20 posts back
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| Dan Abnormal's Journal 20 posts back |
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so wednesday night. it was ... i'm not sure if there's a word for what wednesday night was. i've tried to describe it using many different words, and none of them really seem to fit. but really, when does one simple word encapsulate a revelatory experience like a repressed 25-year-old homo's first trip to a gay bar? wait ... "revelatory"! that's it! despite my nattering whines for deb to turn her car around as soon as we left her apartment parking lot, we made it there by 9:15 and got a window table. this turned out to be counterproductive, as i was around the corner from the entrance and bar, and therefore unable to see anything that was going on or anyone who walked in. counterproductive but comforting, because, hey, no pressure. however, my vantage point was good enough for me to notice one very cute guy who meandered around the room before taking a nearby seat with a gaggle of lesbians he appeared to know. suzie showed up not long after the sushi and saki deb and i ordered were brought to our table. as i suspected, the girls' combined allure began to kick in, and soon two of the lesbians had joined our trio: one a sweet young girl named christina, and the other an boisterous older gal whose name was drowned out by the bar clatter. boisterous older gal was chomping on a cigar and complaining because the establishment asked her to put it out. then she began to nosh on our unwanted remaining sushi. (to be fair, she told us she was going to eat it before she dove right in.) cigars, raw fish, lesbians ... i wish i had a gay-joke-punchline generator. it was fun to hang out with a bunch of females, but, let's face it, that's been most of my life story so far. so i breathed a tiny sigh of relief when boisterous older gal left with most of her buddies, and i was only outnumbered three to one. christina and suzie then thought it would be a really good idea for me to leave the booth and order a drink at the bar, where a decent group of guys had assembled. i nervously laughed it off. i cringed at the thought of one of them merely coming over to our table, so me going over to them was completely out of the question. naturally, it was about that time when very cute guy appeared over deb's shoulder. he knew christina and decided to join our tiny soiree, which means i made up for lost saki. as a result, the ensuing half-hour or so of conversation is a little hazy. but it doesn't matter. the ending was the real grabber. heh heh heh. post a comment
eeeek. in the immortal words of alicia silverstone's clueless heroine, "i am, like, totally buggin'." tonight, i am visiting my first gay bar (new from fisher price!), and i am anticipating the experience with equal parts scary anticipation and reluctant excitement. OK, OK, it's actually not a gay bar. it's more like a regular bar that happens to throw a gay gathering every week. (but you gotta use the training wheels before you're ready for a 10-speed, right?) even so, i hear it attracts quite a crowd, yet it's simultaneously quite mellow, so i have no idea what to expect. hence the buggin'. i'm of two minds on pretty much everything. for example: what if someone comes up to talk to me? but what if no one comes up to talk to me? the first scenario would be cool and shit-my-pants terrifying. the second scenario would be a relief and a disappointment. i can't win, but i also can't lose, so i've just decided to go and be myself: a total nervous wreck. salud! deb-the-rugby-player is coming with, and suzie-with-the-too-cute-pixie-haircut from work is meeting us there, so at the very least, our table should be swarming with lesbians. OK, i need to think about something else. hmm. perhaps i'll provide an amusing anecdote. at the newspaper today, we ordered chinese for lunch, and there was a bawdy moment where the ladies made me read my fortune aloud with the words "... in bed" attached to the end for extra luck: "you are always welcome at any group gathering ... in bed." whoa whoa whoa. oh my god. wait. what if that fortune plays out tonight? i am back to, like, totally buggin'. 2 comments | post a comment
i used to see umpteen movies back in the day. when i was writing reviews for the college paper, i'd go several times a week. i miss it. i just realized i've seen a grand total of four movies so far this summer, and that's only if you count the early-may double-viewing of x2. if not, then finding nemo and 28 days later are all i've got. and, well, that's just kind of sad. speaking of sad, i never got to comment on the weekend, which was rather frowny. oh, it got off to a good start, and there was an upbeat ending, but the rancid meat of the sandwich was my tires getting spiked by construction nails i must've picked up unknowingly in ellicott city friday night. which means another $200 goes into my car. i suppose it was worth it, because there was much fun on friday night. i got to hang out with steph, which has been a rare event lately. she gave me my birthday presents: a cool-ass