obfuscated girl

just remember, we're coming back for your children

let us now pause and praise the minutiae of an unemployed life.
last night i drank too much red wine (2 glasses) and consequently fell asleep at 9:30. i am so fucking sad. it's great. also i'm still tired despite the fact that i have had lots of sleep.
it is finally beginning to look like spring, it's all sunny and lovely and made me sweat slightly from walking home from the latest mcfi appointment. which makes the fact that i am sleepy even more agitating. today's project involves making a cd that consists entirely of songs that contain hand claps for my sister's birthday. i have challenged her (adopts adam sandler voice: "CHALL-ANGE!") to make one to compete with mine. i, however, have the vast recources of the internet and make no bones about the fact that i'm kind of cheating, ha ha ha. and so i will WIN.
also, i really have to do my dishes.
before i bore any of you further, i implore you to note/follow the new link i have put up, to a typepad/blog deal called smitten, which i have been reading for about a month now and is written by a girl named deb. i really, really like it, and not just because i wish i got as many hits as her (i am getting wistful and greedy and still feel like the unpopular kid at the back of the class who wears jordache jeans instead of guess? and smells funny) or that she talks about sex more than me.
(wicked grin)
happy leap weekend.

soundtrack: modest mouse, "talking shit about a pretty sunset"
(out.)

update

i had the interview. i sent matthew several agitated text messages ten minutes before and five minutes directly after the interview. i was supposed to have recieved a call between four and five this evening if they wished me to come in for a second interview. my phone, apart from my friend texting me to tell me to lick her ass, has remained silent all night.
it was basically like i remembered last time but with more details surfacing as to why i was not a proper fit for the job--the actual job involved a bunch of shadyish marketing packet creating for the brewers, among other companies, and (my interviewer explained) that it was essentially paid management training, and part of it involved running around and trying to sell people who lived in the neighborhood of (example) miller park, these brewer ticket packages. yes. well. anyway. and once i became good enough at this and other aspects of the job, i would be placed in one of their ever-expanding offices as a manager. the woman who interviewed me must have been my age, if not a little older, and that pissed me off. i don't know why.
but oh, walking downtown on water street at 1 in the afternoon...i felt like mary tyler moore. i was going to Make It, After All. i felt like a vampire who had actually forgotten that she likes sunshine. i wanted to be those people, i wanted to put on my sneakers and rush off for a business lunch after i just get this fax done. i feel so far removed from society that it makes me salivate when i see it. in other words take away all the actual aspects of the job and i would have been perfect for it. to extend a metaphor in regards to this interview, though: it's like what happened with my ex boyfriend. we were not right for each other, and in the end i had eventually figured that out, but I WANTED TO BE THE ONE WHO DID THE DUMPING. (she held her head dramatically and announced) i never should have showed up.
and now i am back in the shadows, nursing my wounds and wondering if this is ever going to end. to add to the general This Is A Portrait Of A Sad Sad Girl Indeed, i have purchased a pint of haagen daazs with the intent of consuming it, for dinner, while i bask in the overprivileged glorious teenage glory that is the o.c.
ay, dios mio.
quote of the day, highly relevant and politicized, see also: i wish i'd said it:

'"i just want to say that I don't think the two biggest problems in america are that too many people want to commit their lives to one another 'til death do us part, and steroids and sports. i don't think those are our two biggest problems."
--meryl streep

soundtrack: elliott smith, "needle in the hay"
(out.)

delerium tremens

so i have an interview in about an hour and fifteen minutes. my first one since becoming unemployed. something called the langdon promotional group. and no, i have no good reason as to why i am doing this instead of pacing and rehearsing answers to potential interview questions, so hush. perhaps that's an answer in and of itself...
herein lie the questions: 1. why are they interviewing me if i already met with them, like six months ago? my counselor has been using guerrila tactics getting my resume out, meaning she just faxes.mails my resume everywhere and anywhere. i hav a vague memory of interviewing with them, and expressed my reservations with the woman who called me. the previous time the interview process was completely fucktipated. but she, this woman, claims they're under new management, and i am under the impression that i will be interviewed by one person instead of five boys who look much younger than me in suits at a long table. so that's promising...? 2. say things go well. say they love me to death. and why wouldn't they? but what if i don't want the job? instinct tells me to take the first thing that comes along, be it a grabage disposal worker, topless dancer, etc. because the way i live my days is fucking with my head so badly and i just don't want to live like this anymore. but upon checking my mail today there were two (2) form letters back from two companies who i have a vague idea that i would prefer to work for them. but what if those don't work out? what do i do?
arrrrgh...
i know that only time and slightly better honed instincts that come with time will give me answers to this. but the bottom line is:
i want out.
now.
and i need to go and make myself look all pretty and professional (HA). time's a-wastin.

