Can’t Eat Anymore, and that has been painful.  The list includes some favorites, such as: steak, pork chops, brocolli, rice, bread (unless it’s super cripsy), collard greens, apples, and…sigh…cheese.  I still try occasionally to enjoy these things, and it’s always fairly uncomfortable, and I’ll hold off for three weeks or a month, until the craving makes me forget what it actually feels like to try and digest the tasty treat.   I have lost my appetite, in general.  That’s truly the biggest problem I’m facing, five months post-surgery…I am forgetting to eat for long periods of time.  For example, I totally cracked under the pressure of the union exam, and couldn’t figure out why I was So Fatigued two and a half hours in, and getting shaky and edgy and emotional.  And then I realized I hadn’t eaten in about 20 hours.  Granted, my lack of appetite is exaggerated right now by extreme stress levels and the fact that I may or may not be falling in love, but christ! That’s not healthy.  I just don’t think to eat very often, because I so rarely feel hunger…and on the flipside, when I do eat, it’s not really satisfying, somehow.  I can still eat some good meals, but my passion for food has definitely waned a great deal.  Living on nuts and chicken pieces and greens is fine, but it’s not a culinary adventure.  It’s a small sacrifice, really.  I’m not complaining.  

I am feeling very conflicted these days.  There is so much going on at all times, in every single arena of my life, I am having a hard time keeping up, or knowing that I’m making the right decisions.  It’s so important to me to start Living Right, to create my own destiny and do it in a healthy, happy, productive, contributing fashion…but that takes so much thought.  Such careful, calculated planning.  Such thoughtful use of time and resources.  I am so much more impulsive than that, by nature…

P leaves so soon.  We are both so busy that we are not able to find the time we are both craving to spend together.  It’s really very difficult to have an unstoppable urge to share (for lack of a better word) with someone, so constantly, and simply not be able to find the time.  Recognizing that, of course!, it’s the right thing to do, at this time, to take a step back and focus on Finishing School.  There’s so much on the line right now, for both of us.  Making the correct, adult decision to take it slow, and not allow ourselves to get consumed when we can hardly spare the time…it’s hard and it feels gross Right This Minute and I want to see her so bad I can hardly stand it…but the timing is wrong.  We will have the Fall and beyond to have adventures, but that seems so far away, it will be cold then, and I want to play in the sunshine in her big backyard and drink the traditional summer drink of her Latin American upbringing and show her how to eat honeysuckle and just get lost in the amazing conversations we have.  No offense to all the really wonderful people that I dearly love who read this blog, but I am realizing, I think, that P is the coolest, most intriguing, interesting, diverse and spirited person that I’ve ever met.  The stories she tells me about her childhood and her home and her dreams inspire me and move me in ways I have never understood before.  

She just called me as I was typing this.  I guess I was thinking about her too loudly.  One of her classmates is getting married soon, and she’s in the wedding, and there have been all these parties and tastings and fittings and she literally doesn’t have a single day that isn’t booked full, before she departs.  Sad face.  My schedule is a bit more lax, and I almost wish it wasn’t.  It’d be easier if I was more distracted.  I take comfort in the small presents she leaves me in my school mailbox, and the hundreds of texts we’ve been sending (I finally got myself a chat account set up on the internets, because neither of us can afford to maintain a habit like we’ve established), and the fact that now, since we’ve been spending time together, she has begun researching ways to stay in the US after she graduates next year.  I don’t want to get my hopes up, or get too attached…there are a lot of complicated variables at play…visas and residency and taxes and all the paperwork that comes along with being here for her…there’s just no telling where this thing is gonna go.  That’s fine, that’s wonderful, really…part of the adventure…but I’m kicking myself constantly for not getting close to her until now.  And I’ve always had such good timing, up til now…

 

Yesterday was good, at least. May 15, 2008

OK.  Now that there are only sixteen days left until I am officially College Educated, now I’m freaking out. Tomorrow, in the second to last scene painting class of my life (unless I decide to go to grad school at Yale…not likely.), I have to take the exam to get into the union.  Mind you, this is a fake union test, so I don’t have to pay the 3K, and I only get four hours, instead of eight, to paint a 4′ x 8′ flat in a highly complicated land/sea/sky landscape, framed with a dimensional wood moulding (mahogany), complete with striped drapery hanging down over the wood moulding.  I’m nervous.  It’s not that I feel like I don’t have the talent to do this, its that any human might want to vomit blood at the thought of painting a mural at a frenzied pace for four solid hours, while an old queen sits behind on a chair with a clip board and the collar of his polo shirt popped, noting every move you make, every stroke you put down.  It’s nerve-wracking. However, this is the last test I have to endure of my entire scenic painting career at this place, and I have been waiting for this day for three years, knowing, for better or for worse, that it signifies a passing.  

