Love is Everything

It has been a few months since I last posted anything. Did you miss me? Probably not, but that's okay. I've been busy. I have been focusing on a new position at work, performing in a new show, and getting started in a new relationship. Oh yes, kittens, bitch got a boyfriend.

He is the most wonderful guy. He makes me feel in ways that I never thought possible, and that's huge because I have felt a lot. A plethora of dreams are coming true and he seems to adore me despite my steady supply of craziness. He even seems to like it, particularly when I do impressions of dogs. He's a keeper.

The new position at work is not so sexy. My manager is a controlling snatch and everyone is afraid of her. I'm not, and that's why she doesn't like me very much. She likes people that do what she says, and I like to do what I say. What I say isn't wrong, it's just not what she says. I'm also not a very good butt kisser, and she likes to have employees lined up behind her to give full anal lappings.

There is also news in the home state. My brother has impregnated his wife and the embryo seems to be growing just fine. My parents have reacted with reserved emotion and are looking for new property to build a house on. I just don't know if I'm ready to be an aunt.

Well, I'm going to get back to watching "Cops." Last I looked up, an officer from Portland resembling Reba McEntire was threatening to arrest an eight-year-old black kid for disassembling a neighbor's bike. I wonder what the outcome was. Cheerio!

Recycle

I was thinking today about whether or not life's ultimate sum is determined by the aggregate of its moments. Moments, as we know them, are special. Moments we remember. But there are entire days out there that I cannot remember, so if moments are continuous, and many are forgotten, then does my life really exist?

It’s sort of like saying you’re only as funny as your last joke. Does the future erase the past, does the past determine the future, or are we responsible for balancing the two? And what’s the point of trying to balance everything if you forget most of the past and you can’t predict the future? I reason that we’re supposed to accept that we can control some of it and surrender the rest to chance. But if it’s your life then why can't you be in full control?

I guess that’s where many people turn to religion…to find some sort of meaning in the complexities and pursuit of life. I don’t really have that luxury. Well, I guess I could have it if I wanted it, but it’s really not part of my socialization. Religion feels like an easy way out to me. It’s sort of an excuse, a place where you can go to embrace your own weaknesses and feel like you can go to heaven because of them. Reborn Christianity is very popular in prison. It’s weird to me.

Perhaps I don’t admire religion because I’ve never seen anything particularly positive come from it, although I have seen its negative impacts. I just think that good people will be good people and that bad people will be bad people, and that religion is just a means to that end in one way or another if we look at it from a religious standpoint. Religion is flexible. It can be manipulated. And Churches are really, really smart businesses. They sell eternity.

Churches do a lot of good things, too. Really. But we could probably do those good things without them.

I’m not really good at revealing this side of me. I know that there are floods of arguments on both sides, and passionate ones at that, but none are really right and none are really wrong. The truth is that this isn't even the beginning of my thoughts on the subject.

It's just a thought. It’s just a moment. I won't forget it now that I've blogged it.

New Year Bunny

I feel damn good about the New Year. I don't know what happened, but over my holiday break in Kansas (Happy Birthday, Jesus!) I have felt emotionally settled. In control. More aware of myself and the people around me. It's not that I've changed, but that different elements have risen to the surface, balancing out my more vulnerable qualities. Yay!

For the first time ever, I don't feel the immediate urge to be in a relationship. For the first time in a long while, my goals seem attainable. I have smiled more. I feel like life is funny again. I have even laughed alone (is that weird?). At work, I upgraded a woman's bank accounts at work to earn her a higher annual percentage yield.

Incidentally, last month, I made a pilgrimage to the doctor's office because I was experiencing a continual vocal problem which was putting a strain on my performances. I feared that I had damaged my chords and that my career would be over before it had really even begun. I would be sort of like Julie Andrews without the...well, without the Julie Andrews. It was intoxicatingly dramatic and a little bit scary. In a weird way, my vocal duress made me feel special and pretty.

Nevertheless, the throat specialist (who, by the way, made me snort spray that made my nose numb so he could jam a two foot tube up [and down] my nasal passages and into my vocal cords...just shove it my mouth, dammit!) said that my pipes are in tremendous shape. He said that I had probably strained a muscle in my neck, and that it perhaps wasn't healing because I was carrying a large amount of stress (apparently, young homosexuals tend to carry a lot of stress in their neck). Thus, he asked, "Is there anything in your life that has changed recently that could contribute to an inordinate amount of stress? Do you think you might be stressed out?"