martini shaker and an import book of guitar chords to just about every damn song travis has ever released. they were great gift ideas because they reminded me of two of the many goals i'd set for this year: learning bartending and taking guitar lessons. true to form, i got distracted by other things and promptly forgot about them. however, in my defense, if i'm going to get distracted by something, i guess being gay is ... wait. have i spelled it out before? yep, i'm gay. oh, stop feigning shock. like i wasn't the last person to figure it out. ... something i, like, kinda needed to be distracted by. but then, even homos make time to mix drinks and learn chords. so there you go. yes indeed, i plan on having the best of both worlds. there was also a generous portion of merriment on sunday. john and zofie took me out to ellicott city for a belated birthday celebration, which involved some eating, some drinking, and lots of frowning on my part when i'd frequently catch my reflection in the storefront-windows of main street. i guess i've kinda been slacking on other goals as well. oh well. the summer's not over yet. post a comment
reason today was da bomb: it's the end of an era. for the first time in nearly two years, i bought new shoes. two pairs. and they're damn comfortable. the sandals, in particular, make me feel as if i'm walking on air. so my dad is getting his rockports back, my vans are getting fumigated, and the dilapidated old navy flip flops have been tossed in the trash. super. just super. reason today bombed: i just found out blur played the 9:30 club last week. my secretary is sooooo fucking fired. 2 comments | post a comment
what have i been up to lately? hmm. let's see. in the past month i ... ... talked to steph for the first time since the "realization" and that went really really really well despite it being kinda weird at first and i made some new friends and i met one of them one afternoon and i don't think he's my friend anymore because i don't think it went well but you never know but then again it has been like a month and i finished seasons 3 and 4 of buffy and autumn came to town for a wedding and we hung out one afternoon and kicked it old school and i saw steph for the first time since the "realization" over dinner at friday's and i had a chicken finger club which was totally a break from the chicken finger platter i usually get but not quite since they were still fingers of the chicken and my car kinda broke down and it turns out that there were like five things wrong with it like the broken flux capacitator (???) and the bill came to over $1K and it cleaned out my savings account and my plans to move out at the first of the year were kinda dashed and i turned 25 and it was totally horrible because not many people remembered but blake sent me like 32 e-cards that played horrible top 40 songs and i totally give him props for selecting "mambo no. 5" by lou bega as the music for one and writing "too bad you don't like monica, erica, rita, tina, sandra, mary, or jessica" in it and my mom said to get used to it because "birthdays are not all about you" even though i always thought birthdays were all about you and i got stuck eating pizza alone that night while my parents were having this huge fight and my mom said she was leaving my dad and i left the house to go driving and/or soul-searching for a few hours and got stuck in some monsoon and had to seek sanctuary inside a walmart but i found some cool discount DVD titles and i made some more new friends and i met them both and there was a huge catharsis and i felt pretty great about that and i still do and i promise to write about it in a future journal entry because it was so damn big ... ... and that's pretty much it. post a comment
i'm not really in a crappy mood right now. i just wanna see what the blurty mood-emoticon for crappy looks like. i'm mostly tired. this is the 18th consecutive day i've worked at one or both jobs. no days off for almost three weeks. of course, i can't really explain why i've been doing the workaholic thing lately without getting into a shitload of this-is-what-happened-ness, and i've got about 20 minutes left in my attention span tonight, and to update on everything that's been going down since my last entry would take an hour. at least. yeah, so maybe i'm a little crappy. some areas of life haven't exactly been going to plan lately. and yet some have. like, OK, not many have. there've been a couple of fan-fucking-tastic things that happened in the recent, while most of it's been rather poop-smeared. at this point, i was supposed to say, "but hey, it could be worse. i could be tracy williams" (which has actually been my mantra for years now [just kidding! love and sloppy kisses to T!]). but then i read that he's actually happened upon a bit of good fortune since the palm-slap-to-the-forehead events detailed in his july 10th entry. so it's like ... actually, i don't remember what it's like. i think i'm going to go to bed now. post a comment
earlier on instant messenger. this definitely wins quote of the day. no contest. ryan: so what are you doing saturday? special plans?
