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?

April Shitstorms Bring May Blogging May 1, 2008

Peg me O.C.D., anal, nutjob or - if you’re the type that prefers the whole truth - all of the above, but it bothers me that in the grand scheme of things, there will be no archived month of April 2008 posts on this blog.
 
Perhaps, though, this gap will provide an accurate summary of the month when life decided to momentarily behave like a temperamental elephant on a rampage in Sri Lanka, I its white conversion van.
 
That summary going something like this: (Watch video).
 
Who could blog under such conditions!
 
I’ve missed blogging though. A lot. And you guys. Of course you guys. Because people like me - the ones who too often exploit the inappropriate sarcasm and play the fierce independent and wave around the snarkiness - are the people who tend to really need others the most.
 
To say the emails and comments I received during my unannounced and unplanned hiatus last month were nice wouldn’t nearly be sufficient. Fucking nice wouldn’t even cut it, really.
 
Because - catching up on my emails and comments today - I kind of frightened myself with how moved I felt. And, see, I’m the girl who once looked a black bear in the face and told it to scram; I don’t scare easily. True story: My boyfriend’s TV is very big. Sixty inches across or something. And our couch is very near this very big TV. So sometimes its moving pictures can feel like they’re right in our faces. And I tend to yell things at the very big TV. A lot. Like the time I saw a  big black bear on Bear Gyles’ Discovery Channel show and told it to scram. So see. I’m not lying. (Ed. note: I also yell when I see Nikki of this season’s Top Chef: Chicago (Chicago!), usually something like I HATE YOU - ANYONE CAN BUY SAUSAGES AND THROW ON SOME PEPPERS AND SERVE THEM AT A TAILGATE AND HOW ARE YOU STILL AROUND.)
 
In any case, all of this obscure truth telling is my way of saying thank you for not forgetting about me.
 
And as a way to turn things around, I’ve decided to dub May my unofficial NaBloPoMo month. Which, in sum, will see me trying very hard to post an entry everyday in some hope of re-establishing a pattern of behavior, and, if I do this right, you trying not that hard to avoid this blog everyday in some hope of avoiding my pattern of behavior. Kind of like the guy I dated near the end of my senior year in college who suggested we take a break once he realized that my friends and I went out 6 of 7 nights a week (Ed. note: Even God rested on the 7th day, yes?), every week, not simply as a relish of our senior year in college, but as a way of escaping life.
 
Anyway, sometimes, a funny sounding portmanteau is all the inspiration one needs to get right back into the swing of things. If one’s swing of things must include masochistic tasks and tired jokes about how hard Blo-ing can be.
 
Which apparently, mine does.
  
In all truth, the stories, the thoughts, the ideas are ample. The time, maybe not as much. However. This damsel may be in distress, but fuck it if she lets another month go by without - uh - being a damsel in digress.
 
(I was really willing that to have some ring to it.)
  
I’m proving to be a slow start. It took me a good five minutes to find the “Save” button on this new WordPress layout.
 
And fresh off the unbalanced sanity I was calling mine last month (Ed. note: All together now: Just last month?), this desperate scramble was almost enough trigger to spark a shutdown of WordPress, quit my job, steal a car, and drive to a small town in Mexico with the plan to live the rest of my life scorning cell phones, computers, and change.
 
But after a few minutes of WHAT THE FUCK WORDPRESS, the ability to observe the blatantly obvious blessed me for a moment and I found the button. The one right next to this text box in which I currently type. (See illustration below.) I don’t know how to explain why it took me five minutes to find the damn thing but I’m sure the damaging effects of second-hand smoke had something to do with it. That, or the damaging effects of having George W. Bush hold public office for so many years.
 
 

 
 
The important thing is that I found it before I was reduced to emailing WordPress Support with my question in the subject line, as per their request: “WHERE IS THE SAVE BUTTON LOCATED?”
 
So no clicking out of WordPress. No quitting of job. And I guess the small town in Mexico will have to wait a while longer for the girl who will run it dry of its tequila supplies.
 
Of course, you’ll only have to wait till tomorrow Monday WEDNESDAY (Ed. note: There’s no time! There’s never any time! There’s no time to study. No time to blog. NO TIME TO SING WITH THE HOT FUDGE SUNDAES) for me to Blo some more.

This Post Is About My Chest March 19, 2008

Namely, some things I’d like to get off of it.
 
And not, say, my actual chest or the cyclist who nearly caused an accident near LaSalle and Monroe the other day when he decided to abruptly U-Turn amongst a stream of cars so to follow me as I walked the other direction — all while yodeling about my whoo-weee titty city.
 