I turned in my first final today, that felt good.  First Last Final exam.  Bizarre.  Where did these four years go?  I didn’t learn enough!?!  All of a sudden, I find myself asking questions like, “If someone asked me to create a cityscape in three point perspective, would I know how to calculate the multiple vanishing points?”  The answer is no, and that’s why there are books to tell you things like that, but somehow I wind up feeling guilty that I didn’t retain that equation.  I’m ready.  I’m not ready.  I’m so ready.  What the hell am I gonna do now?  

Grad school? I’d be awesome at restoration!  

Or maybe this job I just applied for is actually a job-in for Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock, coming soon to Broadway.  The time frames do line up…

I think I am having an existential crisis.  Last year, I would have punched myself in the face if I heard that sentence pass my lips.  I think maybe that’s because I didn’t really know what it meant?  Or maybe because I had no frame of reference in my own life, never having waded through existential matters…maybe because I’m just At That Age.  Whatever the case may be, I might be happy, but I am  c r a c k i n g  under the pressure that the two weeks in front of me are about to exert.  This sensation is new to me…complete, abject terror as I think of student loan payments, and shiny, light-hearted optimism at the interesting way my life seems to be shaping up.  Someone (like, oh…say, a shrink) could maybe see that as manic, and I won’t lie…I kinda feel like I’m digging in for traction in the middle of an euphoric cyclone.  Cuckoo.  

Change is good.  But what the hell am I supposed to do with a sudden, nagging need to find the meaning in what I create?  The message is the medium? How can I create a style that’s identifiable and somehow fresh? Shit like that.  Good thoughts, but really?!? brain, right now?!? This can’t wait two weeks?!?  

Side note: the new Gnarls Barkley album, The Odd Couple, is my favorite new jam of 2008.  The album is a bit less aggressive than their last (St. Elsewhere), but also a bit less diverse.  That being said, I have not been able to get the songs out of my head for the last week, solid.  It’s great.  The lyrics are intelligent and sweet, the beats are infectious, and Blind Mary will make you dance…try it and see what happens.  

 

Don’t Be Surprised… May 12, 2008

I have held off on writing a post–a real post–for quite a while now.  All the things I have inside of me that I would normally purge into this bizarre, real but not real world of the blog-o-sphere, I have had to contain for months now, not having had the gumption until recently to right a serious wrong, and not wanting to spill the beans in such an impersonal, public forum.  Of course, I have no idea who reads this, or how often, so it could have all been for nought…I may have bottled things up for months with no real reason to do so.  JJJ never was very technically savvy or tuned in…

So, here’s the official scoop:  I had the most amazing moment of clarity while running lunchtime errands about a week and a half ago.  I could see everything so perfectly clear, all of a sudden.  I was left wondering how I had managed to keep my blinders up for so long, afterwards, driving to the post office, having to turn my car around over and over, as I kept missing my turn.  My mind races constantly, but it doesn’t usually race in such a precise, articulate manner, and I suppose this change of nature is what made me listen so closely.  And here’s what my brain told me, in no uncertain terms.  

1.  Los Angeles is a poor career choice at this precise time. I do believe it is still in the cards for me, some time in the future, but I would be sacrificing a very broad, very functional network that I have been building for five years now, and to move to L.A. would mean I would have to start from scratch.  Not necessarily a deal breaker, but combined with the fact that my brain also told me that…

2. JJJ and I had entered into a toxic cycle of unhealthy, unstable non-relationship relationship.  We weren’t together, but I certainly didn’t feel single, either.  We kept up with each other most every day, and there were expectations and obligations that friends don’t have for one another.  And that was okay for a while.  I guess it made me feel less alone, or maybe I had convinced myself that it would work itself out in time.  Except this one afternoon, driving a stack of graduation announcements to the Big Blue Box, I realized I wasn’t in love with her, not at all, and I hadn’t been for a while.  I wasn’t aware that I could fool myself for so long, let alone draw someone else into the lengthy falsity with me.  I feel terrible for flipping on a dime, but there’s no going back from it, and I broke it off with her.  It didn’t end well.  She hates me.  I doubt we will even be friends, somewhere down the line.  She told me never to contact her again, and I have to respect that.  It’s okay with me, really, because I don’t miss her.  That makes me feel cold inside.  It makes me feel like a liar and a bitch, but I never said an untrue thing to her; I meant everything I ever said, in the moment I spoke it.  I don’t know that that accounts for much, but it’s true nonetheless.  This entire scenario is compounded by the fact that I…