i feel kind of trapped. like i'm a superhero, and i've just discovered recently, say two months ago, that i have all these amazing powers that set me apart from all of the people i know, only there's no real crime for me to fight, and there's no justice league or anything for me to join, and suddenly i feel really alone, and i just pass the time in my fortress of solitude, looking out the window waiting for something to happen. what's that radiohead song that goes, "i wish it was the '60s; i wish we could be happy; i wish, i wish, i wish that something would happen"? "the bends"? definitely getting antsy. the big 25 is saturday. just four days from now. i think i would be worked up over it if i didn't have other stuff on my mind. i think i can handle 25. 25 seems like a bowel movement after cheese-and-bean taco night at la fiesta right now. the other stuff? major constipation. the painful, stomach-churning kind you get after eating an entire loaf of bread from the amish market. anxious. just really anxious. wait. another radiohead song just popped into my head. "just." the one that goes, "you do it to yourself, you do, and that's why it really hurts"? gee, i wonder why that is. 2 comments | post a comment
i've been watching a lot of buffy the vampire slayer as of late. i have the DVDs, and since memorial day, i've ravenously consumed the first three seasons and half of the fourth. i know, it's weird, but i think the reason i like the show is because it's quirky and unique and darkly funny. the reason i find it so compelling is the subtext and metaphor. there was a scene in an episode towards the end of the second season where buffy's mom finds out buffy is the slayer, and she's all like, "can't you just not be the slayer?" and damn, i was nearly moved to tears. of course, the sucky thing about ingesting so much buffy in so little time is how i constantly think about carrying some sort of weaponry when i'm out at night. oh well. there's a lot that could be said in addition to admitting the buffy addiction, but for now, i think i'm going to keep most of these thoughts in private entries and internal monologues. here, i'll just be vague and say that life is wonderful, excruciating, hectic, mellow, exciting, elliptical, hilarious and depressing. sometimes all at once. OK, usually all at once. it's kind of exhausting. i actually miss the somnambulance. however, there's no turning back now. i'll be 25 two weeks from today. where did the quarter-century go? half of the time, i feel like a pre-teen. of course, the other half, i feel about 40, so i guess it all averages out. 1 comment | post a comment
well, this is totally unexpected. tonight will be the first night in about a year and eight months when i won't be startled awake at some point in the middle of the night by the distinct sounds of graham the angry siberian dwarf hamster madly running on his wheel or trying to escape his habitrail by gnawing on the bars in a ravenous fervor. i found him curled up in a still, quiet ball in his food dish this evening when i got home from work. when damon passed away last summer (10 months ago to the day -- strange), i thought ahead to when graham would die, and i was pretty sure i wouldn't be too sad. where damon was sweet, tame and friendly, graham was sort of the sid vicious of the domestic-rodent world. but i'm pretty upset tonight. graham had personality, even if he was two ounces of pure, concentrated, furry evil. (and personality goes a long way, as long as you don't let the source of said personality bite you.) for example, two months ago, he was quite ill with some sort of random infection. i got him antibiotics from the vet, which allegedly made him better. me, i think the infection folded when it realized graham was just too mean to kill. graham, graham, graham. i'll miss ya, buddy. i can see you in that big pet store next to the pearly gates up in the sky, doing your damndest to wriggle and nip your way out of st. peter's grasp, and then pooping in his hand when he finally gets ahold of you. even in hamster heaven, may you continue to raise hell. 2 comments | post a comment
you find the coolest shit on the internet.
