obfuscated girl

sometimes in the morning i am petrified and can't move

The eating thing:

to spatter the slops
and foul the manger,

to snap at the hand
that tries to feed it, so

we leave it and we lie
in darkness, trying not to know,

not to hear it gnawing
in the next room, gnawing

itself to the bone.
(Philip Gross, from The Wasting Game)

I spent the bus ride to work this morning crying. It seems that I can no longer button two pairs of my pants, two pairs that I don't wear very much and have no real attachment to, but still. I knew it was coming, I swore up and down I wouldn't be affected by it, and yet my first post-crying impulse was to smoke an entire pack because I knew that my metabolism must have slowed since I quit. PS. I didn't. Instead I called a friend and whimpered, and then went to the gym. You would think that I would be pleased that I was able to wrestle that reaction out of myself, but noooo. It mystifies me why I am still so self-critical, and it makes me furious when I think that this is something I may end up shouldering for the rest of my life.
There are other places I could try and lay blame. I could blame the boy for having the approximate metabolism of a hummingbird with attention deficit disorder and therefore subjecting me to entire half-pizzas on weekends, for actually letting me eat those peanut butter M & M's, for the constant supply (the Reserve) of Coca-Cola, indeed for not speaking to me for like 45 minutes when I tried low-carb Coke out of curiosity, for the extra-butter microwave popcorn he keeps for when we watch movies, for mocking me when I order omelettes with just egg whites at diners. I could blame myself for the black-coffee breakfasts I have five out of seven days of the week, for the pint of Ben & Jerry's frozen yogurt I called dinner last night (we won't mention the fact that I was watching Steel Magnolias whilst consuming said dinner), for the multiple servings of rice salad I ate during the last Anime With Amy Day sometime last month, for my complete lack of ability to keep groceries sufficient enough to construct three sensible meals a day out of, or, hey, how about FOR FUCKING CARING SO MUCH??
The difference is almost unnoticeable. I have not weighed myself for a while as I have been known to cry when I do so. the only reason I knew that Something Is Not Right, You Heifer, was when I couldn't get the jeans to button. I know there are so many other things that I need to be caring about right now, but it feels like everything has suddenly stuck, and I am trapped in the mirror, and I cannot free myself.
And the part of me that was in love with being addicted is searching for something new to latch on to, and no matter which extreme it stops at I am not going to be happy.

listening to: The Walkmen, Bows and Arrows

i saw thumbnail pictures of your girlfriend on the internet and DAMN she ugly

yes, I am back.
And yes, it is incredibly typical of me that this is the first thing I have to point out, that pictures from the trip, including ones of me (!!!!), can be found on the Pictures section over here. Despite my continuing problems with self-esteem, I had a really wonderful time, and I once again promise thieved pictures of my own as soon as I get around to informing the Boy that I need to know how to write code or whatever for my pictures section and by the way copying the stylesheet folder to my desktop or whatever doesn't WORRRRRRK (dainty cough). And despite the posted warnings, to my eventual disappointment, no bears made an appearance. Here are some highlights from the trip:
Grits. I never had them before.
The part where we almost hiked to the top of the mountain. We felt kind of bad until we discovered that the journey to the top of this particular mountain was like six hours or something and we (okay, I) were woefully underequipped and undernourished for such a journey. Though you may not agree with the undernourished part if you see the pictures of me. (rimshot)
To a slightly lesser extent, the part where we took a ski lift up to the top of this other mountain and made out gleefully at the top for the cameras and then refused to buy the blatant tourist ripoff picture commemorating the fact that we were at the top.
The sheer ridiculousness of Gatlinburg, which is like Wisconsin Dells with more confederate flags and at least five places within three blocks where you can get a-hitched.
The sheer hilarity that can result from being in a car with the same person for twelve hours.
Tubing, despite my lack of ability to stay inside my tube and the wicked resulting scrape I have on my elbow.
The realization that, without stereotyping, things really are kind of slower in the South.
The Actual Babbling Brook that was behind our tent.
Fishies!
Hearing "I Like Big Tits" by Joe Walsh on the radio for the first time ever. Wait, I'm confusing the definition of "highlight" with the definition of "thing that made me want to gouge my eyeballs out and then blindly find the radio station that was playing the song and hold the DJs down and force-feed them my gouged-out eyeballs whilst screaming 'SEE? THIS IS WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!'"
Three words: Park. Ranger. Uniform.
Finding a replacement Elvis magnet kit for my sister, yay!
Campfires and their ability to make me feel like I am ten years old again, except for the part where I keep vaguely remembering bits and pieces of the Blair Witch Project, and the extra two hours it takes me to fall asleep as a result.
Rediscovering that Girls Against Boys make the best driving music ever.
Coming home, first to the Boy's bed, which is much larger and softer than my own and makes for a very good transition-from-tent bed, and then to a birthday card from my parents with a picture of a kitten in a pot which says "For your birthday, I grew you a cat." Which is the funniest thing ever. And made me want to cry because *sniff* they REMEMBERED.
Realizing that no, I will not actually die without the Internet for a week.
There are more highlights, some of which are Not For You. I may pick up on this where I left off later but for now I am stopping; I feel like I have been typing for five hours straight cos of this combined with the work I didn't finish before I left for, as Cosmo would put it, the "vacay." (STAB! GOUGE! ARGH! DIE!) If I have learned anything from the recent past, it is that I completely lack the discipline needed to work at home.