3.  Met someone else.  She’s amazing.  She blows my mind every time we talk.  It’s as though someone has crawled into my brain, and they’re throwing their voice from her mouth.  She’s close to my age, (actually even a year and a half older!!) and I hadn’t realized how lonesome I was for someone that could understand what it feels like to be a woman on the verge…on the verge of a career, on the verge of middle age, on the verge of fucking losing it at this school…the understanding we share is a powerful narcotic, an aphrodisiac.  She makes me laugh, she shares my values and my dreams, she’s so honest it amazes me, and my god is she hot.  It’s as if she was designed with my needs and wants in mind, so perfectly…physically, emotionally, intellectually…it’s all there.  Oh, and she moves out of the state in 18 days.  So. Effing. Typical.  I met her at the end of last summer.  I was attracted to her immediately.  I was trying to be a good girl with a girlfriend.  She gave me her number.  I missed the signals.  I never called.  I was an idiot.  I wasted so much time on a dead-end situation, when there was this amazing thing waiting for me, and all I had to was pick up the phone.  She told me a few days ago that I was a fool to wait so long to call her.  I have to agree, and it only makes me want her that much more that she will actually challenge me and hold me accountable.  I need that.  The really important moral of all this, aside from my ramblings about how much I like her, is that she served an invaluable function as A Point Of Perspective.  I had forgotten that I didn’t need to settle, that JJJ’s 50% good would never balance out the 50% bad, and that there are actually people in the world that contain ALL of the qualities I find so necessary, so attractive in a relationship.  Mind you, P and I are not in a physical relationship (yet)…I had to conclude things with JJJ, and P is more than a little uncomfortable with entering into something that will clearly be the opposite of casual, what with only 18 days left to go.  But that being said, we are definitely engaging in some kind of relationship…we’ve been going on the cutest, most fun dates ever, nearly every day, and we just can’t stop talking to one another, from the time we’re both awake, until one of us finally cuts it off at bedtime.  It’s fulfilling in an entirely different way from anything I’ve ever entered into, and that gives me hope…except for the terrible timing.  Dammit.  Also, English is her second language, and it simply couldn’t be hotter when she speaks to me in Spanish.  I’ve always been a sucker for accents.  I’m just amazed at how quickly I’m falling for her, when we have been taking pains not to get physical…and painful it is, lemme tell ya.  It’s hard not to be as close to her physically as we are emotionally.  It’s torture, actually.  

In summation, I graduate in 18 days (yep, on the same day that P leaves for NYC), I am rapidly falling in love with someone that has the potential to be good for me (finally!), and I’m moving to NYC when my lease is up in August.  I found the job of my dreams at a decorative painting studio as a conservation/restoration technician in Manhattan (I haven’t gotten it yet, but I’m gonna be positive…), I already have a roommate lined up for the move (a 3rd year grad costume design student that I adore) and I’ve never been happier, or felt lighter at heart than I do Right This Second.  

So there’s that.  

38 Days, But Whose Counting? April 22, 2008

Graduation has crept up on me.  I only have four Mondays left to go at this place, and then I’m free, paper in hand, to go out and make good use of the skills they’ve ground, beaten, stamped into me.  I have every confidence that I’m going to have a long, happy, lucrative career, but this Graduation Thing, it just…snuck up when I wasn’t looking closely.  All the studying and the planning and the practice have led to this moment, and perhaps I’m just struggling with how to handle success after years of figuring out how to handle failure.  One is just as scary as the other, I’m quickly realizing.  

Of course, hand in hand with the fear of What I’m Going To Do Next, With Who, And Where, is an overwhelming sense of elation at the accomplishment of managing to survive it all, let alone painting 28 shows in the process, and learning lots of fantastically unique and interesting skills along the way.  I am happy that I made the decision to attend a conservatory, but I’ll be damned if I know how people do it straight out of high school.  The schedule has been so demanding for so long, now that I have some ‘free time’ (since my last college show is up and running!), I don’t actually know what to do with myself.  My homework is getting done and there are hours left in the day to use however I may choose.  Lately, that has meant naps and movies, mostly, and lemme tell ya, nothing could be sweeter.  

Someone asked me today how I was doing and I replied, without thinking, “I’ve never been better”.  All evening, since that encounter, I’ve marveled at the thought that I’ve never used that phrase before, because I’ve never been this happy with the shape my life has taken.  I still have Plenty of Issues, for sure, but I think I must be learning how to cope with them in healthy, mature ways.  Or something.

Or maybe I’ve gone and grown up.  I’m too old to feel like a kid and too young to be comfortable with the phrase Middle Aged.  I still don’t have the hang of this responsibility thing.  Maybe I should go to grad school, and postpone the inevitable three more years.  