i don't have time to write anything very substantial. i've gotta get in the shower and then shop for materials to make barbara's survivor torch. her work party is monday, which is sooner than i had expected. speaking of "sooner than i had expected" ... well, before something bad happens, i just wanted to note that this was a pretty damn good week. i'll say nothing more for fear of jinxing it. but the non-gender-specific person responsible for the pretty-damn-goodness knows who he/she is. and, um, yeah. it would be ungentlemanly of me to elaborate. we'll see what happens next. stay tuned. hehehe. oh. and i lost 5 lbs. i rock. quote of the day: give me your work address, his IM, a phone card, a disguise kit and some diet pepsi, and i'll solve your problem. blake, hatching a plan. and i can't even explain the twisted genius of said plan. it's too incredibly smart and unbelievable for even my honors-univerisity-in-maryland-expanded mind to grasp. post a comment
oh fuck. i think i'm in for it big-time. i might've lost my birth certificate. my mom gave it to me monday morning to use as payroll ID with the new job under explicit instructions to not lose it. and guess what i did. i lost it. well, i guess i didn't really "lose" it. i actually just have no idea what happened to it. i forgot to go to payroll monday, so i swear i never took it out of my bag. i found my social security card in my nightstand tonight, so that eliminates the need for the birth certificate, but it still doesn't explain where the hell it is. hmm. this double-job thing is pretty tiring. i work at one place morning through afternoon, then i leave and go to the other until the evening, then i come home, work out, veg for about an hour, and then go to bed. i hope the extreme exhaustion i've felt so far this week is merely an adjustment period. if not, i'm in for a looong summer. today at the capital, the dayside production crew threw honey a "surprise" birthday party (i.e., she knew it was coming, but she wasn't allowed to look as we set it up). i know it sounds hokey, but damn, these people are just so nice and fun to be around. it really makes all the difference. we had oodles of atkins-approved food (honey's on the diet): turkey, seven-layer dip, liverwurst, vegetable and fruit platters, stuffed mushrooms. and i made grilled salmon, which everybody seemed to inhale. next week, we're having another "surprise" party for barbara's birthday. i think i'm going to make her a survivor torch for shits and giggles. listening to the new radiohead. interesting, but it's not leaping out of the stereo the way most of the other albums did. then again, i've heard it compared to OK computer the most by reviewers, and it took me a few years to warm up to OK computer. (sorry, i'm a bends man.) maybe it's a headphones album. i should devote a future entry to discussing it and blur's think tank. i'm backlogged on music. post a comment
i figured it'd be cool to just conclude tonight with some random thoughts i had today written in the style of larry king's horrific USA today columns. so without further ado ... item: weight watchers. i think now that certain other issues are in order, it's a good time to get in shape. and this time, i mean it. it's not gonna be like all those other times i said i meant it. like, i really mean it this time. really really. and not in a i-say-i-really-mean-it-but-i-really-don't-m item: friendly persuasion. today in the capital parking lot alone, two people i didn't know said hello to me. add that to the four people i didn't know who said hi to me on friday in the office, and that's six people total i don't know who've greeted me as i passed them by. pretty weird. item: shut the fuck up, bitch! speaking of the new office, the woman at the ad desk about 20 feet away from me has been driving me up the wall merely by answering her phone. every 15 minutes, i hear, "capital advertising, meg speaking. *gasps for air* how can i help you?" her vocal cadence and the way she affects her words, i swear it's just like the switchboard operator from office space: "corporate accounts receivable, nina speaking. just a moment." item: tori tori tori! noel suggested i give the tori amos album little earthquakes a spin. so i did. i know it sounds corny, but it was very strange, very cathartic, very moving. these songs i used to listen to frequently during my first year of college or so just kind of suddenly clicked: "she's been everybody else's girl, maybe one day she'll be her own." or "sit on a chair and be good now, and become all they told you." or "sometimes i hear my voice, and it's been here, silent all these years." or "when you gonna love you as much as i do?" i would sing these lines along with the song, but they didn't really mean anything to me. and now they encapsulate almost 25 years in a verse. how unexpected. item: isn't that random? repeating