(Ed. note: I was, for the record, wearing a winter jacket. And was not, say, topless. Which might warrant such yodels.)
 
Vermin like him - who at some point in their miserable existence have concluded that a hanging sack of testicles validate careless objectification of women - give me some idea of why Lorena did what she had to do.
 
And there. I’ve already started.
 
Getting things off my chest that is.
 
Because it’s been exactly ten days since my last post. Ten days. While one voice in my head tries to demand I take a chill pill, please, because ten days is not that long, another voice yells (by way of typing loudly) that there are things I WANT AND NEED TO WRITE DAMNIT.
 
My chest has been feeling mighty heavy lately. And it ain’t just due to the 34-D sweater cows whoo-weee my titty city.
 
So why not just shut up and put up? Write what I want to write and stop writing that I want to write?
 
Well.
 
After more than a week of having ideas buzz around my mind - of things I’d like to share and rant and coo - and not having a second to myself to write them down, the mess that already calls that space in between my ears home has quickly turned into one wild clusterfuck of ataxia.
 
Yes. It just may be more irritating to actually have things one would like to write and being completely unable to find the time to do so than having all the time in the world to write but not having a single thing to write about. (Note to the Gods: Feel free to have a laugh and declare Well, we’ll show her.)
 
The fun little tale explaining how my boyfriend’s and my one-bedroom apartment came to have our mattress on its living room floor and its bathroom door unhinged and hanging against a wall? Is sharing brain space with anecdotes about my mother and her recent barrage of phone calls that have covered every topic from whether I remembered to switch my microwave clock an hour forward to Mrs. Cho bragging for one full hour about daughter that student at U-M Dentist School who I know not smart as you but she get scholarship and Mrs. Cho not stop showing it during their last brunch.
 
And debaucherous accounts of my Leap Day activities - when I followed my own advice to practice hell on earth come February 29th because it’s a day that doesn’t technically exist 75% of Time which technically means you can do whatever you want and it doesn’t count and I’m sure if I had taken math classes in college, I’d have no trouble backing this theory with a very complicated math formula but since I did not, you’ll simply have to take my word? Those are confused with stories from a night a couple weekends ago that involved a private VIP room at Victor Hotel and me again proving that I am all time wing-woman able to amass the attention and phone numbers of hot girls everywhere.
 
Or at least those at Victor Hotel that night a couple weekends ago.
 
In my odd little way, I am a perfectionist. The girl who lets her apartment become a fucking sty but - when finally deciding to clean it up - starts by alphabetizing her books by author and organizing her magazines by chronology. The one who then makes sure all her hanging clothes face the same direction in the closet, preferably grouped by color. And scrubs every inch of the bathroom floor and tub and shower before moving on to the kitchen sink and the dishes and the oven.
 
On second thought, perhaps this has less to do with perfectionism and more to do with some kind of errant O.C.D. combined with my tendency to veer towards extremes.
 
In any case. The same (lack of) logic applies to this blog. There is that need to deconstruct from the foundations up and to do it all right in the face of so! many! thoughts! To clear the air - and my head - before starting afresh with stories of this and that. To give a home to the muddled thoughts clogging my fucked up cerebrum other than my fucked up cerebrum.
 
So one deep breath. And begin. About a friend who is causing enormous amounts of headaches, heartaches and outrages right now.
 
Of all the hundreds of faults I have, one of my very worst may be my inability to know when to no longer give someone just one more chance. It’s incredibly fucking difficult for me to walk away from someone that I’ve come to love and care about. I like to believe I know how much it hurts to feel like you can never be imperfect because the only love you know is based on conditions. My childhood drills made me run the other direction. To become far too non-judgmental. Yes, far too much. To give second, third, fourth, nth chances. To forgive and to forget. To not hold grudges. I may be all kinds of fucked up, but I have an idea of what it means to be a good person and a good friend. It doesn’t mean that I always am. But when I’m not, I own up. 
 
This friend has been less than that. Forgotten what it means to be honest and trustworthy. Or loyal. Forgotten how to place priorites. Or to take a much needed check of their actions. Not even destructive in some inspired trainwreck sort of way where the focus is on oneself rather than hurting others. Were that the case, I’d have no right to preach. I’m not so hypocritical that I’d call out one of my own. 
 
No. This friend has mainly become one big reason I’m more a damsel in distress these days.
 
And my head is a mess - has been a mess - trying to figure out what to do about this friendship.
  