listening to: De La Soul, De La Soul Is Dead

end.

everything you just said is bullshit.

So Boy & I went to a bookstore (read: former place of employment, but not the location I worked--HA! I hope it means you DIDN'T MAKE PLAN) last night and looked at travel guides. And while, as earlier evidenced in these writings, I don't typically swoon over pictures of nature that don't involve either bunnies or rock boys in the foreground, but OH MY GOD. This is where we are going?! I mean, I knew where we were going, but I didn't fully grasp the fact that this was, you know, where we were going. Also, according to a link on the second listed website, this is the month that berries are ripe and guess who goes foraging for berries in July? Fucking black bears.
But despite my reservations, I'm really excited. Besides, I'm scrappy. If I can't take a bear in a fight, at least I know that you're supposed to play dead if a bear tries to maul you.
I don't have much else to say. I am decidedly not planning to take a laptop and blog from the middle of nowhere, so y'all are just going to have to be desperately sad until I get back. My birthday is Tuesday, also, so I am going to be desperately sad/convinced I have lost my readership ("readership" )if no one leaves a comment telling me "happy birthday, bitch." Or you know what would be even better? This.
NOTE TO CERTAIN PEOPLE, AND BY "PEOPLE" I MEAN "PERSON" WHO READ/S THIS:
Please don't see that as a hint.
Seriously.
And with that, I am off to become Nature Girl--upon returning I may have actual pictures to actually put up, actually. Even if they are stolen from Boy because he's the half with the new digital camera.
my god, did I just refer to him as my half?

Listening to: the Roots, Things Fall Apart

(end)

songs mean a lot when songs are bought and so are you

Entry To Be Filed Under: Girl Still Secretly Wants To Smoke But Can't/Won't/Damn You All And Therefore Is Going To Write Angrily About Smoking Propaganda
*ahem*
Why is it that when journalists profile rock stars/actors they seem to be compelled to mention the brand of cigarettes they smoke? Why do I know that Brittany Murphy smokes American Spirits whilst Eef Barzelay tends to favor Marlboro Reds? Why is it that as soon as I find myself comfortable in my new non-smoker skin and with my not-pink, yet not-black lungs I have to become smitten with a show whose central female lead smokes as much as I used to and looks much better than me doing it? Why has Marlboro Lights been namechecked by aforementioned character at least five times now (I'm near the end of Season 2)? What the fuck sort of under the table deals are being made here? I remember back when I was young and impressionable that I would actually get excited upon discovering Rockstar X shared the same brand identity as me.
Because that's really what this is about, isn't it? Smoking is the ultimate club and smokers the demographic that is/are the hungriest to belong. It's been a very long time since I read No Logo, and I therefore don't remember if there was anything about smoking and ads, but I should really reread it, not only so I can look for Bad Things About Tobacco Companies, but Bad Things About Basically Everything I Read, Watch, Eat, Wear and Listen To.
No, seriously, I think I need that right now.
Please, please bear with me if I keep coming back to this topic. I was always very bad at typing and smoking at the same time (smoke got in my eyes, I ashed everywhere, it was messy) so I figure writing will help keep me away from it.
In other news: I have spent the entire day obsessing over how terrible my hair is. It's been pretty slow, today has. Data entry tends to kind of suck out your soul, or what little you had in the first place. But for someone who has very little money, not only plotting when I am going to get the mop cut (tomorrow, dammit) but purchasing a magazine to aid and assist the cause delusion of looking absolutely nothing like Kirsten Dunst through the magic of one magical (ten-dollar) haircut is probably not terribly wise.
Sigh. Not that I would actually want to look like Kirsten Dunst anyway. (Baby teeth havin' motherfucker.)
Here there would be a Countdown Until TN of sorts but I don't actually know the exact date of arrival, and I see no reason to Countdown Until Indiana, cause, hello, I've been to Indiana,
so in its place, here is a picture of a bear:

all this conversation ain't satisfactioning me

I realize that last post was the most half-assed thing I've been responsible for since my college entrance essay (ba-dum-CHING) and would like to apologize to all involved. Namely myself.
So to elaborate on a few key points:
Joan of Arcadia still rules.
The vacation: has been confirmed. I am going to get eaten by a bear (or perhaps multiple bears once the others come across my carcass) in the mountains in Tennessee. Strangely, I am excited about this.
To those of you who know me, you are aware that I am not exceedingly athletic unless it involves repetitive motions on some sort of treadmill-like contraction, i.e. a safe, controlled environment. To those of you that know me really well you know that this is a sore spot with me that's driven me to tears on more than one occasion. You also know that "Stella McCartney" and "Prada" are more frequently uttered by me than "tent" and "kindling." I'm not sure I know all the types of firewood, and I WAS A GIRL SCOUT. There was actually a coversation that was had by myself and Boy that consisted of the (partial) lyrics to Green Acres when we were discussing what to do with a week of time off.
But seriously: nature and I aren't that much at odds, as much as I find myself hilarious when I play that up. It's just me and I that are having a few problems. Add in the fact that I have been with the Boy for a year and unless my memory is seriously failing me we haven't spent more than three days at a time together, hell yes I will gladly sacrifice myself to five bears.
Concessions will be made to my urban roving nature; except I kind of have to tell the Boy that I've just tonight decided that I wanna see Memphis instead of Nashville, both because of Graceland (how the fuck did I forget about Graceland?) and because of my sister's hyperbolizing of Memphis as a city. Also she had a bunch of her shit stolen at a party at her house this weekend and I've been instructed by my mom to look for a replacement Elvis magnet set.
To the Boy, if/when you read this: pleeeeeeeeeease?
This weekend was spent being confronted with the fact that I have a huge deficit of confidence in my athletic abilities. Rather than set up the whole scenario I'll leave it at I did one thing because I thought I wouldn't get humiliated and then dwelled on it until I felt like shit anyway.
That clarifies everything, right?
Also: The Bourne Identity isn't half bad, as far as films where there's the shooting and the car chases and the things blowing up and the fires and the guns and the water and the claven go.
That's all the news that's fit to print.
soundtrack: Pretty Girls Make Graves, Good Health
ps. if anyone knows of any musicians from Tennessee besides Justin Timberlake, Disappointed by Candy, Elvis, and, uh, the dudes who did the theme to Deliverance, please let me know forthwith and posthaste, because I am trying to slap together some travelin' music.
Thank you.
end.

well, i walked into the wrong changing room at old navy...

I swear to god this is not going to change into the What The Girl Watches On Television Chronicles, but if there is a really good thing about staying home on Friday nights, it is Joan of Arcadia. I am finding myself lately drawn to doing more than one thing at once so I am typing with the television in the background.
Turned down a temp job this morning, although I was tempted as all hell to take it, because it was only a few weeks and while I have been out of the temp game for a while I remember how it felt to be jittery inbetween assignments. I was jittery for seven months. Went on to go to the Humane Society on a tip--they are actually hiring, although I imagine that the app process is clogged with wannabes--but OMG TEH FLUFFY BABY KITTENS.
The only other thing that I have to report is that apparently I actually get to take a vacation this year. Vacation from what, you ask?
Do you really have to ask?
I am too distracted and tired to be writing anything, but I suppose I'm writing anyway because I wish you all a happy weekend. Aw. Aren't I swell?

listening to: Some band that sounds like Dashboard Confessional because it's being played in the background on CBS

(end)

and therapy just scares me, puts me on my back again

...morale is sinking, kids.
I worked today for the first time in a week and a half. I had trouble sleeping last night--again-- and as a result have done nothing that I needed or wanted to do today. Except return shit at the library. Which was made an extremely unpleasant experience by my inability to move my feet down North Avenue properly. I was chastized at work for not putting two spaces between each sentence when typing, like this. Who the fuck teaches anyone to do that?!? More importantly, who actually calls a colleague, an alleged GROWNUP WORK COLLEAGUE WHO SHOULD FUCKING WELL HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO, for confirmation that they are right and I am wrong and have obviously learned NOTHING from my poor state-run commuter college?
P.S. I was right. Though she insists that is what she was taught.
And now onto other things:
The more that I read about this whole John-John presidential ticket, the more I want to do some throttlin'. How are these guys supposed to inspire anyone?? The other night the news was all over Kerry's assertion that he is personally against abortion and feels that life begins at conception cause he's all Catholic but feels he has no right to tell anyone else what to do with their bodies is one thing: I deeply, deeply mistrust men who say they feel that way. Call it sexism, or reverse sexism, or shameless-baby-killer, or whatever: that is how I feel. And when you are a person who has the potential to have a HUGE impact on what happens throughout (let's face it) the entire world for the next four years, you had best have some actual convictions about some shit. And Edwards: You're really going to tell me that this multimillionaire TRIAL LAWYER is going to energize the ticket/country and speak for the people? Um: No.
So in summary: I am overwhelmed and have decided to make tonight Guilty Pleasure Night. I plan to watch The Simple Life 2 (don't get me started, ever since Paris Hilton said that Diet Coke is for fat people I have succumbed to my love/hate relationship with her) and the latest (out of order, damn you, public library!) installment of Sex and the City. Instead of, you know, doing something constructive to change my (or the world's) situation.
Damn.