in my head today, at least until meg started answering her damn phone, was the voice of patricia arquette exclaiming "i'm not a cracker!" in a high-pitched baby voice from the movie flirting with disaster. explain that one for me. at least the weekend got off to a good start. it rained all day saturday, which fucked everything up. argh. i was supposed to go see a performance of shakespeare in the park with zofie and john, but the downpour led to it being canceled. so with half a saturday left, i valiantly tried to do what i was supposed to spend sunday doing -- a majority of sunday was to involve editing and tagging a health journal for my non-capital job -- so i could make up the play on sunday evening. but it was not to be. the health journal was heaps larger than it looked, and half of our client's files were corrupted, so i actually had to go into work to fix the problem. so i missed romeo & juliet. if anyone wants to go with me this coming-up weekend, let me know. also, missy "mousedemeanor" elliott died on saturday night. pretty sad. not as depressing as when damon the diabetic daredevil hamster died last summer, but pretty upsetting nonetheless, and it kind of put me in a funk for the remainder of the weekend. i made her a coffin out of a check box and cotton balls. i buried her late sunday in the backyard somewhere near damon. it was a quiet service. no one was saved. i think missy had been sick for a while. our vet neighbor said it was probably cancer and nothing could be done. so what is it with me and ill animals? damon dies of diabetes; duncan, the runt of his litter, lasted five post-purchase days last fall before going to that big hamster wheel in the sky (i never figured that one out); and graham, damon's brother, is unbelievably still alive and biting after a brush last month with some sort of infection that made him look like the elephant hamster. i think that when graham dies, i won't be doing the rodent thing anymore. but i kinda sorta want a ferret. i'm afraid that just by buying it, the poor thing's doomsday clock will start ticking. today is the first day of my two-job embargo. i do the capital from morning to afternoon, and the non-capital from afternoon to night. if today is any indication, it's going to be exhausting summer, but i think it'll be tremendously rewarding in the long run. one cool thing that happened i forgot to address in previous journal entries: the guy i contacted from the puppy web site wrote me last week. his name is nick. i like nick, as i had a feeling i would; he seems like an interesting fellow. however, i am worried that he will think i am an uninteresting fellow. and a creepy fellow and a weird fellow to boot. so we'll see where this goes. friday in a word: wheeeeeeeeeeeeee! first full shift at the newspaper. and, like, wow. it's just completely refreshing and invigorating to work in a place where people appear to genuinely like each other (well, for the most part, anyways) and love what they do (again, for the most part). the workload seems decent. it's advertising, so i guess, deep in my heart, i'd rather be doing something else (i always do), but the people and the environment make all the difference. and these people are impossibly cool. the rogue's gallery is as follows. barbara is the head of our advertising department. she has sent in two audition tapes for survivor, and has asked for my help in creating a fresh and catchy idea for the third. she's also the one who hired me. put those two things together, and i think she's terrific automatically. honey is my dayside supervisor. she's crusty, but not at all in an unappealing way. her breath smells like coffee and cigarettes, which should stink but really doesn't. she's a middle-aged mom but listens to natalie merchant and nirvana all day; i dislike both musical acts but adore that she listens to them. barb and tina are fellow ad assistants and sit at the two desks behind me. they're both friendly and happy and funny. barb is a sweet-natured, soft-spoken southern-type. tina is more business-like, yet somehow chirpier, and looks like a character from a john waters movie (which i mean in a good way). suzanne is the nightside supervisor, and sarah and amanda are her two ad assistants. suzanne is honey's sister, and she has the same folksy, no-bullshit charm. sarah and amanda are both girls with whom i can see myself going out for a beer downtown after work. (too bad, then, that i don't work nightside.) plus, sarah and amanda remind me of people i worked with on my college newspaper. the physical resemblances are pretty uncanny, actually. and i don't know everybody's names after one day, but i'd also like to mention the bubbly british ad-proofer, who resembles the doris roberts from everybody loves raymond spliced with my aunt ree, and the polite, dark-haired and seemingly-texan ad rep, who patted me on the back