FUCK

FUCK
no dryer
no wattage
cockroach!
bedbugs - no exit
hell is other insects
even the washing machine is making menacing moves

Perspective

me: yeah. ok i gotta go take care of this stupid work shit
11:01 AM if thats the only time we can see the apt, i will do what i have to and be there.
see you then
Brynna: word up...tell your bosses you're having womans troubles
they won't touch that with a 10 ft pole
11:03 AM me: they wont really care. mostly im upset because ive been waiting for months to go to this abs class that i can never go to cuz of kickball. but i know thats petty.
Brynna: i mean you don't have to come.
i just want to see it asap
cause these things go fast
11:04 AM me: yeah id rather have a place to sleep than rock-hard abs to sleep on.
i think.
Brynna: haha
priorities
no one likes homeless people
even rock hard ones
me: haha. that might not be true.
11:05 AM Brynna: i'm wondering if necessary if we could ras to extend our lease on a month to month basis for september...but that's a later discussion
me: thats not a bad idea.
but then we'd have to think about rm vs. no rm.
maybe we could have one of the peeps kaufman's been pushing on us, if they still need a place to crash.
11:06 AM ok i should do this
oh i hate. this. something. work, maybe?
Brynna: haha
sorry
me: haha its ok. im wearing your old / my new dress, which i like
and im not pregnant
11:07 AM Brynna: good...and what?
me: ps i was thinking that while we are cleaning this weekend, we should take home pregnancy tests
just so we can be like,well, we may have bedbugs, but at least we're not pregnant
Brynna: hahaha
ah perspective
me: :D precisely
Brynna: we could take HIV tests too
11:08 AM me: haha we'll be the happiest bedbuggees ever
Brynna: i got bitten again last night so i don't know how happy i am
little fuckers

Bedbugs, Living life between paranoia of annihilation and probably not a problem

From: Sara
To: Mom
Subject: Re: Article for review
Sent: Tue Jun 5 14:46
Priority: Normal


Hey Parents,

I'm home right now. I still don't have my cell phone (or anyone's). The fumigators are coming today, so I'm home right now just trying to clean my room out. I can't decide if I should do the full clean out or not. I haven't seen any bedbugs in my room to this point - I don't think. I haven't seen any strange or telltale bites on me. If I were to go ahead and clean as required under bedbug protocol, I'd have to wash everything EVERYTHING.

That means washing all my clothes, drycleaning the rugs the comforters, in theory the Peruvian tapestry on my wall, everything. I could, instead, kind of half-it. Wash all my clothes that have been in the laundry basket / on my floor; dryclean my comforters and curtains; get plastic covers for my mattress, box spring and pillows (which in theory I should then keep on them for 18 months; and maybe throw out the rug and some of my big decorative pillows. To make things worse, our dryer doesn't work, so all the washing would have to be done at the laundromat. Since I feel like it'd be impossible / I'm not going to do the full-out clean, it almost seems pointless to spend all the effort, time and money to clean all my stuff;
but then I keep imagining some sneaky bedbug lying in wait in some fabric in my closet or in my wall or my bed justscheming and eventually it will spawn a colony and I will have to trash all my stuff. I don't know. What would you do?

I think I'm going to stop on my way to work at a Cingular store and see if they can get me all set up. Then I have to decide if, after all that, I can still dare to go to the gym for "lunch." Maybe I should just wait until tomorrow on that one. Oy. Who'da thunk (especially all this at once)?

Anyways, let me know your thoughts. Talk to you soon (hopefully).

xo,
sara.


She never responded.

there's just this cacophony of stimuli that doesn't amount to anything

Do you think it would take a draft to trigger full-blown rioting in the streets?

I'm sure that would change things dramatically. But it's hard to galvanize any kind of movement; there's just this cacophony of stimuli that doesn't amount to anything. In the 1960s, there was protest and music and this amazing force that shaped the policy of the country and society itself. It's not that the music was so much better or that the people were more motivated; it was just a moment in history when everything was aligned for that to be possible.