soundtrack: hot hot heat, "get in or get out."
(out.)

i'm sorry you got nowhere to go

(the therapy session.)

hello--
this weekend pretty much left me convinced that there is Something Really Messed Up In My Head. saturday i didn't do much of anything; so much so that it's not even worth recounting. then saturday evening i got a call from matthew asking if i wanted to go to dinner with about 9 people who had been drywalling his friend's new house all day. i said sure, thinking that a good time would be had, i know these people, i "helped" (if by "help" you mean "sit on the floor and read glamour magazine and then make several trips to true value to provide moral support") last weekend, cool. and/but. we got to dinner and beyond a few initial comments about how i am too short to see the top of matthew's head, reassuring hearty chortle, i clammed up. i literally had nothing to say. while "if you have nothing to say, don't talk" is a good policy under normal circumstances, it doesn't fly very well when you are at a dinner when the fucking point is to interact. i was all too aware of this. i then started freaking out about how bad i was clamming up and how it would look awkward and weird if i suddenly started being jovial after a half hour of silence and staring into space and looking horrifically uncomfortable. and then started freaking out because i didn't want to look like some sort of scary scary freak in front of matthew's friends but felt there was something physically preventing me from even smiling. and then started freaking out because i had already talked to half of these people in different various circumstances and i knew they didn't bite and didn't hate me so what the fuck is my PROBLEM?!?
it went on and on. to the point where i escaped to smoke a couple times (a couple times = bad news when one uses smoking as a crutch) and ended up near tears in the parking lot. and then in tears on the ride home without quite knowing where any of it was coming from. not pretty movie-star-pity-me-please tears either. this was the Demon Sobbing Ugly-fying Crying Monster From Hell. and i was not able to adequately explain it to matthew. the most i could theorize was:
female problems
shyness, magnified and distorted and taken way too effing seriously
tendency to run with a feeling once i know it's there/name it
and matthew, to his credit, was beautiful. i would not have been beautiful to me. i would have kicked my ass. but that still doesn't make anything better. i want to delve into this deeper, i want to get a real reason that's not a theory, and the only way i can do that is probably by getting a goddamn shrink, which i cannot afford. i want something tangible that i can point a finger to so i can vow to Never Do That Again.
can anyone relate to this? anyone at all? or am i the only person in the world who is scared of people?
the rest of the weekend was fine. we are now through season one of the sopranos, and i got to pretend that i have a lifestyle which is patently not my own on sunday by going to bally's and lifting weight things. it made me feel better, even if i can only bench 37.5 pounds.

soundtrack: the strokes, "meet me in the bathroom"

(out.)

keep my name out of your mouth

hmph. no feedback yet. of course there is an exception, so don't you go yelling at me.
as i am, unlike tlc, too proud to beg, i'm not going to solicit comments or repeat the request to tell me how this page should look AGAIN (see the numbered links below) or just tell me how the hell you found this site/what you think of it if it's your first time here or even if it's not and even if i know and/or love you already because i am insanely curious and in need of positive reinforcement, because that would just be silly. i don't need you. really. i don't. i mean, i put the comment function up purely for my health.
ooer, i'm a snot. lookit snotty mcsnotpants over here.
here is a link to a list of rules for audiences of rock.
and i am including it because i honestly don't have that much more to say. i have supersecretspy plans for someone's wee arse tonight (plot plot plot) but i can't really disclose them because i'd have to kill you. i wish that phrase hadn't become such a cliche. i do love it so.
enjoy your respective weekends. i know you're out there.

soundtrack: my bloody valentine, "kiss the eclipse")
(out.)