listening to: RUN DMC, "It's Tricky"
(end)

(no title)

I am tired tonight.
Changes have been made. I rather like them. Please advise, as I am still a feedback/comment whore.
This weekend was one of repetition, but in a good way. I have been back at my own apartment for several hours due to the fact that Boy had to hone his mad entrepreneurial skillz. Plug! I felt extremely isolated the minute I locked my door behind me and have been spending most of tonight trying to figure out why. also about how I really need milk but can't/couldn't bring myself to get up. I am pathetic.
The following lessons were learned from the films watched over the course of the weekend:
1. Women are generally evil and will not stand by you in crisis if you are a wealthy man (Wall Street)
2. Aliens are also evil and should never be trusted under any circumstances (Independence Day)
3. If you were to make a drinking game involving one-liners delivered by Will Smith, you would be drunk within ten minutes (also Independence Day, but probably is true for any of his films)
4. ...I knew there was a reason I hated Jerry Bruckheimer (also Independence Day )
5. Even if you KNOW you are the best drug dealer in your hometown it is still best to keep that information to yourself (City of God).
By the way, City of God was the cinematic Shit. And again, I know, bandwagon, late, me, mockery. See it if you haven't. And then I will mock you for being even later on it than me.
Employment Update: I have Interview #8,457 tomorrow (for a temp job that would last through October). This is another at least one bus transfer and an hour's worth of commute gig, but at this point I am prepared, as I have been since the day I took the current job, to take anything. And have also been entertaining secret fantasies lately about the various ways and means I could tell my boss to kiss my ass. Of course I will chronicle what goes down here. Perhaps I wil be charming enough to win them over. Stranger things.
IN CONCLUSION:
I will quote from my favorite 4th of July song ever
and go think charming thoughts.

so many sheep i quit counting
sleepless and embarrassed about the way that i feel
trying to make mole hills out of mountains
building base camp at the bottom of a really big deal
and did i tell you how i stopped eating?
when you stopped calling me?
and i was cramped up shitting rivers for weeks
and pretending that i was finally free

and you can't leave me here
now that you're back
you'd better stay this time
cause you say the coast is clear
but you say that all the time

(Ani Difranco, Independence Day)

