obfuscated girl

if you having girl problems i feel bad for you son, i got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one

This week I am at home "doing work" while my "boss" is on a "photo shoot." The shoot is somewhere in the city limits so at least I can call her if I get finished with this project in the next 48 hours, which I suspect will happen. Hell, I may get more hours than I normally do when I go in. My finances are calculated at being sufficiently sort of afloat-ish so this Stiff Upper Lip mode is still intact, reasonably.
To summarize this weekend:
Liz Phair played "Fuck and Run" at Summerfest whilst wearing a Britney-esque headset microphone thing, which made me sad
The Darkness theorized onstage that the FCC stood for "Fucking Cunt Cunters," which made my sister and I giggle for about 20 minutes
I ate more Krispy Kremes than should be allowed, which made me...feel bloated?
I heard people say "YEAH! WH-AT?" and "OKAAAAAY!" every fifteen feet. Just so you people know, I am planning to forcibly outlaw everyone who is not Dave Chappelle or Lil John from saying that when I become Queen/President. There is also the possibility that John and Chappelle are not safe. (Also, when I become Queen/President no one is allowed to call anyone else "Boo." but that's digressing. And a post for another time.)
For any of you who may have been laughing at my late jumping on the Sopranos bandwagon and/or my touting of the Gossip Girl series as a legitimate book form, you may now mock me for coming late into a Sex and the City addiction. I blame the library. It's free and stuff. Plus I never realized each episode only lasts a half hour which means
my Time Spent Being Addicted will be cut in half, roughly, or thereabouts. I hate it when I get all snotty about something because everyone likes it and then it turns out to be really good.
and I was going to include more than this but exhaustion is slowly turning my brain to purple mush and I had vague plans to Get Up Early and Be Motivated About Stuff tomorrow.
If you followed this link from the old blogspot address, please let me know what you think about the new digs and feel free to offer any suggestions for future upgrades/ exorcisms.

and now, a ninja.

teh winnar!

is http://www.obfuscatedgirl.com, and if you find the domain name incredibly pretentious and please-love-me-I-am-sad-and-I-also-know-a-big-word that is too bad, because NO ONE PLAYED ALONG AND GAVE ME ANY SUGGESTIONS AT ALL YOU BITCHES (I am slightly ashamed that I'm back to whoring myself/begging/cursing for comments). There is very little set up at that address as of yet, but with the help of Boy I am someday soon going to be gradually moving my archives over to the new domain name and making it all pretty and adding all sorts of crap. Yes sir.
Today I had the day off from my Incredibly!Taxing!Job and therefore did very little. Mailed off the 30 Seconds To Mars cd, where the woman at the post office laughed at me because I clearly had no idea how to insure a package. Had an appointment with job people, aka The People Who Got Me This Stupid Job In The First Place (TPWGMTSJITFP), who were suitably appalled when I disclosed how I spent my Tuesday at work: cleaning makeup. Oh yes. My boss is going on a photo shoot next week and therefore I spent two hours emptying two gigundor duffel bags full of Ziploc bags of makeup and wiping down each individual piece, along with sharpening all the dull eye and lip pencils. Also: She wasn't there all day, so I couldn't ask her whether or not this was really part of my job description. Also also: I cut my thumb on a pencil sharpener. Worker's comp! The reason that I am not boilingly angry about this anymore is because I continue to get calls from temp agencies; got one again today, and something will eventually happen with one of those if nothing else, right? It has to, right?
It has to.
There is so much of my self-worth tied up in whether or not I am working. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who's ever gone on a drinking binge because I hate my job; however, I am also sure that I am the only person who has allowed that reason that things are wrong to spiral into Everything Is The Reason and end up crying drunkenly in a bathroom about how ugly I am (you will note that this has nothing to do with working). Part of me is shocked that Boy puts up with any of it.
I also have a new obsession that I am slightly worried about: guacamole-flavored Doritos. They don't...quite...taste like guacamole, yet I keep eating them as if I can find out what exactly they do taste like. I tend to justify junk-food binges by treating them as if they were meals. I also have in the past claimed that Doritos are, like, a totally healthy junk food because they're low calorie ish and lower fat than other chips. Also, the fifth ingredient per the bag is MSG. Sweet.
So what did we learn from today/resolve for the future?
1. If I find out tomorrow that I do not get this temp job, either, I will not cry.
2. I should go to the gym more often than I do. Because I'm totally fat.
3. I was kidding about #2.
4. I should also be thankful for every second that I am not cleansing other people's makeup collections and -ghaa--touching their stray hairs. I should also thank the people who make my non-makeup-cleansing time bearable more often.

listening to: Bright Eyes, "You Will..."