In other news, I love my new job.  It’s frickin awesome…exactly the cooking job I’ve always wanted, the people are tres cool, the food is fresh and delicious and organic and unprocessed, just high brow enough to satisfy a gourmet palate but simple enough to delight the timid eater, the schedule is perfect, and there is a true sense of community involved with being a member of the staff.   Conversation overheard, between a waitress and a busboy:

Busboy: Why don’t any normal looking people eat here?

Waitress:  Cuz no normal looking people work here.  

I feel right at home.  And I feel like a baller.  Landing this job was the equivalent to scoring a spot on the line at Tupelo Honey in Asheville; this restaurant is a local treasure, and I feel so thankful that I’m a part of that now.  The steady paychecks don’t hurt, either.  

I hate to say it but I almost feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I’m so happy, things are going so well…the pessimist in me says it won’t hold.  Just so long as it holds for another 38 days, I can handle the rest.  

 

Shakespeare and Omelets April 13, 2008

My last show of my undergraduate education is in tech, which means my job is almost Officially Over.  I am so overjoyed and relieved and excited, I don’t really have words to describe how much lighter I feel now that this task is nearly complete.  I can paint a marble now, that’s for sure.  It was my one real weak spot so far as faux-finishing is concerned, but I have taken care of that, rather neatly, and developed a style of marble treatments that is both unique and effective.  Now I can go earn $150 an hour to make some rich persons bathroom look like marble instead of plaster.  

I got a summer job yesterday.  I will be the omelet chef at the pre-eminent brunch place in town.  My job interview was pretty hilarious; I met with the owner, and her first (and only) question was: “Are you a badass.  Because you have to be a badass to work in this kitchen.”  My response: “Check.”  She liked my answer, apparently, and jumped immediately to the scheduling part of the interview.  The pay is clearly not exceptional, not what I was earning last summer, but I am So Effing Excited that someone has finally given me a job cooking.  This restaurant particularly rocks my world; it’s one of my favorites in town, and their food as well as their decor and atmosphere suit my style and flair perfectly.  I anticipate we will be a good match.  Best part is, I only have to work on Sundays until after graduation/vacations.  I expected her to laugh when I told her I needed the first three weeks of June off, but she just shrugged and said that she could work around that.  At the end of the interview, she told me her daughter (that I had called as a lesbo about a year ago) liked me, and that was good enough for her.  Also, there is a surprising amount of street cred people lend to working at this particular restaurant, and I have a feeling this is a perfect oppurtunity to expand my network to include people that I don’t go to school with.  I’m nervous about starting a new job (it’s been a while…) but I’m really stoked to be working a kitchen, albeit one that serves up low-brow gourmet, just like I’d cook for my friends if I had more money.  

In less than fifty days, I will be at the beach, Very Expensive Piece of Paper in hand, drinking fruity drinks in the sunshine, barely believing that I weigh less than I did when I was a senior in high school, basking in the radiance of hot sun and accomplishment.  I feel like, at this point, I’m just hanging on for the ride.  The emotions are definitely creeping towards the surface, but my sadness for leaving this school and these people and my house and my routine is tinged with the excitement for my new beginning.  Somewhere new and far-away and frightening and gorgeous, and I’ll be a stranger again, and I’ll have to get my game face out of the corner of my closet.  I can’t wait.  I’m terrified but I can’t wait.  

I had fill number 3 on Thursday…this time, the doctor only had to stick me once, but only because I requested we go straight to flouroscopy, so it could be a one shot deal.  I made the mistake of turning my head towards him when he asked me if i was okay (during the procedure) and I saw the needle sticking straight out of my abdomen, standing up of its own volition (the doctor was studying the x-ray with his hands on his hips) just like I was Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, but eight inches lower.  It was gross, and I had to will myself not to throw up for about a minute, but it was over quick, at the very least…and then I lost six pounds by the next day.  It’s blowing my mind, a little.  

Completely unrelated: I found myself driving behind an incredible asshole, who perfectly summed up what I believe to be wrong with the ignorant masses in this, our great country of America.  Picture if you will a 1988 Datsun truck, the paint stripped away to a flat gray, jacked up on tires taller than me.  Behind the wheel, a greasy redneck with a mullet that flapped in the breeze.  On the roof, the Papa Johns light-up pizza sign was almost invisible, it was so far out of the line of my sight.  His license plate told me his truck was heavy, it had earned a Weighted plate.  Can you imagine the nerve of this guy?  A passenger truck so heavy that it required the same plates an 18 wheeler sports?  And he’s driving pizzas!  I know they don’t pay him that much per mile; I’ve delivered pies before.  The icing on the cake, the real piece de resistance, was the one and only bumper sticker attached to the truck.  It was small, maybe 3″x5″, positioned directly above the Weighted tag, below the 7′ tall tail gate.  It read, “If you are close enough to read this sticker, you will be shot.”  And then it was translated into sanskrit.  

I won’t miss the rednecks when I go.