Tag Archives: existential crisis

It’s Thursday

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I thought it was Wednesday, I had to check! Being a woman of leisure is not all it’s cracked up to be. First, I haven’t encountered any actual leisure yet. Instead, I’m mired somewhere else entirely. Oh right, Dracut, Massachusetts. I keep telling myself it would be better if a) I weren’t working on a million piddly, stressful freelance jobs, and b) I weren’t living out of suitcases (more like off piles on the floor), and c) I weren’t still secreting ghee in my lungs. Also, since I “work at home,” everyone assumes I am doing nothing all day. So I scrabble around and prepare dinner for four, like a proper hausfrau. My revenge? Lots of roughage. My poor victims run from the table, groaning, filled to the gills with brown rice and broccoli.

Also, I now know that I definitely couldn’t stay home with a baby, although I suppose a baby would be more interactive than the cat. Even the cat is depressed; she deposits herself in the chair closest to the radiator and lolls there all day, not moving a muscle, not even for mousie.

So my question is: at what point do I give up and take off for the Mexican Riviera? Do advise.

-xxoo

Put on a little makeup, makeup, make sure they get your good side, good side

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Brain sandwiches still on some menus, via Salon.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

As you can see from the image above (not the sandwich, the other one!), I have Inner Beauty, oh yes I do. But I’ve also been having a wicked case of the Mondays, and I realized last night that this is directly correlated to how long I’ve been neglecting to apply makeup! Sure, there were other traumatic events, like a half-assed moving/living situation, illness, and job loss. But honestly, it all comes down to the upward curl of my lashes, the highlight on my brow bone. I was a fool to think I had no one to impress, because in doing so I’ve failed to impress myself.

So let this serve as a warning: spackle ye cheekbones while ye may. Go get a haircut, and a real job, lest you find yourself planted on the couch wearing sweats for the next 8 months, drooling as Dr. Phil chastises you for eating the Kraft Dinner cheese packets right out of the box.

-xxoo

I’m OK, you’re OK

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A flash of peripheral motion caught my eye out the window, and I looked up to see a red-tailed hawk on the ground, bending and bobbing over something. Then it swooped off, clutching the limp dangling body of a squirrel. Stupid squirrel, of course you’re going to show up against white snow. Duh. My mother used to dress my sister and I in bright colors, to avoid hunters, she said, but maybe she was trying to attract hawks.

I owe this nature hour to the backyard of Mr. H’s parents’ house, where we’re still bunking. The evil building management people say our new place will be open for business on February 1, and that the holdup is the state elevator inspection people. I wonder if they have heard the phrase “cross my palm with silver.” It seems to be indicated. I have also heard of a person called a “permit expediter.” Apparently they hand out $100 bills all day at City Hall. Maybe this doesn’t work with a state agency, although I don’t see why it wouldn’t.

Some alert and concerned readers have asked if Lambchop and I are both stark, raving mad. I would have to say we’ve both seen better days, but in many ways no more so than usual. She handles the mania, and I am in charge of ennui. You see, we are a team! We both might fancy a trip to someplace warm, involving umbrella drinks!

-xxoo

Apathy Level: Bartleby

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Since my lifeforce got sapped by showing up every day to a dying husk of an office to do nothing, I’ve been a bit weary. Yesterday I had a pitched 30 minute battle with myself re: whether or not I should get up to use the bathroom.

I had to get a second opinion. The person I tapped felt that I *should* definitely get up and go. He or she was scandalized to envision any sort of elimination outside of tiled surroundings. Still, I wasn’t convinced.

I started to wonder “If I sit here long enough, will I just go ahead and go, or will my bladder explode? Does toilet-training override basic biological need?” Sometimes when I’m walking down the street, maybe to go to the subway, I also think about what would happen if I just stopped moving. I’d never get home. I might eventually freeze on the street, like some sort of mythological unfortunate. What does it feel like when you just can’t push yourself any farther? How do you know when you’re licked?

Epilogue: Did I go to the bathroom? I’m not saying. Just don’t check the plants in the corner.

-xxoo

Big Science

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I broke the blog. Sorry! We are back now. In other news, I haven’t tweezed my eyebrows in two weeks on accounta being sick. I glimpsed myself in the bathroom mirror, and it was like staring at a Yeti. I have managed to totally discipline one brow, but the other is like some sort of bizarre control group.

other ephemera:

Now I am a Commuter, on the Commuter Rail. So you’ll pardon me when I cut out early, saying, “I have to catch my train.”