//end//

DOING IT A LOT IS OKAY

Grrrr.
No, seriously, grrrr.
These are my complaints with today: 1. it is raining and while NPR must have told me that it would rain about fifty times this morning before I left, I did not take my umbrella with me and now I smell and resemble a wet dog. Happy Summer Freaking Solstice. 2. My financial situation tells me that I can only go to Summerfest once this week, as entrance tickets are FREAKING TWELVE DOLLARS, but my sister has been yapping about going two nights and I suspect there is going to be a fight. I hate arguing with her and have a feeling that I'm just going to back down. Because I always do. Also, my boss asked me if I was planning to see anything and I told her that my sister wants to go on Thursday but I was trying to talk her out of it because I wouldn't do very well on 5 hours of sleep (the Darkness plays at 11:00 on Thursday) and my boss was like "oh, do you want to come in later Friday morning?" which would have been nice if she didn't mutter something thirty seconds later about maybe I wouldn't have to come in at all. Which brings me to 3. I worked for TWO AND A HALF HOURS TODAY. I already asked her to please give me things to increase my hours and while that seemed to work for like two days, this is getting worse. The temp place is still looking for me, and nothing is ever permanent and things will get better and at-least-I-have-a-job &c., but damn, it sucks right now. 4. A very good friend of mine who is in roughly the same financial situation as me has bid on something I'm selling on eBay to pay bills, which makes me feel horribly, horribly guilty even though she says it's because her friend would really like it. Agh. 5. I just spent $11 to clear my library fine, even though I really can't afford to do it, because my copy of Annie Hall has come in, and it's rainy and all I want to do is curl up in my bed and read library books. Even though I should be pavement-pounding. I don't have it in me today.
And the weekend? The first half/third/whatever was a drunken, embarassing mess, and I am shocked I made it through without smoking. What I Learned, though, was consciously deciding to get really drunk--one sidecar, two girly martinis and two shots drunk, and I am a rather small Piglet--so I don't have to think about anything is categorically, emphatically NOT a good idea.
I have been thinking idly-but-half-seriously about adding a PayPal donation link to this thing, a la Smitten and whoever that chick was who paid off her credit card debt by begging via website. Is that too whorish? Discuss. I also plan to auction off a lot more crap on eBay, therefore having now almost completely joined the 21st century. If you have a strange perverse desire to see what crap it is I own exactly, keep watching.

Listening to: Nothing. I'm in the library.
Had in my head for half the damn weekend because of the damn Great America commercial: The Vengaboys, whatever that song is

end.

Edit/belated postscript: the eBay auction is roughly three hours away from closing and my friend is still the highest bidder. It's not that I don't want her to win, but someone out there, please, you've got to like Jared Leto's godawful band (I listened to it today to make absolute sure it was in good playing condition, and whilst the condition is good, the music is, in fact, awful. Wait, this isn't the best way to be selling things, is it?).

MAMACITA, PAPADANA

So I have been convinced to keep writing this (I'm sure you're all exhaling with relief). For the record, The Girl was at the show and I have come to justify people's tendencies to namedrop (incl., esp.: mine) and list their entire record collections on the internet thusly: The whole world is about searching for connections with people who are similar, about fighting loneliness. While it does morph into hipster death matches, hipsters need love too. Or, alternate theory, it's just another way of getting people to want to sleep with you, consciously or subconsciously. It's just like why people become musicians, except not. It is the way people are and always will be. I am now writing this sentence just because I want to see a sentence with the phrases "Marvin Gaye" and "seven inch" in it. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.
...ahem.
I have almost completely worked through both of those sources of angst, and am now only being kept awake at night crying because I CAN'T EVEN GET A GODDAMN TEMP JOB IN A GODDAMN CALL CENTER (more on this in a second). As far as The Girl herself goes, seeing her bitched out on a message board that she posts to (I know, I know, net-stalking is so completely sad, but at least I didn't leave anonymous hateful missives on said website or email her hateful missives or viruses, which I had...emphatically not EVER considered, not at any point) was enough to make me realize her true purpose in my life: Interweb soap-opera esque fodder. Like watching The O.C. and hating Marissa so much that you secretly hope she drinks so much that her liver fails before the start of next season, but at the same time you couldn't imagine hating anyone as much as you hate her so you don't want her to leave. The Girl, like Marissa, is a welcome target of misdirected rage.
The end. No more Girl stories. At least not until the Ted Leo show, which I know she will be at because of a) my luck and b) IT'S ON HER WEBSITE, DUH.
The Zen thing is working very well. Why on earth do you ask?
So yes, I literally was crying last night over this lack of temp job. It is not so much that I wanted the job, but i really wanted to get a paycheck for a two week period that was more than what I used to make at Barnes & Motherfuckingble in a week. (I got paid--"paid"--today.) I feel like I have been blackballed from the Milwaukee job market. Or, exponential melodrama, THE ENTIRE JOB MARKET EVERYWHERE EVER (sniff)(snerk)(wail)(honk). The statistics about how long it takes to get back into the job market proper after losing one's job are alarming, but I always thought that I wouldn't become one, like having a degree would help me Rise Above, Praise The Lawd.
Please.