This friend gets away with a lot of the shit that they pull. We all let this friend get away with a lot of the shit that they pull - either victim to a genius who’s learned how to fool everyone into thinking they’re a saint when they’re actually a very corrupt, hateful and hurtful person. Or victim to a friend who is just that fucking delusional.
 
Once I trust you, I really trust you. Me and moderation aren’t words synonymous. And me and caution? Are for hell of fucking sure not either. If I love you, I love you fiercely. If I’m excited, I jump up, down, and sideways. And if I think you’re my friend, I give you no walls.
 
Because to me, the notion of soulmates is an idea best intended for friendships.
 
I protect myself when it comes to relationships with men. I like to play strong. It takes me long to let barriers break and come forward. Guys get to know me - really know me - only after they’ve passed some subconscious test of are you worth this and can you hold my interest for more than tonight, this week, this month? My shtick is that I’ll love you - just please don’t expect me to settle. 
 
But in friendships I play that role of ‘girl trapped in abusive relationship’ all too well. I create excuses for poor behavior. I open the door over and over again at the first apology or sign that things might be all right. I don’t listen to the advice everyone else sheds. Questions of How can you still friends with that person? They’re caustic! are met with my quick rushes to their defenses. I put up with a lot of shit I’d never take from any guy.
 
Because I’ve always liked people who have a taste for debauchery. Those that are of complex personalities but more or less good hearts. People, I suppose, that I consider similar to me.
 
And with debauchery can come chaos.
 
I guess in some ways it can be easy for me to come to the conclusion that it’s time to end a friendship once I reason that if I’m fed up - in light of all the fucking chances I give, all the shit I let slide - then this must be a pretty fucking bad situation. But breakups - particularly friendship breakups - can’t be that clean. Can’t be that mature. Can’t be a common agreement to move on and leave the other party at peace. People are hard to escape. Facebook, Gchat, gossip among mutual friends all make it impossible to cut people off entirely. You can go about blocking and you can ask those mutual friends to not mention the people in question to you any longer but all that tedious work just seems that. Tedious. And petty. Even dramatic.
 
It’s unneeded. Life throws you enough fucked up historonics without having to get them from your friendships. 
  
And now I have this current friend. Who is neither debaucherous or delightful or complex but pathetic. Weak sauce. I could go into details. A macabre list of all the wrongs. And it would turn into a very, very long list. There’s a part of me that wants to do it. To be hateful. To vent. To bitch. To point fingers. To scream and yell and have the whole world see the laundry list of shit I’ve dealt with for them and because of them.
 
But I know there’s no real good that can come from that. Not right now. When the hurt is this current. Maybe someday else. When I’ve gained enough distance so that there can at least be some kind of message with the tale - at least some humor or insight - rather than raw rage.
 
For now, just writing this much has helped my chest feel like it can return to just carrying its physical weight around.
 
Whoo-weee that titty city.

Mondays, Revisited January 28, 2008

A nearby boss has begun to clear her throat approximately every three minutes this morning and it is completely unacceptable.

It is a sound so grating and impossible to ignore that I am now hungrily eyeing my knife-like letter opener, trying to determine just how much it would hurt if I proceeded to stab myself in the ear with it. And, if nothing else, whether I think the resulting blood would be enough to persuade HR to let me go home.

I conclude that I’m not sure.

Thus. The music. Which, currently, is blaring from my speakers. And every time - every single time - I hear her clear her throat, I turn the dial just a little bit more to the right. The volume reached an “unprofessional level” about 12 minutes - or, more precisely, three throat clears - ago. But still I turn the dial. Emails have begun to be received asking if I am the one who is playing the old school gangster rap at 9 in the morning. The music is so loud, in fact, that I just missed three very important phone calls from three very important clients. Which makes sense, really. I assume a phone is only as productive as long as its ring is audible.

Lest you assume I am exaggerating (cherish the thought) or simply have a case of the Mondays (oh please no), the sound in question is one that has led people who have come to visit me at my desk this morning to scrunch their faces and involuntarily make an expression as though they’ve just smelled shit. And then been forced to eat that shit.

I came to work with the intention of posting photographs on my blog today because I woke up this morning and thought, “It can’t be Monday already. I don’t think I even got drunk once this weekend.” And the stuck throat chunk sounds simply confirm that today is not a day meant for anything but light, easy things for the mind. Were I to approach any kind of topic in this post that might fuel the Angry in me further, I would have to just permanently assign my keyboard to CAPS LOCK and turn off the spell check because - last I heard - words like FUCKINGDOUCHEBAGBITCH and ASSFUCKINGHATDOG are still not included in Webster’s.

