The Post About Posting May 9, 2008

Let’s see.
 
1, 2, 3 … That’s eight days that have so far passed in May.
 
And, hold please, this will require some concentration on my part, but 1, 2 … two blog posts that I’ve posted during the same.
 
NaBloPoMo, this is not. Unofficial or otherwise.
 
And so, I imagine, led to blogger d’s heed: “under-promise, over-deliver. cardinal rule. “

 
I read what he wrote. And it got me thinking - in Carrie Bradshaw’s voice, naturally - about the over and under balance. In gambling, we learn that the over and under is the measure of return one can expect on a placed bet. But when we’re betting on someone’s promise, what we’re really betting on is the unknown intentions of the promise we’re choosing to believe. Will it be an over-promise that results in less than we expect and our hearts, broken, again? Or will it be an under-promise that delivers the low expectations we were told to expect from the beginning? Is this just a bad bet? Should we not make promises? Or is it possible to find a promiser who can promise and deliver on that promise he promised? I couldn’t help but wonder … can a promise just be a promise?
 
(Ed. note: I think I just got Carrie-d away.)
 
In all seriousness, I did stop to think about d’s words. Hell, it inspired a whole blog post. His cardinal rule (Ed. note: I suspect subliminal Stanford University advertising here) is good advice. Great advice, really. And one we should all practice.
 
One I would practice. Except that it would involve undermining every innate decision-making instinct that tends to pop into my head.
 
I am excess…ive promises, commitments, intentions, passions, emotions, tequila shots, plates of fried chicken, and orgasms. 
  
And I invented good intentions, horrible results.
  
The girl who thought to get plastered the night before her first ever company holiday party so as to be so hungover that there would be no chance of being that girl around the party’s open bar. Although, in hindsight, it’s easy to say I’m not sure what points I won by vomitting loudly in the office restroom all day before the company holiday party in question that took place later that evening.
  
The one who found herself sitting by Lake Michigan a May evening a few years ago, a few hours before dawn, with a boy who felt positively inspired to stop at the 24-Hour White Hen on Diversey across from Duffy’s to buy some Southern Comfort (Ed. note: What a misleading name) and red wine. Which he then wanted to enjoy by the wonderful body of freshwater we Chicagoans are so lucky to be so near! And, in the midst of all his talking, while sitting with a relative stranger by a large body of water in complete darkness with no one else around and none of my friends aware of where I might be because we had all scattered at the bar earlier that night, I began to feel worried. Yes, at that moment. And I remembered the news piece I had heard earlier just that day about a recent development in the Natalee Holloway disappearance. Which inspired me to quietly creep out my phone from my purse while this boy discussed the possibility of reincarnation and life on other planets (for the third time) and send a text to as many people as my phone would allow at once. It luckily began raining soon after, and I said my goodbyes and ran away to hail a cab to rescue me home. (This boy, however, may still be sitting by the Lake, rambling about the possibility of ghosts residing in living persons’ bodies.)
 
The next morning, there were several text messages and IMs asking where the hell are you and whether I’m alive and are you depressed or something?? And don’t you know you have so many reasons to live and keep fighting? I felt confused until I saw the text message I had sent the night before, in mass, which read: “i disappearing shores of lake michigao.”
 
Under-promise, over-deliver? But how will people know just how excited I am? That I really do mean well.
 
By follow-through?
 
Hm.
 
By, er, not setting up false expectations?
 
Woof.
 
To not have let my parents believe I would be attending law school come fall after my college graduation. Until one week before my college graduation.
 
To not have told my boss and her boss and their bosses, repeatedly, during the last four months that it will be absolutely no problem to finish that assignment that really requires at least several people (not just one) and at least a few week’s time (not by tomorrow).
 
To not have promised the Rosetta Stone salesman at the Nordstrom mall on Michigan Avenue that I’ll certainly come back to check out the French kit some more when I’m already dismissing the $200+ price tag and plotting to get my boyfriend to find a way to download it illegally online.
 
To try subtlety. Modesty. Moderation.
 
But fuck moderation! That lame balance for excess.
 
I am excess…ive promises, commitments, intentions, passions, emotions, and visits to the office kitchen to vulture some more homemade chocolate-dipped macaroon cookies brought in by someone who should have known that if they wanted the whole office to have some, they should have made more than twelve.
 
And I guess I’m excessive declarations to post on my blog more frequently. Because I want to. I mean to. But flakiness blows. And I too hate bullshitters. Those of air and fluff and no substance. And I’m of good intentions. Really.

So this time? With follow-through.
  
I can’t promise no horrible results.
 
(Because I’m of horrible results, too.)
  
But I can promise to add ”less over-promises” to my mixed bag of issues-to-fix extradinaire.
 
And I can also promise to have a hella fucking good time seeing M.I.A. at the Aragon tonight. And to bop my little head to the dulcet tones of opener Holy Fuck. Because I say fuck yes to a band that would call themselves that. Either naive or narcisstic, there’s really no way they could have ever expected to become big or hop mainstream with that name. So fuck yes to Holy Fuck.
 
I can promise to take lots of ridiculous pictures and post them on this blog.
 
Of me. Of M.I.A. Of hipsters and jeans too tight, shirts too small, scarves too volumnous.
 
Because I want to. I mean to.
 
So I promise all of this. 
 
Well. That is. Kinda promise. Because that counts as an underpromise then, right?

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• I’m so ashamed. More online quiz results.
• eh. life.
• Get ready for a lot more of me!