after my first ad was done (she drew a smiley face and wrote "great job!!" on the proof) and reminds me of joan collins with vaguely asian features. the friday-night weather was so lovely that zofie, john and i dined on the rooftop of cacoa lane, which, if memory serves, we haven't done since the night of the ghost tour last summer. (barf.) zofie and i wanted cigarettes while we waited for john to meet us there, so we rock-paper-scissored to see who would go down the uneven stone steps and across the street to this bar where a we knew a creaky old cigarette machine resided. of course, i lost. once inside the bar, a guy was already standing at the cigarette machine, trying to get it to take his money, as the couple sitting at the nearest table offered cheerleading. ("almost ... almost ... almost ... OOOHHHHHH!") and then i suddenly remembered from the last time zofie and i needed a cigarette-fix in ellicott city: this cigarette machine is tempermental and evil. the guy finally finessed his last dollar in, grabbed his smokes and locomoted, and then i stepped up to the plate. it took a lot of teasing and false starts. i had to slide the money in just so it would get the spinning mechanism warmed up, then pull the money out. but after a good seven minutes or so of all this slot-play, i got all my bills in, yanked on the knob and scored my marlboros. booyah. woman of the nearby couple: wow. the cigarettes were kinda stale, so they were hardly worth the trouble. but dinner was typically delicious, and i got a little blitzed on several rounds of amaretto sours, then nearly fell asleep in the car on the way back to john and zofie's. too bad about that, because there were several memorable lines during the dinner conversation i wanted to remember, as i really need to resurrect quote of the day. mmm. time for bed, i think. tomorrow, it hopefully won't rain, as i am trudging back to ellicott city for an outdoor performance of romeo & juliet. huzzah! listening to rufus wainwright's self-titled for the first time in a while. "but i feel it's a long way down ..." well, here it is. my last day full-time at my current job. i thought i'd be doing backflips and bouncing off the walls. or at least strutting carelessly around the office in flip-flops and my button that says "#1 employee." but no. i'm not. it's actually kind of sad. which is strange, because i can't say that i ever really liked this job at all. it's kinda like this lite/oldies radio station my officemate plays. it's the same songs everyday, just in a different order: "midnight confession," "crimson and clover," something by fleetwood mac, something by the rolling stones, "crocodile rock," something by the beatles, "walk away renee." coming to this office nearly every weekday for the past 17 months was the same. i knew what to expect, i knew what my day would be like. i'd show up, edit some copy, design some journals, get sternly corrected once or twice by my supervisor and subsequently feel momentarily stupid and/or humiliated, ship off some important package, and go home. it was a routine, a predictable playlist, and i never thought i'd say so, but it was damn comforting in its blandness. now, everything appears to be up in the air. which is a challenge for me, mostly because the future is, in my mind, a fucking scary place. especially now. i'm dealing with these sudden and unexpected changes in my personal and professional selves. but what can i do? i was talking to dave the other night, and he said something i wrote down in my handy-dandy notebook: "people who take chances don't look back and say, 'damn, i wish i'd have taken that chance,' because they did take that chance. people who don't will always wonder." my parents are huge motivators for me here, but not because they are encouraging me in any way. i just look at them and think, wow, they never took any chances in their lives, and look at how miserable they are now. predictably, they're pretty unhappy about this new job thing. despite my paycheck from my new part-time job covering all my monthly bills (and then some), and despite me supplementing my income by staying at my current job on a reduced basis, my dad is pissing and moaning that he's going to have to get an evening job of his own so he can support my ass. my mom worries frenetically about everything, and this job situation is no exception. one of the things i hear frequently is how i'm not the son they raised. they mean it as a putdown. i take it as a compliment. in other current events ... i had a cookout two weekends ago. it was OK, i guess. nothing too special, but not quite a disaster either. there were some people who came who i was happy to see. there were some people i wanted to be there who couldn't come. there were some people who were supposed to come who just didn't show up. there were some people who i didn't expect to show up who