So. Picture show of pictures that have no tying theme will now commence. And if you see a random burst of expletives in capital letters among the captions, please just nod your head in sympathy and move along.
 
*  
 
Last December, my boyfriend’s fancy hedge fund did something completely out of the ordinary and threw a holiday party. (That’s about as good as it’s going to get in terms of “humor” today, I think.) The theme of the party seemed to have something to do with Bollywood or Hindus - admittedly an odd theme for a financial institution’s party. But seeing that the only thing I really know about the advanced world of economics is that I don’t know anything, who am I to judge?

I think my boyfriend’s mother had been hoping to see pictures from the evening. That request remains to be fulfilled.
  

  
Look! Tulips! In the winter! In a new Pucci vase!If you are the type of person I would really enjoy, your eyes may have immediately been drawn to the methuselah of champagne in the background. What? You want a close up of the champagne bottle? Well, lucky for you that people-pleasing is the Achilles’ Heel for at least one of  multiple personalities.

 
 
It was bought for my boyfriend’s 25th birthday rooftop party because, well, why the hell not? And it was finished not even an hour into the party. There is a picture from that night that involves me, pouting, while looking into the empty bottle as I hold it up like a pirate holds up a telescope. For shame that this blog is anonymous.  

 
Here is our pet stuffed monkey Bernard just being Bernard and hanging around on our rubber tree, which is fake and from World Market. Are you starting to doubt that my grasp on reality is even a tenuous one? Me too.Are you starting to think that I spend my money on too many frivolous things? Yeah, I know. Unfortunately, my theory is that when you have money, you spend it. And when you don’t have money, you eat from the dollar menu at McDonald’s.

 
 
My nightstand has become home to a small fraction - like 1/500th - of the books I own. Piles of books like this are all around our apartment. The same apartment my boyfriend and I have lived in since September. To our defense, it makes complete sense that we wouldn’t have purchased a bookcase by now, seeing that we just bought a coffee table last week.As an aside: Who has read and - more importantly - finished The Emperor’s Children? I personally had some trouble getting past the first chapter after another one of Claire Messud’s forced fucking attempts at cool colloquials made me roll my eyes. Reading happens to be a lot easier for me when my eyes can stay on the page.

[Update: So. There have been some questions regarding the Pamela Anderson book. And that's fair. How can someone demonstrate that they actually own her book then provide no kind of explanation?  My taste in books is like my taste in music, art, people, fashion, sex, food, life. It's eclectic as hell. And tries to never take itself too seriously. I read Lahiri and Tolstoy and there's piles of Martinez and Kundera lying around my apartment. Reading Pam Anderson's book is the same reason why I watch porn or America's Next Top Model. Or wear my hair in pigtails even though I'm 24, dance in the rain, and eat french fries even when I know they're nothing more than vehicles for pork lard to enter my mouth. Life just seems more fulfilling when you approach it always ready to appreciate the laughs and the fun it tries to throw your way.

Also. It needs to be said that the big, black tome on top of Pamela Anderson is Harry Potter, Book 6.]
 

 
  
This is our apartment’s view of the Trump Tower. While I’d probably backhand slap Donald Trump hard enough for his rat nest hair to flop around were I ever to see him in person (Ed. note: Look at me - what a fan of hyperbole I am), I must say that the one great thing about his gaudy piece of phallic architecture is that it bounces sunlight right into our living room. I love sunlight. I love sunlight so much that it makes me dance and write nice things about the man who wanted to patent the phrase “You’re fired.” Or am I confusing this with Paris’ attempt to patent “That’s hot”? 

 

Remember how I said I have an addictive personality? Well maybe that applies to something as benign as rainbow shoes. And maybe I felt the need to lovingly lay this shoe down on our hardwood floor and take a picture of it in all its glory.
 

 
Wii Suck. But hey - thank you, Nintendo, for reminding us that we’re all winners just by trying.
 

 
 
I used to have a subscription to Us Weekly. Then I realized that that alone is a good enough reason for me to burn in hell. So I cancelled the subscription and began to pick it up at the grocery store. Apparently, in between their Celebrities - They’re Just Like Us! and This Week’s Fashion Disasters, they want me to forever become obsessed with the term “Cookie Soulmate” thanks to this ad that I of course had to rip out and display on the refrigerator.