Expect very big changes coming soon around here. I have swung from one extreme to the other and now plan to take this journal off blogger completely and have my very own website (which will make me Matthew's bitch even more because I imagine he's going to end up doing 75% of the technical stuff, although I intend to be a Dutiful Student of Neat Internet Trick Thingies). I am taking ideas for a domain name. Seriously. I will consider everything and anything, and I will not ignore suggestions similar to
youthinkyourehotbutyouknowwhatyourenot.com
dieevilhipsterdie.com
chroniclesoftheunderempolyedwhowontshutuporsnapoutofit.com
jonstewartsbitch.com
etc.

go go go.

Tonight I am going to a Brewers game (shut it), and then afterwards to the Safe House, where my mission, should the Safe House choose to accept it, is to consume a Sidecar (or five), just like last time I was somewhere fancy.

Coming next week: The Summerfest Diaries !!............!

(and the sheer volume and scope of the linky happiness that's here should be an indication that i am feeling strangely somewhat better.)
now playing: Pavement, Wowee Zowee

end

ps. the Doughty show was fantastic. This is but one of the reasons why:
"And as I fell asleep by the blue light of Pimp My Ride/I heard Xibit say to me/Point your browser to: http://www.j_a_n_i_n_e.org."

We can wipe you out anytime.

Here's the deal. I am completely lost.
I have been spending a lot of time on the internet these past few weeks. This has led to several allergic reactions (I have discovered that I'm allergic to self-pity, which as you can imagine, makes it really hard to be me), one revelation (guess what--none of you lowercase-happy people are e.e. cummings! You never will be! Ever! And neither will I!) and the continued lack of answer to the question of whether I want to continue with this thing.
If you are not what you own, how is it that it seems like everywhere I look bloggers and typepaders and nightlifedotnetters are hollering about their record collections and their continued attempts at veganism, and their love for Audrey Tatou? Does that make you better than me? Will listing all my favorite bands really make you like me better? Does the fact that I cleverly titled this entry with a song lyric make me a hypocrite?
I realized that I had a problem when I started stalking my archnemesis through the internet. Way back in the day, the Princess and I were at a Faint show (there I go namedropping again) and she almost got into a fight with this girl, whom we will call The Girl, because of some snotty remarks The Girl made about the Princess's cell phone, all of us being very close to the stage. Deeply relevant things to start fisticuffs over. Fisticuffs were averted (I don't remember how) and all of us went back to our lives, until the Princess and I started noticing The Girl at more and more shows.
Now, I see a lot of the same people at shows. The east side/Riverwest area is not as big as I once thought it was. But never have I seen people who consistently stand at the front and openly weep, or wear the same goddamn hat to every show, or boast on the internet (I didn't learn this until later) about their thirteen band-related tattoos, at least one of which was related to the Insane Clown Posse. OMGWTF. The Princess, being the gossip-savvy rockstar that she is, uncovered dirt about The Girl, and we quickly learned (or assumed) that she was the exact type of girl music fan that we hate, i.e. Girls Who Sleep With Rockstars (GWSWRS). It escalated, and her presence at shows became more intolerable ("OMG why is she going backstage which one of them is getting head now OMG LOOK she's crying again and WIPING HER EYES WITH HER ELBOWS SO EVERYONE KNOWS THAT SHE'S CRYING STOP IT STOP IT RIGHT NOW SHUT UP.") My designated show friends came to hate her almost as much as I did. Keep in mind that I never spoke a word to this girl in my life. i merely hated her with the type of hate that is only specific to girls, that is tinged with jealousy and flavored with completely uptight intolerance. I began laughingly referring to her as my archnemesis. (Who the fuck gets "Miss Misery" tattooed on the back of their goddamn neck? Who sits at the front of the stage crying with their head down for 20 minutes after the Clem Snide set is over?)
And then I discovered her Net-presence.
I found that she posts to the message board of a pretty big record label. Over the course of a month or so I started watching for her posts, and then I went so far as to Google her. I found her website. I read it. I read each of her message board posts. I seethed.
This is the thing: I don't know why. Yes, I found her presence at shows a bit difficult to take. But there was obviously something about her that rattled me. Part of it is because I don't see how any self-respecting music fan, or especially female music fan, can listen to the Insane Clown Posse. It was that whole you-can't-have-it-it's-MINE music greed. Part of it is because I also fail to see the point of getting a tattoo of a label's logo. A lot of it is her writing style--the kind where you call yourself ugly specifically so someone will contradict/console you, bait-and-switch, and pretentious as all hell in other parts. But what does ANY of that have to do with me? It's not fun, carting around so much hate for a person I've never spoken to and most likely never will. That is, it may be fun at the time, but afterwards it makes me sincerely question the kind of person I am.
So I have decided that I'm going to stop. I don't know what it will take to stop, exactly. Perhaps I will ask for Zen enlightenment for my birthday. I mean, maybe she's deserving of everyone's hate--maybe she secretly skins helpless baby bunnies or fucks bouncers to get backstage to fuck the singer. Maybe not. The point is I WILL PROBABLY NEVER KNOW. It's getting ugly, this obsessed-ness, and it's no good for me. That much I know.
(P.S. I am fretting over The Girl because I am reasonably positive that I am going to see her at the Mike Doughty show I am attending tonight, and unless I can talk myself down from the state I have frothed myself into by writing this--froth froth froth--there may very well be fisticuffs.
This brings me to the continued question of writing in here. It's so hard to try and consciously be an individual when there's this sea of voices that you're wading through. Maybe fretting about how I'm not an individual makes me pretentious or exactly the same as everyone else. I'm sick of being trendy. I'm sick of trucker hats and listmaking and namedropping and the Skirt and irony and schadenfreude and being secretly envious of other people's lives. And maybe it's because there's too much goddamn information. Maybe I need a break from it.*