did. and there was at least one person who came who i never thought i'd see again. (and yes, i'm talking about you, john.) overall, it was kinda disappointing. but that's my general reaction to parties i throw: disappointment. i spend the whole day obsessing about food and cleaning and setting up and whether my guests will actually attend, and by the time the party starts, i'm cranky and irritable and tired, and then RSVP-confirmed invitees decide to flake, i realize i overspent on provisions, the assembled revelers break into weird cliques, etc. perhaps one of the real problems is that i set myself up to get disappointed in people when i should be used to it by now; i.e., why am i upset that so-and-so didn't come through when he/she's never done much to make me think he/she would actually come through? so i need to work on that. the other thing about the party that was, um, uninspiring ... hmm, i dunno. i've had some moments lately that have made me feel very emotional and naive and vulnerable, which is completely unlike the apathy and cynicism and self-deprecation that have become my crutches ever since those formative teen years. they've been a nice pseudo-therapy for me. but i would hate to think that those whom i truly respect are being falsely sincere and sympathetic in consoling me when they're present during these moments. yeah, i would really not be down with that. let's see. what else? oh yeah. kind of a biggie: i quit my job. well, not quit-quit. more like, i reduced my involvement. i got a job at the capital that i start this week. it's part-time, so i will still be picking up hours at my current place of employment to make ends meet. until, that is, i can get a job at a bookstore or coffeshop or bar or something and and quit for good. i could quit for good now, since the newspaper job, despite being only 27 hours a week, will cover all my bills and then some. and part of me would sooo like to. but i gotta look at the big picture: this boy ain't gonna be a man until he leaves the nursery, so to speak. i need a place of my own where i can do the things i want to do. i'm a couple years late on that, according to the university of chicago (see below). so i'm looking to be apartmentized by the new year. i IMed michelle's adam's friend jim. i wrote him kind of an epic; i'm actually worried i blabbed too much. but he wasn't there at the time. i waited until he was away because i didn't know him and i fear rejection. he replied when i wasn't on IM saying that he wants to talk to me, which was like, whew. the sucky thing is, i don't think we've been online at the same times yet, so that still needs to happen. maybe i shouldn't say this, but he wrote something very nice in his journal about my IM that ... well, it made me sob like a schoolgirl whose barbie has just been decapitated by the recess bullies. i also bought some credits for the puppy-owners web site, and i sent a few people i saw on there little notes saying hi. i don't know if i'll hear back from any of them. i hope i do. especially the dog-person i originally contacted (unsuccessfully, i think). he seems like he'd be a really great source of comfort and companionship during the strange time it's going to take to get my puppy to fetch. i know, i know ... i'm an absentee journaler. so there's this song i've been listening to lately: sarah mclachlan's "sweet surrender." i think i was IMing blake, who who was talking about her, and the song just kind of popped in my head. within a few moments, i was looking up the lyrics on the internet, and wow. it doesn't mean much yeah. so maybe you should read between the lines there. it's been too long since i've seriously updated this sucker. a lot has happened. and when i say "a lot," well, this time i actually mean it. i've surprised myself, i've surprised others, and others have surprised me. i guess i've played it mostly safe, but i feel like i've been taking some big risks. and regardless of how much i'm putting on the line, life sorta feels like it's beginning to pay off. kinda like a movie that goes nowhere for an obscene amount of time, and then there's an ending that makes sense out all the meandering. (and the crowd exits mumbling, "what the fuck was that?") so i guess i should recap some of the big things that have happened in the past couple months. um. now i'm nervous. i guess the huge news is that i got a puppy around mid-april. i think i knew i always wanted a puppy, ever since i was a little kid. and especially for the last eight months or so, i've been really trying to make an appointment with the animal shelter and just go ahead and pick one. but, you know, for me to be someone who wants a puppy (even though i'm totally sure the cat-person/dog-person deal is up to biology) is just flat-out wrong in my parents' eyes, as my parents are obviously very devout cat people. it's terrifying to be a