obfuscated girl

attack of the tiny bitches in pinstriped skirts

(Or, You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile)
(Or, "Everyone Else On This Island Is Losing Weight, Where Are You Hiding The Carbs?")

Today is gorgeous. So much so that the minute I stepped outside of work for lunch, I considered faking an infectious disease and going home. Completely bored by my peanut butter sandwich and yogurt, I headed to a local deli to supplement my boredom with peapods. I sat at a table, consumed by a book,, when I started to notice them. The first one was a girl that I thought I had recognized from my infamous past, and while covertly squinting at her and trying to place her, I started doing The Girl Thing where I compared her shirt/stomach/shoulderblades to mine. And inevitably came out lacking. I left without saying hello, mostly because I only had ten minutes to get back but partly because I was afraid (the question remains "of what?" The answer remains "I have no idea.") The walk back was even worse--bare legs and sandals and pinstripes and flat-front pants and tank tops everywhere, all on girls who were like a size negative zero. I started entertaining grim fantasies about going up to one of them and going all effusive-like "Where did you get that skirt?" and the response being "*scoff* Oh honey, they don't make this in your size..." (This fantasy is courtesy the part of my brain that has always wanted to go to a modeling agency, just to hear them laugh.)
Bear in mind that this setback has come on a morning when I discovered I can fit into a pair of pants that had stopped fitting me for, oh, three months.
This has been a hard year for me, regarding the Whole Self-Esteem Thing. Harder than most, because I felt like I had escaped it for a brief period and then it was back. Like my shadow. I am left here wondering is a) when this is going to stop consuming me, why I take it so hard that I can't watch tiny-ass girls stuff their face with pasta and refrain from seething with resentment, b) what, exactly, if anything, it accomplishes, and c) why can't I shut the fuck up already, when there is Clearly Nothing Wrong With Me and I Should Be Happy About The Progress I Am Making Which Is Debatable Whether I Even Need It and This Makes Me Sound Insecure And Needy And Girly And Fishing For Praise.
So this is the second post that ends with a question.
Because I don't have any answers.

things i learned at my job, part one

There is not one, but two magazines called "Journal of Infectious Diseases." Indeed, one of them is called "Emerging Journal of Infectious Diseases."
Also, it is possible to get papercuts on one's neck. ON THE NECK. WHAT THE FUCK.

and because i feel like it

here is a picture that I found on the internets:

don't look at me that way; it was an honest mistake

I failed to mention when bleating about the O.C. season finale previously that I really dig the Bravery song that was featured in it, and I am not sure how I am supposed to feel about the Bravery especially because I think they were one of those Ultragrrrl bands. Whatever, it's a good song, and it very much befits dominoes.
Yesterday I was exhausted, and I watched the first episode of the first season of this and I really need to stop getting into HBO shows without having HBO because IT IS INFINITELY FUCKING FRUSTRATING, today I'm better, everyone else in the office is at a demonstration of the new (purple!) copy machine except me and it's just as well, because while I'm not tired I am spacy and antsy. I got downtown a half hour before I needed to be at work and the part of me that is all OMG YOU ARE AN EXCEEDINGLY FAT BITCH screeched POWER WALK the second we turned onto Wells, and the walk just made me want to be outside. This is by no means a unique sentiment but I don't ever seem to be really happy where I am these days. Not so much with poor body image (that doesn't resurface nearly as much as it used to, what with sticking to the eating more fruits vegetables and yogurtses plan) but with the fact that while some of the work I do here seems to mean something, but is it enough? Is it ever going to be enough? OH THE ANGST.

things that occur to you that should never occur to anyone, ever

Perhaps when Jenny Lewis sings "it's all of the good that won't come out of me" in "The Good That Won't Come Out," she is actually singing about being constipated.

lesson learned while playing croquet with a small group of children ages 6-9 #1

Never pretend that when the six-year-old (who thinks she is a princess and tells everyone in your family that), comes up to you and makes vicious growling noises, that a) she is a water buffalo and b) that you are afraid of water buffalo, because you will then spent the rest of the afternoon being chased by a herd of water buffalo who think it is hilarious that you, a grownup, is allegedly afraid of something.

no one i think is in my tree

The long silences are once again due to exhaustion. I survived week one of the job, which all things considered I knew I was going to--just the adjustment required to go back to getting up at 6 in the morning every day is a bit brutal, and the fact that I had insomnia for the last two days of the work week in no way helped. obvs.
I point you to this because it points out why the OC is so very, very wrong right now and, you know, I can't actualy write. I include this picture, which I did not take, because it is of my friend and because I can.

I miss my friends.
I am the only person I know who is working a 9 to 5 job and most of the time they are not available for Happy Hour. I feel more and more disconnected and I don't know how to reconnect. I spend most of my time reading, watching horrible television, eating 5 fruits and vegetables a day, flossing, playing on the internet, missing shows, and generally pretending that the future doesn't exist.
It's working out so far.

why i'm suddenly really, really mad that i didn't go to coachella:

god damn job

Go look over here.