- Connor Oberst, Spin magazine, April 2007

The Anatomy of a "Personal Day"

Even in one’s darkest moments, there’s always “Project Runway.” I have a friend who could mitigate all life’s letdowns—particularly the overwhelming “abyss” of “crises” you know will be meaningless in a month’s time (others might know this as “college”. See also “high school.”)—by relating them to the freak-outs of the Season 1 cast of this fine Bravo series. I, too, have learned the healing ways of this method of therapy. There is one episode in particular that plays through my head on a nearly monthly loop. The wigged-out cast is charged with creating a collection that would account for the needs of a person living in the year 2055. As per usual, fragments of fabric and dysfunction fly, until bitch factor has reached full potential and a can-you-really-stand-here-and-claim-that-these-outfits-work-together-as-a-cohesive-COLLECTion collection materializes. But it's not about the outfits; it never is. It's about truth. And in this episode, The Truth came, as was not uncommon, channeled through the mouth of a one Jay McCaroll, who would later go onto be [SPOILER ALERT] the winner of Season 1. Asked to explain his outfit to the judges on the runway, thus spoke Jayathustra:


“This clear patch represents my girl’s vulnerability. You know, she’s in her twenties. You know, your twenties: you feel all vulnerable and crazy and oh my god! The world! Yeah, that’s what this patch is. To let The World in” He chuckles, flamboyantly yet demurely. The judges chuckle. We chuckle—wait, fuck, that’s us.


About once every two months, I take a personal day. They don’t start out that way. They’re not planned (they’re not part of my current entry-level job package). They usually begin as a task slated to be completed the night before. That doesn’t happen. Then the alarm doesn’t do its early-morning job—a tardy wake-up (already, bad thoughts are brimming: if your electronics are not performing their assigned functions, why should you?). “Well I obviously must complete this task NOW. Work can wait—it’s not like I owe them anything (except my daily earnings and key to survival, of course). Whatever, 'work' should understand that there are certain personal allowances." But you forgot to make coffee so you’re sluggish. It’s 10:15 and you haven’t left the house. Not even your sweet pimped-out hybrid BICYCLE can get you to work at 9:30. Fuck. (If only you’d gotten that Dr. Emmett Brown handlebar feature instead of the stupid bell). Now, especially with your persistent 15 to 30 minutes of tardiness per day, only one clear option remains: “Ahem, coughghghghghgghgh!, I don’t know what happened… I feel sick.” “Oh, what’s the matter?” Quick, scroll through your ailment vocabulary—why didn’t you think of this before you clicked “send”?! Ah, but lucky stars, it’s Friday, you can get away with a lot. African sleeping sickness? Croup? Stage 3 renal failure? “A fever.” (Bo-ring. But safe. You’re a liar, not an idiot.) “Coughhhh (a little extra phlegm for luck), I’m going to try to take this anti-inflammatory and see if I can make it in.” “Oh, no, you shouldn’t, not with a fever,” the reply begrudgingly comes—ok, maybe it’s sympathetic, but you’re a little guilt-ridden, so karmically, it sounds begrudging. “Well I’ll try, we’ll see.” Click. SIKE.

So now clearly it’s onto daytime TV. Oh Comedy Central and MTV, you never cease to amaze; Bravo and TBS, you can come along, too—I know I can always find “Scrubs” on one of you at any moment in time. You make an omelet, because fuck it, you CAN. Bliss ensues. All of a sudden, it’s mid-afternoon, the soaps are full-fledged and Oprah’s coming on. You start having unpleasant flashbacks to being seven-years-old, legitimately feverish, maybe vomiting, and definitely stuck with a bossy aunt in a potpourri-drenched (more like poop-pour-ew, hay-o) “den.” (Why a “den”? We’re not bears. We’re not hibernating for the winter. We’re watching “Maury Povich” with the heat hiked up to 84. At least call it a “lair,” you crazy dragon lady.) No thank you! Plus you are wasting this full day of free nothing.