*It is up to you to discern whether or not I am baiting you here

I don't know.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm just sick of me.

gutless

sorry for the lack of action this week. i don't really have all that much to say. i have been hiding out and watching more anime. (Biggest. Dork. Ever.)and alternately hating my job and feeling guilty for hating it. and getting used to the new sleeping schedule, still. restless. not sure why. tired. a lot.
i am also having my periodic self-doubt of why i keep a blog and whether or not anyone actually gives a shit (if a tree falls, etc.) and am i that self-important that i have to minutely record and orate about what i am eating and listening to and isn't-it-just-contributing-to-the-navel-gazing-disease-that-shall-one-day-consume-us-all.
i will say this, though, about the death of ronald reagan: npr, i hardly knew ye.
i shall return when something actually happens.
maybe.
(drama drama drama.)
end

what you don't have you don't need it now

here is a list of things that made me happy today, the first four of which are food related, because i just ate, having not consumed breakfast (or showered) this morning and had one of those how-the-hell-did-i-manage-to-get-out-the-door-in-ten-minutes mornings:

1. my cold is now in the stage where i can taste things.
2. peanut butter. peanut butter always makes me happy.
3. eating sunflower seeds out of a coffee mug.
4. eating a tomato like an apple.
5. i am going to get more hours at my job, which, while terrible, was kind of pleasant today (this does not mean that i am not going to snap up the next thing that comes along, though).
6. my sister called to inform me that she has the modest mouse ticket which will be my birthday present, which means that i can talk about how great this show is going to be. the walkmen and broken social scene are opening up for them. i will be able to die after having seen this show. wait, no, i can't die yet, i haven't touched justin timberlake.
7. [nelson] HAha! [/nelson]
8. it's sunny and springy without a trace of humidity.
9. this quote
"In 1981 I lost my virginity, only to gain it back again on appeal in 1983. You could say that my one saving grace was academics where I excelled, but I did not. And yet now I live in the rarified air of celebrity, of mega stardom. My life a series of Hollywood orgies and Kabala center brunches with the cast of Friends. At least that’s what my handlers tell me. I’m actually too valuable to live my own life and spend most of my days in a vegetable crisper to remain fake news anchor fresh."
10. from this speech
11. given by this man:

.

matthew, it's okay if i marry him, right? platonically? i swear, it'll be purely platonic.
12. speaking of the Boy, it will be a year as of tomorrow, not that i want to make too huge a deal out of it, because i did last time, but goddamn, this is the longest either of us has ever been in a relationship. and i repeat, and you can interpret this any way you like: godDAMN.
13. and we are going to IKEA tomorrow. and that makes me happy. and completely predictable.
14. number 2 in the summer oprah is scary whatever i forgot what i called it last time book club: the sleeping father. that is still making me happy even though i finished it yesterday.
15. thinking about how yesterday the princess stopped over unannounced after i'd spend the entire day in bed and unwashed and she went and got me some excellent strong tea after she saw how sick i was. aw.
16. this kid's Sexed-Up Dance Party, which i have been informed that i am attending tonight. i am not so sure how well gimps with colds do at Sexed-Up Dance Parties, but we'll see. i can always threaten to overdose on dayquil if someone tries to make me dance to lil' jon.
that's a lot of happy things.
go ahead and contribute your own lists. please.
and happy weekend, y'all.

soundtrack: and you will know us by the trail of dead, "how near, how far"

(end.)