At the end of your dinner at Alinea, the waiter hands you a menu of the dinner you just spent the last 5 hours of your life eating - perhaps as  some kind of distractionary measure to keep your mind off the fact that you just spent more than half a grand of dollars on bread egg smoke and liquified caramel corn. December 28, 2007 was my boyfriend’s and my one year anniversary. Does this remotely justify spending so much on one dinner? I’m not sure, but we have no regrets.

Should you enjoy delicious things, I recommend you run to your nearest Trader Joe’s and purchase these little forms of heaven immediately.

If you don’t enjoy delicious things? Then feel free to come by my office and hear my nearby boss clear her throat. And if you’d like to say hi, just look for the girl who is literally bleeding from her ears. 

The Visible Deformity of WebMD January 25, 2008

There is a bump that has recently swelled on my left shoulder. 

I could begin to lie spin a tale of a fight or a moment of klutziness that caused this particular piece of ugly. Anything that would be far more flattering than the actual story of this bump. But that would be kind of like how the Bush administration began with 9-11 and, five years later, ended up with a dead Saddam (Ed. note: What? You don’t take every opportunity to bash the Bush administration?). So we’ll try out the truth.

It is a mass of pain that not even a bottle of Chilean Red and a box of Barefoot Contessa’s Outrageous Brownies could overshadow when I bumped my left shoulder against a wall while dancing to Ice Cube’s You Can Do It last night. (Ed. note: Suggested music pairing with this post: http://www.deezer.com/track/6077) So I decided to shower. I had - after all - gotten chocolate brownie batter in my hair.

And when I undressed? This bump became the only thing I could see. It was, as they say, the elephant in the room that is impossible to ignore - if that elephant had decided to jump onto the back of my left shoulder and stay fixed there. (Ed. note: I just pictured myself as Quasimodo and laugh-cried.)

What had begun as a little white bump has apparently transformed into a swelling lump of purple and red and it’s HARD and it hurts. And it’s the size of Montana. Or a Chicken McNugget. Whatever.

The real back story of this lump is that it may have first appeared two summers ago (Ed. note: Yes, as in Summer 2006) when I lived in my very first apartment post college, a place I liked to affectionately refer to as The Little Dungeon That Could. It is the reason why I will never live in a ground level apartment ever again. The first place I encountered a cockroach in my life and the place that saw me beginning to fall asleep in galoshes and a can of hairspray. So when I first noticed this bump, I pretended it must be some sort of spider bite and proceeded to move on with the rest of my life.

After one and a half years of bump hibernation, the rest of my life has now come to a screeching halt.

Finally seeing the ugliness of this bump before my very eyes triggered action, and I did what any normal person does who isn’t scared to learn that they may have the gout no matter what their symptoms are and visited Web MD.

Well, no. The first thing I did was google whether spiders could plant baby eggs into people skin and if so, how long they took to burst open.

Because I do not normally use WebMD. It’s pointless. While I enjoy the unintentional comedy it can sometimes provide, I made the mistake of learning about roundworm in 10^thgrade Animal Science to know that as long as I don’t know about a certain ailment, I cannot convince myself I have it. And like the little denialist and extremist I am, this suits me just fine.

And the futuristic androgynous models scare me a little.

But to WebMD I went. Because, I concluded, why not. If I must learn I have Elephantitis of the Shoulder, I should at least be allowed the comfort of my own home, a bottle of Chilean Red and a mound of cooked butter and chocolate that the Barefoot Contessa dubs a brownie. God bless not ever trusting a skinny chef.

Age: 18-24. Check.

Bleeding? No.

Drainage or pus? No.

Lump or bulge? Oh God. Yes. Check.

Swelling? Unless the Chicken McNuggets from Saturday night took a course from my mouth to my shoulder, I certainly goddamn hope this monstrous lump is due to swelling. Check.

Tenderness to touch? Ouch. Yes. Check.

Visible deformity? Hm. Visible deformity. Well, yes. It is visible and it certainly isn’t normal. Check.

POP-UP: ! If you have a new visible deformity of your shoulder please seek prompt medical attention !

Gah! No, WebMD. No, you don’t. There is a reason why I am in my kitchen drinking wine and eating brownies while naked and dripping water from the shower onto the hardwood floors rather than seeking prompt medical attention. Your livelihood depends on people like me. So no, don’t you tell me to seek prompt medical attention. Call 911 and tell the operator that I am calling because WebMD told me to? I don’t like unintentional comedy that much.

I continued.

Another pop-up.

On which side of your body is your visible deformity located?

I paused. I had already clicked on the left back shoulder of the futuristic androgynous model to begin this whole process. I wondered if this was intended as some kind of deeper question. But seeing that “Everywhere” or “My brain” were not options, I closed the pop-up unanswered.

And I was left with my list of conditions.

WebMD considers a “deformity” related to a dislocated or separated shoulder. Cellulitis, hematoma, or Crohn’s disease – which is when parts of your digestive tract get swollen and symptoms often include belly pain and diarrhea - were also possible reasons for My Little Tumor. To list a few.

I realized then the real problem with WebMD.

And it’s not as simple a diagnosis as mistakenly telling people that shoulder bumps indicate ulcers. 

In a doctor’s office, you get to sit, increasingly nervous, on the padded bed with the crinkly white paper that shifts whenever you move your exposed ass due to the uncomfortable robes that I’m still fairly convinced is the medical equivalent of a good joke. When the doctor finally arrives to tell you what you may or may not have, you are just grateful to hear that No, The spots you have been seeing lately are not because of Mad Cow Disease and you happily stroll away to the pharmacy to pick up your inhaler and go along your way. (Oh? I haven’t told you about the time when I went to the doctor’s office this past summer because of a possible sinus infection and desperately wanted antibiotics and my prude of a doctor prescribed me an inhaler that I then took out later that night and sprayed into my Frozen RumRunners at Cactus for fun?)
 

Cactus 2007, May You Rest In Peace and May The Corporation That Tore You Down Burn In Hell

WebMD, on the other hand, has too much competition for my attention.

I could almost believe WebMD if I really wanted to. I mean, I am just a girl with no MD in her name. Given enough time, I could start justifying its suggestions. “Well, now that I think about it, my stomach did hurt a little bit today after I ate that Chipotle burrito bowl at lunch. And my hands havebeen feeling cold lately and sure, it’s winter, but maybe it’s because my blood is weak and hema-ed and not flowing properly.”

But how much time does a girl have to contemplate such matters when she catches a glimpse of these Betsey Johnsons on a website up in the background?

 

All of a sudden, I don’t really give too much of a damn about anything other than where the hell is my credit card and can I get these delivered to me in the next 5 minutes?

And it hits me. As I stand there, with brownie on my fingers and maroon wine tint on my lips, I realize that all WebMD has done is distract me with visible deformities and questionable digestive tract systems while the cause for the bump on my shoulder remains unattended and I purchase pretty things that outweigh my concerns for my health and well-being.

So.

If you have any ideas what this bump might be, please share. There’s only so long that a girl can feel like her insides and outsides are ugly without starting to cry in public and whimper, “It hurts, in here.” And point to her heart. Then her head. Then the lump on her shoulder.

I’ll leave you the shoes in my will.

M.I.A. (Like The Singer, But Not As Sri Lankan) January 3, 2008

It was most likely accumulated angst from not writing on this blog for eight straight days that led me to ask my boyfriend for blog topic suggestions as we got naked together last night.
    
I wasn’t entirely serious. But 2008 thus far? Pillow Talk: 0. Hi, I’m Awkward: 1.
     
I don’t tend to run out of things to say. 99% of me is composed of spirited opinions and the remaining 99% is an inaptitude at ever shutting the trap to said spirited opinions (Ed. note: I quit math once I arrived at college and learned that my AP credits passed me out of all necessary math requirements. I now aim for a higher truth where numbers don’t need to make sense as long as they make a point). Me and Speechless rarely find ourselves locking lips.
   
And last week, I arrived at my office, ready to write about my four crazy days of family fun. (Ed. note: Shhh. It’s slow around my office. No judging. Also? By “slow around my office,” I mean to say that it’s not slow at all. But I also mean to say that I don’t give a shit.)
    
I arrived at my office, ready to quote Tolstoy’s classic that all happy families are alike and that all unhappy families are unhappy in their own ways. And substitute unhappy with crazy. And leave you to marvel at my wittiness (Ed. note: Jay Slash Kay).
    
I arrived at my office, ready to drivel of the Wii (Wee!) my boyfriend had secretly bought while I was gone. The Wii he set up before he left for his own family fun because he knew that I returned to Chicago before him and he didn’t want me to feel too lonely. Or break the Wii in frustrated spite were I left to set it up by myself.
      
I opened the world wide web to do all this.
   
My homepage loaded. 
       
And I immediately felt sickened. Crushed. Disgusted.
 
The sadness of the photographs. The sheer panic and horrific chaos of the aftermath. The realization that every time - every single time - I saw Benazir Bhutto in the news, I marveled at her braveness and her daring. And thought, Honestly, how has this woman managed to stay alive even this long?
   
I knew a part of the sick I felt was knowing that, in the end, she didn’t. We all saw her life as a ticking bomb and the ticking bomb won.
     
Yet, it’s The Holidays (Presents!) and The New Year (Champagne!). And I am far too many awful things, but a killjoy is not one. Misery may love company, but I love when people are happy. This world needs more happy.
    
So during these past eight days of (unintended) mournful and contemplative thinking, my fingers stayed silent. Eight days that saw me dig myself into a deep hole of why the fuck is this world so full of shit? The shovels were endless. TV led to clips of the Kenyan riots. Internet pages led to articles about the Iowa primary and a sense of familiar irritation at the hackneyed finger-pointing. Emails, text messages and phone calls from friends led to sad news on a more personal level and my heart hurting for their aches. Gossip rags led to me wanting to stab the shit out of my eyes every time - every single time - I saw Jamie Lynn Spears; or, even worse, a politician’s position on anti-abortion referencing Jamie Lynn Spears. 
      
When it rains, it pours, yes? 
     
Even something like compassion is taken to an unhealthy level when felt by me (Ed. note: Yet another example of my ability to practice frightening extremes. But the consistency at which I carry myself!). I loved every inch of my four day weekend from December 28 to January 1. I enjoyed every second (I can remember) of a drunkenly hilarious (hilariously drunken?) New Years Eve that was spent with my boyfriend and friends. But me at Idle - in that absence of flurries created by activities and distractions - felt troubled and disheartened. Maybe even hopeless. Hopeless because I’m really two people in one. One constant polarity between Natural Optimist and Depressed Cynic.
     
Eventually, storms end. And maybe it’s because of the gray it immediately follows or because of the world’s need for overall balance, but the sun always seems to shine the brightest after a storm.
   
My boyfriend - ever the good sport - suggested I write about Chinese restaurants and poker. If I had let him continue, he may have also suggested soggy Italian beef sandwiches ordered from sidewalk huts while standing in foot-high snow wearing peep toe stilettos; limo drivers met in gas stations who begged us to stay while they fetched their limos; triple-fisting champagne bottles; or meeting for “brunch” with friends on New Years Day at 4:30 p.m.
 
In other words, 24 Going On “It’s No Longer You Just Having Fun, You Have A Legitimate Problem” remains the frontrunner of possible titles for my obligatory post about New Years Eve. Should I decide to be obligatory.
       
He also suggested that I just be honest. Which is what makes him my better half. This and the Wii.
        
I can only write what’s on my mind. Rather than go M.I.A., I need to remember that to write whatever is on my mind is why I began this blog in the first place. Perhaps this needs to be my goal for 2008. Since, you know, it would be very topical of me to tie in some resolutions to this post as well.
 
Happy New Year, everyone. I genuinely hope that all of you had an amazing holiday and a fucking brilliant jump start to the new year.
 
Here’s to 2008. You are already planning on practicing hell on earth come February 29th, right? Because it’s a day that doesn’t technically exist 75% of Time. Which technically means you can do whatever you want and it doesn’t count. I’m sure if I had taken math classes in college, I’d have no trouble backing this theory with a very complicated math formula but since I did not, you’ll simply have to take my word.

Involuntary Family Lock-In (A Christmas Edition) December 25, 2007

Today has, among other things, forced me to reconsider the resurrection of my cigarette addiction.
 
A cigarette addiction that I supposedly quit for good a while back. 
  
My body (or is it my brain? my soul?) is playing the role of enabler too damn well. Today, on this fourth day of nonstop family fun, it wants a cigarette - nay, needs a cigarette (Ed. note: Nay even?). The tenuous grasp I hold on sanity begs for some assistance to keep it at its tenuous best.
 
I haven’t actually smoked anything yet. I made that mistake once before.
 
But tomorrow, when I am back in Chicago, I return to my world of solitude, silence, and availability to all imaginable vices. Is there a good chance that a cigarette may somehow find its way into my right hand to keep company the nth drink in my left? (This is a rhetorical question.) My boyfriend and my friends and anyone else that has developed a conscience when it comes to the future livelihoods of their lungs will disapprove. But a girl needs to recover after four continuous days of we’ll have you sleep four in a room because there are 12 of us here and isn’t it fun to all be in one house together like this for the holidays? Four continuous days of kin who normally remain a hop, a skip, and 400 miles away. I plan to start with some shots of tequila and see where that leads.
 