So you size the place up, grab a labtop, a book, a pack of Clove cigarettes, gum, your does-it-really-need-to-be-this-skinny cell phone, and you’re out. Could life BE any sweeter? Again, as you’re not an idiot, you don’t forget to phone into work. In a groggy, carefully discombobulated voice, “Oh, hi, yes, I’ve been knocked out all day… [pause to prove how out of it you really are. This damn fever…] But no matter, I’ll be fine. [Pause #2 to perform your best sad-eyes-through-the-phone] Um. Yes, but I was wondering if you could send me that E-MAIL I was WORKing on? [Precocious pause] I just want to see if I can take care of anything while I’m stuck here. [innocent, yet groggy pause #4] Oh, thanks! Take care.” Click #2. Sucker.

Now that your schedule is completely clear, you can totally take care of all those errands you’ve been meaning to run. Then again, you don’t exactly have a good track record of Responsibility today; why start now? After all, you weren’t planning to have this time off, anyway, so you can procrastinate it to the weekend as initially scheduled. Check! Three Cloves and two chai lattes later (ew, like, totally skim milk, thanks. Just because I am eating your chocolate-dipped chocolate muffin with chocolate chips doesn’t mean I want to get fat, ok? I’m just on fake vacation, ok? Ugh, people), you are ready to roll out of your local yuppie shop. In order to clock a few minutes in good-personville, you obviously steer your aforementioned SWEET bike over to the neighborhood park, where you can laze in the sun with that Murakami that you made your friend, Adam, lend you last New Year’s but really has only served until now to prop up your temperamental alarm clock/radio (so you can see without straining too much just how late you are). An hour and a half later, your head now swimming with new voices (you are TOTALLY going to spend dinner describing each “exquisite” taste with textural detail)—not too mention a forehead tinged with sunburn in the shape of inverted book shade—you pack everything back into your smokin’ side-basket and pedal swiftly home. No no-work should keep you from your dinner plans. You hook your hip-hop into your bathroom speakers so you can groove while you shower. Clothes, make-up, blue Chucks tonight. “This weekend’s gonna be ball-aaa. I’m getting driizzzzie. [Note: this is how highly pop-cultured white tweenty-somethingers talk about their plans to kill the brain cells their parents paid thousands of dollars to amass.] I’m getting drunk tonight. It’s the weekend. Holler!

Ah, an ideal day for the tweenty-somethinger. Monday is going to suck. Oh well, there’s always the coffee-and-poop game.

Intro: How to Market Cleverness without Selling your Soul completely

10:58 AM me: so what profession banks on cleverness?
11:03 AM Brynna: um
comedy
and organized crime
11:04 AM me: hmm
my timing's not good enough for comedy
but organized crime...
11:05 AM i guess advertising's another one
Brynna: true
and lawyering
me: but that's basically organized crime anyways
11:06 AM Brynna: ha
true

maybe that's not all. maybe there's this book.
this book is--is, not is for--the tweenty-somethinger. no that's not a typo. we like low culture and lofty books. we grew up on simpsons, new kids on the block, hippie-turned-professional parents, Real World, AIM, gchat. we learned to read in books, but learned to play on computers. we can't imagine production without technology, of the instantaneous variety. authority is a myth belied by liberal arts universities and the steam-rolling democracy of blogs. we are in constant contact, and occasionally intense communication. we are figuring out if we want to connect to the world and how--we could always move 4000 miles away with our laptops and live in the woods like thoreau only to have our food delievered by peapod, our books by half.com, our friends and answers by google. we read Klosterman. we have time, liquor, lots of education--and jobs, which coopt our bodies and our schedules, but not our cynicism and cleverness. maybe this is the royal 'we.' we'll see.

Interlude: thursday.

the current time is i-hate-my-life o'clock. the weather is not-the-weekend-yet degrees fahrenheit (haha-sucker celcius). thank you for calling. goodbye.