Category — feelings

I’m getting ready to go to a movie screening downtown so I’m preparing myself mentally for the onslaught of film critics doing their Portland best to ignore the hell out of me. I’m going to wear orange and maybe bring a book to read aloud from in the lobby. Something really pretentious, too, like Roland Barthes or Diderot.

Anywho, first I wanted to thank EVERYONE who commented yesterday. You made me feel so much better. I’m a big baby. I KNOW IT. Your stories were fantastic and remind me to tell you about the one time at every job I’ve ever had where I got sick of it and started coming into work drunk and stealing things. This was usually the first day.

I’m going to write a longer post this afternoon when I get back from “working” (my job is hard). I plan on eating a whole pretzel and drinking a gigantic diet coke and then blowing up like a balloon from all the sodium.

In the meantime, why don’t you read my friend Megan’s blog Nestmaker? Really pretty things to look at AND the smart funny.

Remember how I am supposed to be Taking Journalism Seriously now? And maybe a part of Taking Journalism Seriously should entail me thinking about what I write on the internet before I do it? Yes, well, hm. Well.

I DID NOT DO THAT TODAY.

I won’t go into the details, but let’s just say I said something anecdotal about someone in jest in a comment on a blog and this comment put that blog in a postion where it could be possibly be sued. And also, maybe I get paid by the people who run this blog to write things for them sometimes.

Hahahaha.

Ha.

Oh, Kiala.

I’ve always been very careful to only malign myself on the internet and not name names and I can only blame the four Advil PMs I took last night along side two or eight glasses of red wine me. And knowing my psychology, I will most likely beat myself up for days, maybe years, about this even though, EVEN THOUGH, they were very nice about it and reassuring and everything and also even though Dane knew immediately what this would do to my anxiety - and please don’t get me wrong, no one should have to tiptoe around my fragile emotional state especially if it might cause them fiscal harm - and began the soothing process before the shame spiral could begin but I am extremely well practiced at freaking out over small things.

Let me give you an example. In the Eighth Grade, Brian Hernandez’s girlfriend Michelle found out that I had a burning secret crush on him and left me a note on my desk informing me that she and her friends were going to beat me up. Instead of sucking it up and facing the situation, I rallied my friends and a few older popular girls around me and word got out that no one was allowed to touch me. Which, oh my God, is exactly what I’m doing right now.

Damn you Psychology. Damn you to HELL.

Fine, then, fine. I did this stupid thing and it’s my fault and it’s not that big of a deal I guess and the rest of the world has moved on already.

Right?

Gah.

Anyway, The POOR, right? Who thinks the Poor are cylons? Discuss.

Now that I am doing film reviews for The Mercury on a semi-regular weekly basis, I suppose I need to begin Taking Journalism Seriously. Except I’ve never considered myself to be a journalist. And other than that year and a half in the Journalism Department at the University of Oregon, I’ve never really considered journalism as a career.

My grandmother, who payed my tuition and my rent and sometimes payed my tuition and rent even though I wasn’t enrolled in school per se, scoffed at the idea of my ever becoming what she referred to as a “reporter”. I was too shy and too scared to talk to people and I don’t follow through on things and I never answer my phone and how can a person who doesn’t answer her phone become a reporter?

And I thought, “She’s right. I’ll never be good at anything. I guess I’ll just eat lunch. Again.”

So I switched majors, read a lot of Edith Wharton at a lot of different universities and never graduated, probably because in order to receive my diploma I had to talk to someone behind a desk in an office and that - for reasons obvious only to myself and shut- ins - scares the shit out of me.

So here I am, fifteen years later, thirty thousand dollars in debt to various lending institutions located somewhere in the middle states, and beginning a career in journalism. I just can’t seem to do things in their correct linear order. It’s like I have to circle around and around something until I get dizzy and then sort of fall into it by accident like a five year old. I have the career arc of a mildly retarded child.

I know I’m being hard on myself but that is what I do. It makes me feel safe, like I have boundaries that keep me in one place. Forever.

So now that I’m committed to a life without defined precepts and thank God for email because I still will not answer the phone, I have to start “pitching stories” to “people behind desks in offices” who might “say no” to me and “send me spiralling into depression and shame and substance abuse”. I’m feeling a little daunted. And flummoxed. And other suffixes.

My new friend Melissa Lion is really good at pitching stories and also talking to people behind desks in offices so I’m just going to copy everything she does until it starts to feel natural for me. You know, like how people learn to have sex by watching porn or how deep sea fisherman learn to work with the rod and the reel by listening to Billy Joel songs. Like that, only with more whiskey.

I was looking through our pictures last night and I realized I’ve only got one picture of all of me and not just the upper half of me and I thought to myself, because I am extremely vain and shallow, “The internet needs to know I have a lower half and that this lower half is not made of chocolate and booze and peanut butter”.

So I took this picture…

And I resolve to have Dane take more pictures of all of me and not just parts of me. This is probably not important at all, but I know when I’m reading other blogs I want to know as much about that person as I possibly can without being arrested for maybe making a skin suit out of them after I get the lotion back from the basket.

In the sixth grade, during lunch period, I had no friends to eat with so I usually spent that hour in the library reading Ray Bradbury stories and trying desperately not to cry. Sixth grade was incredibly traumatic for me and this had everything to do with the introduction of P.E. and being naked in front of other girls and worse, wearing gym shorts that didn’t quite cover my chubby behind well enough and running in them uphill with a gang of twelve year old boys following me. I don’t know if you’ve ever met twelve year old boys but they are incredibly sensitive, especially when it comes to fat girls. Because I had missed lunch to read about space (no one is fat in space) I would stop on my way home at the 7-11 to buy a Hostess Cinnamon Roll and a Cherry Coke Slurpee. And Lemonheads. And a Snickers Bar (GOD MAKE IT STOP). Everyone went to the 7-11 after school, including Brian Watts, one of four Brians on whom I had developed a sad, humiliating crush and who was completely, justifiably, and vocally embarrassed by the way I would stare at him from behind mouthfuls and mouthfuls of cinnamon roll.

You know how Gulf War soldiers and people in plane crashes develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? Well, I have this - specifically during the eleven blocks that make up the walk from our apartment to Whole Foods and back. I’m no longer chubby and thank God no one can make me wear those shorts ever again, but I still hold my breath any time more than two people are walking behind me. And I KNOW this is ridiculous (kind of, although have you heard the way people talk about other people?) and who cares what strangers think about my ass and I really doubt they’re thinking anything at all about my ass. In fact, I am probably the only person in the world thinking about my ass except Dane who thinks about it constantly and at really inappropriate times like funerals and when small children are around. But now you are all thinking about my ass and I have no one to blame but myself and I’m okay with that because if I’ve ever believed in something - and I’ve never really believed in anything except maybe that Mars was once filled with canals frequented by a tall, golden people who were actually humans but became Martians after living there for a couple of months - it’s personal responsiblity.

Now please stop thinking about my ass. Thank you.

We are constantly apologizing for living in the Pearl District - to our friends, to people we meet at parties, to the small Guatemalan woman we pay $1.50 a day to clean our filthy underthings and give Dane his evening glass of warmed milk and lingering goodnight kiss. To oh, just everyone.

But I have to tell you, I love this apartment. I have spent the past 15 years living in charming, historic, tiny northwest period apartments and you know what they don’t have?

TECHNOLOGY.

The very fact that we don’t have to plug the computer, tv, dvr, Xbox, and toaster all into the one outlet located conveniently in the hallway makes me want to perform several immodest acts on our fuse box. There is at least one three pronged (THREE. PRONGS.) outlet on every single wall of our home. I cannot tell you the peace of mind this gives us.

As if that’s not enough to make me happy, we have a dishwasher AND a microwave. I had never known this was possible. In fact, up until 5 months ago, I thought if one were to co-exist with the other, it would create a wormhole. Or time would run sideways and we’d all be standing next to ourselves in line at the grocery store. And that can’t happen, because I have a very small personal space area and if anyone, even parallel me, breaches my boundaries, I get all sweaty and I lose time and maybe I might cut someone. And I do not want to cut parallel me. Much.

And finally, the best thing about this apartment is our porter. His name is Lazlo and he’s from Puerto Rico and he brings us our comic books we have ordered from the internet. And for this, I almost believe there is a God.

We’re going to see Dan Kennedy tonight at Powells and I plan on touching him somehow. Inappropriately, if at all possible. On the penis, is what I’m trying to say.

I think the best thing for me to do would be to sidle up to him and say, “I don’t know if you know, but I write a blog.” And then I assume he will want to read it immediately on his iPhone, at which point, I’ll just hang back casually sipping something like a latte or no, not a latte because that will give me coffee breath so maybe green tea or just, you know, whiskey straight from the bottle until he looks up from reading and gazes full into my face for about 5 minutes before he says, “I’m going to cover you in diamonds and whisk you away from all of this, this, dirt and poverty.”

And then Dane will cough politely from behind me and I will tell him, “You are now free to seek out Zooey Deschanel - GO WITH GOD.”

UPDATE: Dan Kennedy info for the illiterate elite…

Clicky

Ok, no not really.

But Dane is in Utah until later tonight so I’m watching some Jane Austen thing on OPB and catching up on ANTM (in this episode they are “putting a spotlight on homeless youth” with a high fashion spread in Not a Real Magazine Magazine) and I made this for dinner…

mmm…salmony.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the apartment was painted in pink glitter and decorated with unicorn bean bag chairs by the time he comes home.

Don’t judge me. DON’T YOU DARE JUDGE ME.

It’s nostalgia Tuesday!

Side note: Sy stole bought me a Beanie Baby Bully from Meier and Frank when we were oh, about 19 years old, and that is why she is my best friend to this day.