All this while I blog about the holiday weekend of course.
 
Merry Christmas! I hear my name being called. And questions of where I could possibly have been for the last twenty minutes. Time again for me to learn what other part of my body used to look thinner, daughter, did it not while simultaneously having my hands yanked from my body to hold yet anther plate of food that is being forced into them. Life with family is fun that way. 
 
Happy birthday, Baby Jesus.
 
Update:Two people (or the same person) stumbled upon my blog today using the search terms: ”bills gamblin hall las vegas hookers?” and “flight attendants” “mile high”. Ho ho ho, indeed, yes?

This Is A Post About Hulk Hogan December 20, 2007

But first? It’s a post about sulking for no goddamn good reason.
  
Because this morning I am drowning in a sea of ennui that is interrupted only by momentary bouts of guilt and annoyance.
   
Guilt because there really is no goddamn good reason for this feeling of blah. Guilt because it’s the holiday season and everyone is supposed to be so! full! of! cheer!
 
And annoyance? Annoyance because I am that girl always expected to be on. (And if one more person asks me What’s wrong! Grinch steal your spirit? I may have to cap a bitch’s ass.)
   
The girl always energetic and comic and alive. The one that attends work functions and starts the laughs and the jokes and the slightly inappropriate conversations. The one that never says no to fun, who actively begins the rounds of shots and the dancing and the making friends with strangers.
  
I like being that girl. But at 24, I finally understand that no one can always be on.
 
I used to force that girl if I didn’t feel her. The omnipresence of expectations was hard to ignore. And people-pleasing is one of my Achilles’ Heels (because each of my multiple personalities is allowed one, yes?). So I gave the consistent big smiles and the eternal playful demeanor. I would take one deep breath before entering a party or bar or club or lounge and understand that once I walked in and heard Look who’s here - Now the party starts! it was my cue to plunge into My Act. Everyone had their roles to fill. Sia was the moody bitch. Teddy and Carlos were the fabulous gays. Elly was the adorable ditz. And I was the party girl that never said no. The one with the Laughter, the Cheer, the Never Down In Her Dumps. The one who said Sure Why Not to snorting adderall off of Adam Grabowski’s marble kitchen counter while intermittently shooting Grey Goose four hours before our 9:00 a.m. 12-person senior honors seminar because, really, why the hell not.
 
When allowed brief sojourns of time alone, I hid. Like so many things tended to become in my life, I had created another exercise in extremes. When indoors and alone, I holed up. I happily sat in bed for hours, watching seasons and seasons of various TV shows on DVD (Ed. note: Or what I also refer to as one of God’s greatest gifts to man - there is no room for argument here). I silenced calls. I ordered in food. I? Became I, Recluse.
 
But I, Balance? No.
 
I met my ugly collision at the end of my senior year in college, two halves of me pulled in two very opposite ends for too long. And I began to learn that I needed a net to catch me for those times in between the proverbial feasts and the proverbial famines. Because let’s be honest. I wasn’t going to be giving up the feasts, proverbial or not. 
 
People who give me minimal the first time I meet them bait me. It could be my insatiable hunger for challenges or some version of self-loathing manifesting itself by seeking what I can’t be in someone else. But I think it’s pure admiration. An appreciation for someone who doesn’t feel they need to be all Flash and Dazzle right away. That can be comfortable letting the truth of who they are trickle out rather than flood.
 
To be myself is to be the girl who talks not-soft, talks not-slow, jokes inappropriate, and embraces the crazy; an overall bundle of energy and ferocity. But I can’t always be that girl; I don’t always want to be that girl, not even to fulfill people’s expectations. And that’s difficult for me to remember sometimes. I’m the oldest daughter of parents who moved to this country to give their future procreates a better life. The fundamental lesson to live my life to fulfill the expectations of others was embroidered onto my onesie.
 
So today, this morning, I wallow in a sea of ennui. I lack a valid explanation or excuse. And I feel brief bouts of guilty annoyance because I am the girl always expected to be on.
 
But until I feel like that girl again, I’ll sulk. I’ll answer Meh when people ask me how I am. And I’ll keep this video up on my monitor all day, until seeing Militia (Militia!) and Helgaaaaa introduce themselves doesn’t incite fucking non-stop giggling. I seriously cannot fucking wait for these modern day American Gladiators.
 
From blah to giddy. Such is the force of Hulk Hogan, I guess, brother. (Ed. note: See. This post really was about him.)