the finalists

it is 8:39 a.m. and i have been up for an hour after rediscovering my stupendous karaoke vocal talents, my text messaging envy (which is really fun but confusing for the recipient if you're not using your own phone, and especially fun when you're under the influence of the next item) and vodka gimlets last night. four (4) of them. to coin a phrase, i'm hurty. but never has "i want you to want me" been given a more heartfelt treatment. also my worrisome side is worried about the amount my friend drinks and the fact that every story she told last night either started with or ended with "i was so trashed..." this is the friend who, upon catching her exboyfriend who she is still obsessed with in bed with another girl, tried to kill herself with wine and multiple antidepressant pills and ended up in the hospital where she recieved both stomach pumping and charcoal for her stomach....
but that's a completely different story.
something else altogether: the people who do rathergood.com have done a commercial for quizno's. i am amused as all hell that they keep popping up everywhere.
anyway. we will keep this short. i've been browsing blogskins. please vote. please oh please. and/or give me more ideas of where to find skins.
number one

number two

number three

number four

number five

okay thanks bye.

soundtrack: nada surf, let go

(out.)

there's a girl in my yard reading to me tarot cards she don't know anything but she's beautiful to m

i had a dream last night that eriq was a midget who stole some money from a carnie, along with his midget friend whose name i did not retain from the dream, and they were shot and killed for stealing the money even though the events of the dream made it clear that they did not, in fact, steal anything.
strange days.
okay, if i have done this right there is now a comment feature on this blog. this is to serve one purpose, primarily--i would like anyone who reads this to give me an opinion on what skin i should pick for this here page. (and, of course, comment on anything else you feel like. i haven't been called a whiny self-important bitch enough lately.) i am sick of the way it looks again. i am very sick of the butterflies and the general girliness. of course if i have not done the comment setup right i am going to look like some extra-special kind of fool and will once again have to enlist matthew's services because i'm "some kind of super idiot" (TM). if it does work, expect several links to the finalists. depending on the type of reaction i get from my teeming fan base (cough, snort) i may take the comment function down once it has served its purpose.

so that's all for today. no more messy emotional stuff for now. i'm too drained. expect the links next time. and please, someone send me a comment so i can see if i did this right.

random say anything quote: "the rain on my car is a baptism, the new me, ice man, power lloyd, my assault on the world begins now."

thanks to imdb.com. which i know all of you know about already, and once again i am paleolithic in my web-functionness, but i no longer have to look at stupid angelfire pages to accumulate my quote selections.

soundtrack: pilot to gunner, get saved
(out.)

i will stand by all this drinking if it helps me through these days

first of all, i really wish i knew how to put images on here. this will have to do:
go here, please.

the feeling of stupidity and of being lost continues. i was supposed to go to a job fair today at the state fair grounds, so the plan was that i was going to do other things in the morning, take the hour goddamn ride in the afternoon, get there around two, network and smile pretty and hand out my resume, and then hang out with matthew's cat afterwards until he got back from work, beings that the state fair grounds is about eight blocks from his house. i am hanging out with his cat, but i did no networking at all. why? because i am a fucking idiot. i spent about a half hour wandering around the fairgrounds--i wish i had a camera; there are fewer things more desolate than state fair park in winter--looking for some sort of sign or a full parking lot or something indicating "hey! yes! you! job fair over here!" i finally left after i had circled the grounds a few times, realizing that even if i did find a way in i would probably not had enough time to do anything in a professional, unhurried manner seeing that it closed at three.
i've never even been to a job fair before so i have no idea if it was even worth my time. rumor has it that they are largely populated with stuff like roundy's and mcdonald's and things. the point is, i didn't find out either way. and i don't remember why i didn't show up at the last job fair that my counselor told me about, but i didn't. and nothing is changing. and i am supposed to have an active hand in all of this and i feel like i'm letting myself down, never mind anyone else. i don't know what else to do.
i think in my head i am partially afraid. of what, i have no idea. but crying doesn't help anymore. frustration doesn't help. not that it ever did.
in other news, i am finally joining the late twentieth century. i have a cell phone. or will once matthew works out all the glitches, of which apparently there are many. impressed? aren't you? huh? huh?
and i learned two things from an anonymous source with whom i drank delerium tremens last night (it was poetically fitting) (and hush, i got my state refund check, so i can spend money slightly more than once every leap year now, albeit cautiously):
1. mod night is dead, long live mod night. apparently the noble brothers, who spun records at mad planet every thursday, want to start playing "other things." i will never be able to witness the brian gallagher dance again. and neither will you. i am distraught.
2. when bayshore mall has its big hoohah revovation later this year or next year or something, barnes & fuckble is not going to come back. or so goes the rumor. suckers. of course, this means that there is going to be at least one unemployed baby daddy. (...) unless they have some sort of employee relocation program. i have no idea. i am smug anyway.
and yes, i am probably going to hell.
also:
3. a second anonymous source told me that two more people have recently quit, one of whom was a manager. which gives me more & more confidence that what happened in my case really, really wasn't because of me.