I am listening to Laurie Anderson again. Aw, just like high school.

My bachelorette party is finally scheduled for January 30th thanks to my friend Melissa. Yes, I did get married 4 or 5 months ago, but who had time then? See me for details if you want to go, there will be flaming drinks and flaming men.

The true holiday miracle

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No, not oil in a lamp or loaves and fishes or the great pumpkin. I lost four pounds since Thanksgiving. My pants fit again.

Thanks, lack of interest in things I previously enjoyed. Including snacks and booze. And I suppose some credit goes to trudging to work in the snow instead of driving, because we can’t give up our precious parking spot to actually use the car. Oh no. Someone might plunk a busted-up chiffarobe in the space, and if we move it when we come back, we’ll lose our windshield to a brick. It’s Somerville, not some medieval fiefdom. But you wouldn’t know it from all the lawn chairs. And the best part? The snow is pretty much gone. The douche bags down the street who never use their garage and driveway will be claiming street space until motherloving April.

I was going to make a holiday card, but maybe not.

-xxoo

Oh, and another thing about that commute…

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I queued up for the train as always, healing like a concession of defeat. The colder it gets, physician the larger and more desperate this mob becomes. This morning I was part of a faceless torrent of blighted souls, like a yuppie death march toward Dunkin Donuts, hunched over and lurching forward. I dropped a glove and thought I might be trampled if I bent to retrieve it.

While release from the train may be ecstasy, we are swallowed instantly by the cavern.

This is what I feel like:

OOH, congratulations to Licketysplit for achieving, uhhh, something.

-xo

Panic in the streets

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Today is all about dread. Fear of the blinky red dot on my mail icon. Fear of the blinky red light on the phone. Fear of the clucking chicken ring on my cellphone, which means messages waiting. I guess it’s my own damn fault for picking that ring, I should switch back to the Bewitched theme.

I am short of breath, and my ears are humming. Now more than ever, I need a personal whitelist of who is actually allowed to address me! I don’t want to field a question from the assorted ding dongs that need to get all up in my existence today. The clueless freelance client who can’t remember where they bought their domain but still needs it pointed somewhere else. The real estate monster, calling to say “We-ell, you can still move in on the first, but you may not have a working elevator…” Verizon, saying “Oh, you would like a phone in your new place? How NOVEL.”

I also don’t want to give advice to people with poor life skills who won’t take it anyway.   Oh, you have baby daddy trouble? That’s too bad. You gained weight? Ha. I am getting a sore throat.

Did this entry stress you out too? I’m sorry. Really, I am. You shouldn’t have to suffer too. Why do we always hurt the ones we love? Let’s talk about a far more soothing topic: my hair. Oh, deep breath. I am soaking in it. I am getting a cut today, which always makes me feel like a squillion bucks. Yes, I know I just got it cut a month ago. But I am like a nappy little Shetland pony. If I don’t go today, when will I go over the next few hellish weeks? The terrorists will have won, and my layers will be shot to shit. Please do not bring up my grown out highlights. I will buy you a gingerbread latte if you just look the other way.

-xxoo

The river is too deep to ford

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In the midst of some spectacular life upheaval and alternating bouts of work-related wrath and ennui, I’ve decided to regress. Well, first I tried making a chicken pot pie with a dill buttermilk biscuit crust. It turned out to be utterly sublime, and we ate it for 3 days. But now it’s gone, and I am cold and alone, and my pants don’t fit quite right.

Anyhoo, to the time machine. In 7th grade, I had a sorry excuse for a computer class where we were all forced to type for five or ten minutes. Once we all mastered the cut n’ paste commands, there was nothing else to learn in the computing universe of 1989, so we’d play Oregon Trail.

One day there was a mass suicide on the trail, so copies of Where in the World/Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego were trotted out. The person who solved the most cases in the period won a soda. Sometimes it was a Coke, sometimes it was a Dr. Pepper. I won every single time by virtue of having a basic grasp on history and geography and realizing when I’d already played a case. It was fun the first few times, and then I started giving away the soda to the dumber kids because I felt bad. I’d even screw up on purpose and drag things out intentionally, but what could I do, they were a bunch of baboons.

Oh, and that Chicken Pot Pie recipe is from the Bon Appetit Best Recipes of 2001 cookbook. And I’ll let you in on a secret, I don’t boil a whole chicken, just 4 boneless, skinless breasts. Much easier. Also: when they say “flour your work surface” for biscuit time, they so aren’t kidding. I also served it with a riesling, your mileage may vary.

-xxoo