if it's once i've got it, if it's twice i don't

I want to smoke again.
Very, very badly.
I have decided that this is what my subconscious is trying to tell me. (It's the only conclusion I can come to when I've spent at least a half hour today, and like a half hour a day for the past month, remembering what smoking felt like and trying to convince myself that just one isn't going to hurt anyone....) It's especially hard when I'm at bars or in outdoor settings and I can smell other people's delicious, delicious cigarettes, or when I am watching the library copies of Sex and the City or when I am on long walks or when I am drinking black coffee or vodka or both or when I am sad or when I am elated or when I hear "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" or when I am reading Nick Hornby or when I am by the lake or when I am waiting for the bus or when I am secretly suspecting that I have somehow gained weight and the fact that I quit is responsible for it or when I am at the few smoking coffeehouses left here or or or...
It's bad. It's really bad. Part of me is really amazed that I've held on this long. I have even been drunk and held cigarettes (my old favorite brand, even) and not smoked. The other part of me, the childlike give-me-everything-that-is-bad-for-me-NOW part is royally pissed that I have. It's been about three months. Smoking was the longest relationship I ever had. I was completely in love with it, with the idea of it, the romanticized "look how fucked up I am! I'm tortured! Look!" dance. I came to love the way it tasted and the way that I percieved I looked doing it. I loved having something to do with my hands and a means of conversation at parties. I loved the rituals--the packing, the turning up the lucky, the measuring out of time. I loved dancing at goth clubs with a cigarette in hand. I loved the fact that I spent one summer subsisting on very little except coffee and cigarettes and was the thinnest I've ever been.
In a way, all this emotional meltdowning that I've been experiencing is understandable, because (and anyone who's ever read the anti-smoking literature or has quit or tried to knows that this is a tremendous cliche--but it's TRUE) smoking was my crutch, my way to distance myself from situations or from having actual feelings. I liked having something to focus on with my hands and mouth, and the fact that it was something that was historically associated with glamour and the forbidden was all the better. Plus, I just had so much angst, much more than you could ever possibly had. ^__^ Also possibly an oral fixation.
There are other times I smell people who have just been smoking and feel sick and realize with a sinking feeling that I, too, used to smell like that. Or I'll get off the elliptical machine at The Gym and realize that if I still smoked I would not be able to do what I just finished doing to myself--that, rather, I would be a green quivering mass clutching my lungs on the floor. I rather like being able to walk upright out of that place. I also like the fact that my boyfriend does not recoil anymore before he kisses me and that I don't have to constantly monitor my stock of gum and/or mints for kissing purposes.And if he does recoil, it's for something normal, like spinach in my teeth or the presence of my retractable fangs. I like that his friends don't make awful faces around me anymore and I have one less reason to feel awkward around them. I like that I can walk up hills and sprint short distances without dying. I like that I recognize now that I actually look sort of sick in the pictures from the Summer Of Underweight. I like that I can stop worrying about whether the Pill is going to give me blood clots or a stroke now, even though I'm very much under 35. I like that my mom and sister are finally off my damn back.
What I really want is to just stop craving it. I think that I can exert enough control over myself to stop any forays back into smoking before they start. But I want the want to be gone. Or a non-cancerous, non-smelly substitute that looks really good. Or possibly a lobotomy.
...
The fact that the paragraph detailing what I like about myself now is longer than the one detailing what was good about smoking is somewhat cheering. What is frightening is that I think this little give-me give-me voice is going to be with me for a lot longer than I want it to be. And I don't know how much longer I can hold on.

listening to: Fatboy Slim, Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars

(end)

it's almost over now, it's almost over now

I have been inputting addresses in my computer for FIVE HOURS. Okay, five hours minus fifteen minutes for a bagel break and then later minus a half hour when my mom called and got all snarky when she could hear me typing in the background so I had to stop.
But that's FOUR HOURS AND FORTY-FIVE MINUTES. See, I would be able to accept this if I were in an office-like setting. But as it stands I have been staring at the same Crooked Fingers poster (stolen back in my Poster Thievery Days) and feeling sad because there is no food in my refrigerator save the aforementioned bagels and some peanut butter. I should be feeling sad because oh, I don't know, the commute from the Marquette interchange is all fucked up and I'm going to miss my squash tournament and cocktails afterwards, all on the deck of my yacht.
Okay, that's exaggerating a little, but I can't shake this feeling that my life should have Started By Now, Goddamnit.
Today is really Jim's Journal-esque in that it was pretty much okay. I learned yesterday that I have interview #4,568 on Tuesday next. Wherein the old me (old meaning me of three days ago) would take this as a glorious opportunity to berate herself for not getting any of the other interviews and therefore go in to this one nervous and too eager having not slept the night before, I'm a be all, "whatever. I know I'm hot shit. They are totally going to see that I'm hot shit." Also , Boy recently, lovingly pointed out to me that I was late and/or lost to four (4) of my previous interviews, so punctuality is another element that shall be duly considered. What I am slowly, after all this time, beginning to realize is that being miserable all the time, while perfectly justifiable and understandable for anyone who finds themselves in my shoes, it also gets me absolutely nowhere.
Really, I am so level about everything today that I'm beginning to question whether or not someone slipped me horse tranquilizers on the bus this morning.
Tonight I am going to see Pedro the Lion and John Vanderslice because I'm such an insufferable fucking scenester. As per her website, The Girl (I don't know how to link to my own posts yet but if you scroll down or use "find" or some crap you will see the Long Huge Previous Rant About The Girl) is going to be there. Boy, I hope she doesn't decide it's too warm to wear her hat. [/sarcasm]
Oh, and last night we saw "Spiderman 2." I also got to witness how Mr. Eriq drives after he is let out half an hour late from his jujitsu class therefore jeopardizing his punctuality to a film. Eriq, sweetie, you're a good driver, but I never want to ride with you when you're late again.
As far as the film itself goes:
Film Critics Corner:
It was good.
I want to be able to climb walls and stuff.
Kirsten Dunst really needs to have all her baby teeth forcibly removed. Oh wait, that would be HER ENTIRE MOUTH.

(end review)
(man, I've totally been pursuing the wrong profession)

listening to: South, From Here On In
And now, another ninja: