pathetic

You know, it doesn't matter how old I get and how much I evolve - getting stood up by so-called "friends" never seems to hurt any less. This weekend brought a new level of disappointment when an old friend my husband and I haven't seen in a really long time didn't call or show up after the last thing that we said to one another earlier that day was "Okay, I'm driving up there now. I'm going to pick up my girlfriend , and we'll meet up as soon as I do."

Another similar instance involved my so-called "best" friend who is back home from NY for a week, and who called me before any of her other friends to tell me she's coming into town because she needed a ride from the bus station, but then ignored my calls for the entire weekend while partying with these "other" friends. What am I, some sort of social cripple? I like parties. I like meeting new people, but she purposely makes excuses to not invite me and to avoid me when she hangs out with these people.

Whatever. It's just embarrassing to find myself in such a vulnerable, needy state. I shouldn't care. All I do when I am around people is innumerate their flaws in my mind and smirk with satisfaction. I guess it just eats me that I've been deprived of the opportunity to do it this weekend. It would have been nice to see our dear old friend interact with his white trash girlfriend who is really just messing with his head. Likewise, it would have been great to see my ditsy "BFF" vie for the attention and approval of her other friends. The times I have seen her outside of the private clique consisting of her and me, she behaved herself in a much more reserved, rather dull fashion. With me she is boisterous, witty and scathingly funny. I guess her maddening need for acceptance drives her into the midsts of these mediocre groups of adolescents where she isn't pressured to think and express herself. I guess being friends with someone like me is exhausting. Because I hate so much about myself, I hate it all even more in others. Actually, I just really hate others in general, so maybe it's all for the better that we got stood up anyway. Instead of going out and wasting money, my husband and I bonded and frolicked by ourselves. We went to brunch, we did mundane house things, and we indulged in carnal activities. We played with our cats, we watched a great Parker Posie film ("The House of Yes"), and laughed and laughed and laughed. I guess this is growing up and having a life. Why else did I get married? When you find truly great company, someone who makes you feel at ease no matter what else is happening, you begin to realize that losing other people only hurts your pride and ego, not really you.

Or so I keep telling myself.

dreams

I had a dream last night that Muslim terrorists attacked a cruise ship on which I was celebrating some fancy occasion with a lot of random people I have known in life. I was also with little children, which I don't believe were mine, but were under my care. In any case, they rushed in on the celebration and surrounded everyone and loudly pronounced that in just a few moments everyone would go to Allah. One of the terrorists, with a pirate-like head wrap, rather than a turban, ran toward me and grabbed my arm, yelling some angry unintelligible nonsense at me, but I tried to talk to him and explain to him that because I am not an American, I should be spared. I begged with him to spare me and the children and I guess it worked, because next thing I remembered, I was in a hotel-like room. There was noise and chaos outside the doors, and I kept the lights off, not to give our presence away. I was laying down on the floor, urging the children to do the same. I was worried that I didn't know where my husband was. Both of my cats were there too, and they were running around the room as if nothing was wrong. Then suddenly he came - the terrorist that spared my life. He was angry, but seemed tired from all the slaughter and marauding he was just engaged in. Without hesitation, I stabbed him in the neck with a blue Bic pen multiple times, but he just wouldn't die. He would stagger about, bleeding a shockingly small amount of blood from the multiple wounds I inflicted on him. I stabbed him several more times in the neck, and then in the chest and back, and I think finally it worked. He collapsed. I was frustrated - I felt myself exerting the force necessary to slay him, I felt the resistance of his muscles to the relatively dull pen. I don't remember what happened next because I soon woke up. I was in a cold sweat. It was disturbing in a way I can't quite put a word to. My determination to kill this man was frighteningly intense.

Surely I am going insane.

Chapter 1

I can hardly believe it - here I am in my brand new, old house, with my young, older husband, with my new but tired old job, writing the same old nonsense in a brand new blog. This house looks so different from how it used to be when my parents lived here - it's actually pretty and clean, but it's still small and awkward, and practically reeks of poverty. Only poor people's houses have closets built in as incongruous afterthoughts, and have brassy yellow doorknobs on all the cardboard doors. I know they are cardboard because I accidentally kicked a hole through the upstairs bathroom door while trying to break in to extract my then hysterical husband. He isn't usually hysterical, so that day was especially scary, giving me superhuman powers which allowed me to kick that hole in the door. It's just about patched now, but it's still impressive and big - the size of a small watermelon.
I wish I could kick a hole the size of a watermelon through my so-called "manager's" thick head - a young woman who refers to sneaky underhanded people as "vouchers" (see:vultures), has been told by many that she is "condensed" (see:condescending) - what a bright girl - and writes me and my other co-workers barely intelligible notes about our shortcomings as her employees and reads them out loud to us, and sets up meetings on days off where she asks us questions like "where do you see yourself in five years?" and "how can you apply what we do at this job toward those goals and dreams?". We work at a hair salon, by the way, as receptionists, and unless I plan on entering a lot of old ladies' names into a computerized appointment book - names like Cookie, Bea, Dotty, Bev, Loretta, and Rochelle - I can't for the life of me fathom how this stupid job can ever help me on my quest to rule the world with my sagely wisdom and stunning good looks. I do meet a lot of people - some of them rich, some of them just plain crazy but pretending to be rich - and as soon as I can exploit this boundless source of networking contacts, I will do so with all my might. Maybe not. They're all mostly ancient anyway - that's the trouble with working at a salon that's been around for so long and is so damn reputable. All the damn people who started going there in the last millennium still go, though their husbands are dead, and they shuffle in with their walkers and oxygen tanks, and complain of colon prolapses. I feel sad for them and humor them with kind words like "honey", "darling", and "dear", especially "dear". It's become an annoying habit of mine, to call people "dear", but in certain contexts it works.

Fuck this job anyway. I am counting the days until school starts. I never thought I would ever think that, or say that out loud, or write it out loud in a public forum that no one yet reads... Either way I am consumed with the drive to get on TV or the radio, which is why I successfully applied to broadcasting school. I had to audition and everything, which a hammy person like me just lives for. By hammy I don't mean porky, as in lardy, as in junky-trunked. I mean brilliant and perfect in every way, the kind of person a camera adores and an audience hates for being so flawless. And by flawless I mean with crooked teeth, random chin hairs, and a noticeably Semitic nose which awkwardly sits on a slim, elegant face with big, animated blue eyes with lush eyelashes and pouty lips. Strangely enough, it works, but my appearance has nonetheless given me a plethora of insecurities and neuroses. What better way to overcome them than by parading myself for the world to see, all the while spewing brain-stew of a similar nature.

This is just my warm-up. I've been thinking a lot, thinking too much, mentally articulating my philosophies on life. My ideas are great, but they are for a world not so far gone. But they still exist, and I intend to record them. Maybe one day someone will dig up my writings and pore over them like we do over ancient texts today. Oh how I pity that fool.