really, really.

(soundtrack: interpol, turn on the bright lights)

(out.)

well i think i'm losing my mind this time said i think i'm losing my mind that's right said i think

hello.
today is not going well. i am sitting at matthew's house completely impotent and unable to go home because i think i hope oh god i left my wallet in his car (if it's anyplace else i am in much trouble) and i am waiting for him to bring it back and i feel like a damn housewife. okay. breathe. so i am doing this to expel nervous energy and to try and refrain from playing the What-If game. also, i did not file for this week's unemployment check until this morning. i am supposed to do it on sundays. the only possible badness that could come out of that is i'll just get it a day later, but still. goddamn. where is my mind?
this weekend was good. as a result i am the proud owner of a crime & judy button, amusing memories of boys beating the crap out of ceilings, leftover pasta, and a pair of american eagle outfitters low-rise ho-jeans. i officially publically take this forum to vow that by this time next year my wardrobe will be entirely ho-riffic and resplendent. the rest of the details of what happened on valentine's day are not for you, but suffice it to say that i now officially hold the title of Massive Unabashed Buying Into All The Crap Hypocrite. and i like it.
this is not to say that i can't get into the spirit of dissing it. nor can i possibly resist a singer who titles his songs "fuck it( i don't want you back)" and seems to have created an entire album in the spirit of hating on the bitches. this article, by the way, is by one of my favorite writers. enjoy it.
so basically all is said and done and i don't have any major holidays to consume me for a while. and once i get my fucking wallet back, things will be much much better.
all right, i have to go pace and worry and tear apart a house that does not belong to me some more now.

soundtrack: the accusing voices in my head.
(out.)

enough.

i learned today that our government has nothing better to do than beat a dead horse. they had hearings about nipplegate today wherein this republican senator lady from new mexico accused the fcc of "knowing EXACTLY what you were doing, and...lining your pockets," among other people and other things. here is a link to a lengthier article about what all went down.
fucking hell. the more we let this snowball, the closer we are toeing the line of outright censorship. some of the programming that the networks are reassessing and changing is completely unbelievable. in my mind, this is just confirming how afraid we are of any form of sexuality as a country. and the fact that we're making SUCH a goddamn huge deal out of it is just going to open the floodgates for more and more reactionary, heavily right wing viewpoints to become acceptable. the hearings were primarily aimed at network television, but from what i understand there were also unveiled threats made to cable television as well, something about taking a long look at themselves.

big brother is watching you.

soundtrack: azure ray, "favorite cities"
(out.)

the great remains of a friendship, scarred

today is/was another one of those fairly bleak days where i wandered downtown a lot and dropped off applications and thought about how i used to wish i could stay home/not work during the day because i Missed So Much Of What Goes On in the world. now i realize that very little goes on except people going back and forth from their jobs, and those who don't are unemployed and pathetic like me. the emily visit and concert was fun, but exhausting. don't ask me why, please. and my mother sent along groceries for matthew, a gesture which confused him very much. also sphinx the cat may have leukemia. he sat in matthew's bathtub for 95% of the weekend and did not eat anything and looked at us balefully. and so matthew took him to the vet this morning, and leukemia was one of the scary possibilities (of course i have forgotten all the other possibilities because i am horribly overdramatic). i feel like i could use a good bathtub sit myself.
also, when i got on the bus after handing in job application #43 it was with a group of about 20 eight year old children who apparently had just gone to the museum. one of them sat next to me and asked what my name was, and i got his name, which was diablo or something (i swear to god). he was very cute and small and everything. i go back and forth about kids--i don't know if i want to hate them or join them or save them.
this is the part that disturbs me: as the kids were watching the bus television and yelling out the letters to the word searches and whatnot this commercial came on that strikingly resembled a rap video. i have no idea what it was advertising, but there were cars and guys throwing hand gestures at the camera and girlies dancing around in bikini tops and daisy dukes. and these kids went out of their minds. they wanted to go to the place that was advertised, even though i am reasonably sure an actual place was not being advertised. and this diablo kid was yelling "oooooo! look at that GIRL!" and they were talking about the cars and the "dudes." i'm sitting there thinking, what the fuck? you are eight. are you really objectifying women at this age? i honestly wanted to corner him and his friends and say "look. women like this aren't real. you are going to grow up with horribly distorted perceptions of wealth and relationships and value shallow measures of success and YOU NEED TO STOP LOOKING NOW GO READ A BOOK. FUCKING PLAY KICKBALL. HAVE A CHILDHOOD. JESUS." of course i did not say this because swearing at children is bad. i know that kids today are a lot more aware of these things than i ever was but it doesn't make it right that they're showing this shit on the BUS. nor that they responded so eagerly to it, even though that was the advertisement's point. it made me really, really, inexplicably sad. it was a conscious flash of a thought that existed as well, that i want to go and counteract this somehow.
the problem with me is that i don't know how. nor anything else about what i want to do with my life.
and the valentine's day problem has a solution now. i have a plan. i am plotting. be very afraid

(matthew).

BWA HA HA HA HA.

soundtrack: the shins, "kissing the lipless"

(out.)

you've got a nerve to be asking a favor; you've got a nerve to be calling my number; can't you hear

i have spent $12.07 of my hard-earned unemployment money on the new walkmen cd. but i justify this purchase in the following ways: 1. i neeeeeeeeeeeded it. 2. i did my state income taxes last night and i am getting a lot more than $12.07 back. it remains to be seen what i am getting back from federal; but i have never had to pay anything before and i do not think that's going to change now. 3. wait, let me back up: the walkmen are coming! the walkmen are coming! seriously, they're coming at the beginning of march to mad planet and i, being the serious pretentious asshole that i am, need to begin memorizing lyrics now.
side note: i didn't know where else to fit this in, so i am mentioning it here: apparently this site has been added to some sort of search engine on spirituality. i cannot tell you which one because i deleted the email asking me for permission to add it. after i thought about the possibilities of Power, Recognition and Glory being a search engine result might bring, i thought "what the hell." to the best of my figurings i'm "spiritual" because someone stumbled across the posts where i had links to definitions of gnosticism back when i was obsessed with the matrix reloaded. creepy! there may be hardcore christians praying for my soul right now!
bleeeeeeah.
i am writing this at a standing-only terminal at the downtown library; i had an overwhelming, all-encompassing desire to reread the bell jar and this is the only feasible location that had a copy. or so the computer says; i have not gone into the stacks yet. i hope that my choice of reading material does not reflect my mental state to you, reader, because today i'm feeling pretty good.
there are 5 job leads that my access for independence counselor is hardcore pursuing.
and i beat the emogame version 2.0 last night.
and maritime is playing tomorrow and my sister is making another milwaukee appearance.
and i have enough cash to buy my awakened-at-7-by-yippy-dogs ass more coffee.
things are swell.

soundtrack: the walkmen, bows & arrows
(out.)

i'm not one for handouts, no they can make our shoes

death cab for cutie is coming! death cab for cutie is coming! ohmigod!
now that i am done impersonating a thirteen year old, i can continue with my day. which i think is going to involve passing the hell out somewhere. i would like to say that i had a long dark night of the soul, but alas--it involved reading sarah vowell until 10:30 whilst angelique was over at my apartment writing a resume and then having the movie festival and then watching, of all things, "blind date" until 2 because i couldn't sleep. incidentally, sarah vowell is now one of my favorite writers by sheer merit of the fact that she titled one of her essays "tom cruise makes me nervous."
all the coffee in the world could not help me right now. couple those facts with the waking up at 7:40 and not being able to go back to sleep, and THEN add the fact that i just finished watching y tu mama tambien and i am now torn between wanting to go back to sleep and wanting to go to certain peoples' places of employment and forcing them into a back corner and demanding that they tear my clothes off RIGHT NOW (it was that kind of movie) and basically, in the words of the rolling stones, you can't always get what you want. and i cannot instantly gratify either of these. especially the sleeping part. yes. sleeping. mmm-hmmm.
heh.
i would claim some sort of embarrassment and/or delete that entire last paragraph, but one of my new years' resolutions was to be more like anais nin. okay, i'm totally lying, but i hate the fact that i'm still halfway conditioned to be ashamed of or defensive about the fact that i have desires and often, quite often, act on them and am therefore human. so fuck all y'all. (see what i mean about the defensive?)
and besides: y tu mama tambien is a really beautiful film. and it wouldn't have been the same without the threesome.
and besides that: i could be one of those people who crosses over from being sexy to just plain ridiculous in my writings, like this here. i have three coherent thoughts about the content of this blog:
1. ew.
2. you are the most pretentious people alive and for the sake of the future i hope you never breed.
3. ew.
now with that thought, i'm a continue on with my day. we'll see which goals/immediate/ongoing desires get fulfilled. woot. (w00t?)
and from now on, if i allude to, you know, icky things that are done in dark closets or with implements or props or make your palms hairy or make you go blind or make you see stars or make you go to hell, no more apologies or self deprecation. i'm tired of it.

soundtrack: desapareceidos, "survival of the fittest"

(out.)

525,600 minutes

all right, so there is something very, very wrong with me. i found myself choking back sobs when listening to the soundtrack to rent on the bus this morning. like, what do i have to cry about? no one i know is dying. the whole premise of rent is all with the guy having aids and has a year to live and existentialism and "no day but today" and yadda yadda yadda. perhaps i just have amazing powers of empathy and therefore rule. um.
in an attempt to cheer myself up i am listening to the clueless soundtrack. but dammit, it's that counting crows psychedelic furs cover which has also been known to make me cry. some of the most beautiful lyrics ever uttered in song: "the race is on, i'm on your side, hearing you my engines die/i'm in the mood for you, or for running away." jesus. those weepy british people.
all right, song's done. i'm all better.
so it seems that everyone is talking about janet jackson and justin timberlake and her breast and the superbowl and the whatnot. my question is: who the fuck cares? i do not really hold miss janet in the category that i do michael, meaning that i don't necessarily think her back catalogue is fantastic, even though i had rhythm nation back in the day. no good music= no reason for me to care about her sorry i'm-38-and-my-career-is-gone-but-you-can't-tell-can-you? stunt. and as much as i adore mr. timberlake, he's about 15 minutes away from becoming a behind the music his damn self. i would like to know, though, where you get the doohickey that covered her nipple. that was badass.
so this weekend was good, if a bit anticlimactic: emily did not see the friend who she was supposed to meet and who had been telling her since the beginning of january "the 31st! the 31st!" and so we tried to amuse her for a night. half of my friends did not show up, you bastards. we also saw a real live piano bar, which was crowded and third-wardy and upon our entering the piano man was playing, um, "piano man." that did not bode well. (i like to keep my drinking cliche-free.) so we left. sunday was spent sledding and narrowly avoiding fences and small children, and then watching films. on the roster was "bad boys 2" and "go," which includes one of my favorite dialogue exchanges ever:
random white boy: "my mother's mother was black."
taye diggs: "my mother's mother's mother's mother....n***a, this ain't roots!"

i can't explain why i find that so hilarious; i just do.
and now it is back to the week. and monday. and routines and situps and trying to figure out where the money for my next phone bill/cup of coffee/heroin fix will come from. and to occupy time tonight i have rented all three of the films that i suggested yesterday and someone pitched a fit about. pbbbth. they are as follows:
"raising victor vargas"
"spellbound"
"y tu mama tambien."
i only namecheck them to illustrate to you, the reader, what stellar, exemplary taste in films i have.
and that's all the news that's fit to print. still no job/lottery winnings/anonymous donor of rufus wainwright tickets.

soundtrack: clueless (still)

(out.)