dog-person when you know the cat-persons you live with will be so damn unhappy, they'll throw your ass on the street. so i guess that's why it took me so long to get a puppy. and now that i have this puppy, it's just like, wow. this puppy is just the coolest pet ever. i just have to train it and it'll be soo much cooler. it's strange how this puppy has affected even the minutiae of my being. like, clothes are more comfortable, the colors look brighter, and the air is fresher. but for a short time, it was a bumpy ride. i told zofie i might get a puppy not long before i got one. she was really happy for me, which was nice and comforting, mostly because zofie and i were kind of on the outs because i think i let my whole wanting-a-puppy baggage affect my friendship with her (long story, and totally dumb on my part). but as soon as i went home and actually considered getting a puppy, i started to question whether or not i had the right idea. it kind of made me tense and nauseous. but i think that these are probably feelings most new puppy-owners go through. i dunno. i didn't have any friends who own puppies with whom to consult. so, the ensuing week, i started looking for people just like me, people who own puppies -- maybe even people who own full-blown dogs. you know, for training tips and whatnot. i found a nice web site where i could meet fellow puppy-owners, and i contacted one but never heard back. then, i was talking to michelle on IM, and i told her about my puppy, and it was kind of weird, because IM is not the place to reveal you're a new puppy-owner. she and i made a date and went out to a french restaurant to discuss my new puppy. she is very supportive and proud of me, and she referred me to jim, one of adam's best friends, who, as i understand, has a dog himself at least part of the time. i dunno, i'm kind of a chickenshit, so i couldn't bring myself to contact jim. but then i found an internet community for people who have dogs of all kinds. and soon, i'm talking to some great guys who also own puppies (it's not as creepy as it sounds, trust me), which is great because i don't feel so alone anymore. so then ... well, i'm kind of getting too involved in the retelling of this whole puppy scenario. and i guess it merits a grand retelling, but i dunno. i'm tired, and i don't really want to get into it in such depth. i have a puppy. big whoop. apparently everyone knew i would get a puppy someday (except, of course, me, thanks). but i would like to get all full house-tinkly-synth-lesson-learning-music and say that there have been some people in my life lately without whom i probably would've gone nuts. it's a frustrating thing to buy a puppy when you're almost 25 years old, and these guys are just tops. (ahem.) chris: we're both dog-people from very strict cat-people families. but thanks to you, i know my puppy will really come into his own one day. red: you have so many dogs, and you love them all, and that's great. keep 'em healthy, and they'll put on quite a show. you always seem to bring home the trophies, so you're doing something right. doc: i know i just got a puppy, but i can honestly say you are the best vet ever. i can't thank you enough for your concern over his general well-being and grooming. and michael: what can i say? you love my puppy as if he is your own. thanks for being so nice to him and giving him all puppy treats. one day, i hope you can sit him. i really want to tell steph about my puppy, but i'm absolutely scared to. and i can't really put my finger on why. she is my best friend. she has been for as long as i can remember. i guess i'm worried she won't like my puppy. oh well. everything will turn out OK, i hope. i envision a near-future in which she and i will take my puppy to the park to chase frisbees. i haven't seen steph in a few weeks, so maybe this coming-up weekend would be a nice time to catch up. my puppy would really like that, i think. so. too much puppy in the journal right now. i bet people who read this are thinking i'm gonna turn into the kind of guy who fixates over his puppy and ends up looking like him, digging up bones and humping legs non-stop. please don't worry, guys. i'm still the same old me. i just have a puppy now. and that puppy has really been warm and welcome addition to what used to be a frail and empty life. i think i'll save the other updates for an entry to be written soon. additionally, i think i need a hug. see requiem for a dream, the totally scary and disturbing movie about those strung-out smack addicts? know that scene where jennifer connelly is going through withdrawal and kneeling with her face submerged into a half-filled bathtub? remember when she screams underwater and the noise she makes is like a momentary cure from all the fucked-up shit that's going down in her head? that's me right now. |
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