No one had ever asked me that. I started listing off the changes in my life and realized that yes, indeed, I had been carrying around an assload of emotional baggage unneccesarily. So I released. I pulled out the tampon. I took an expository dump. Everything's not my fault.

And I feel great. Thanks, Doc. Happy New Year.

Sodieting

Right now, I'm "enjoying" a twenty fluid ounce bottle of Diet Pepsi with Vanilla instead of the four-hundred or so chocolates I usually eat in the afternoon. It is surprisingly delicious despite its lack of palpable nourishment. It gives the impression of well-being, for I'm getting energy from the caffeine and gas from the carbonation, so physically it feels the same as eating healthy. It's the best diet ever.

Some folks are taken aback by the way diet soda tastes, but they are just missing the key to true diet soda enjoyment. The secret to making diet soda taste yummy is to avoid eating other sweet foods, or any food at all for that matter. Self-deprivation makes it taste like ambrosia. On an empty stomach, it's particularly delectable because it burns on the way down, much like a shot of whiskey (making it more appealing for alcoholics, former alcoholics, and alcoholics in training). It's sort of like treating yourself to a fudgy creamy dessert brownie with sprinkles, except it comes in a bottle and contains none of those threatening calories. It's spillable and it makes you pee. It stains your teeth and leaves a funny coating on your tongue. It makes you feel like you're in a commercial. It’s available in a can or a bottle. It's an addicting beverage experience.

I am on this diet because the holidays have made my ass rotund. Well, I guess the holidays didn't do it, but the fact that I ate my way through them did. Abundant food plus my characteristic lack of self-control equals big ass disease. I have one pair of pants in particular that keeps making my underwear insert itself into my crack. It feels like someone is trying to violently floss my crack with a scarf. The reality is that my crack hasn't been fed lately so there couldn't possibly be anything to clean out.

One unexpected bonus to dieting is that drinking is soooo much more rewarding. There's no food in the intestines to get in the way of a stiff buzz, and you can drink all you want and still feel thin the next morning (or after you get back to work from your lunch break). One must be careful, though, because drinking on an empty digestive system puts one at higher risk of obtaining a hangover, but when the buzz arrives so much more quickly there's less of a need to binge drink. So you drink less, feel drunker, and maintain the compulsory thinness factor.

However, the true risk of drinking while dieting is gorging oneself while in a drunken stupor. Many an inebriated eve I have balanced myself on the refrigerator door, probing the fridge for something fatty and inappropriate to chow. One of my favorite drunkie treats is cold General Tso's Chicken. Another is cottage cheese. I have even been known to visit a grocery store during this state, unraveling vast opportunities for no-no eating.

The best, however, is the food you're not supposed to eat...like the kind that belongs to your roommate, spouse, sibling, etc. Food crime is the shit, and I should definitely be arrested. You can always use the excuse, "I'm sorry...I know you were saving that...but I was soooo drunk..." It doesn't even have to taste good. It's like watching your obese neighbors have oral sex. You get to step into an intimate part of their lives. Instead of the food going inside them as intended, it goes inside you. It's almost like adultery. Adultery of the pantry. Patradultery.

It's fucking fantastic.

Too much drama

I was held up at work yesterday. No, not the kind of hold up that delays dinner plans, but the kind that involves a man, a gun, a note, and a resulting felony. To his request, I calmly replied, “Okay,” and proceeded to stuff about five thousand dollars worth of bills into the bag that he had thoughtfully provided for my convenience. After he patiently demanded that I “hurry up” three different times, he zipped up what money I had already placed in his bag and split. Upon his departure, I hit the silent alarm, told my manager that I had been robbed, and locked up my drawers. It was that simple. Or at least it seemed so.

After the episode, I had to talk to the police on the phone to give a full description of the robber, fill out some standard bank forms, and get interviewed by an FBI agent and issue an official “statement” about the occurrence. During this whirlwind of dramatic activity, it was weird that I seemed wholly unaffected by the interaction with this man, that he had threatened my life for a mere few thousand bucks and I was laughing about the way he looked like a Pepsi delivery man. I didn’t know whether to give him money or ask how the new Pepsi Edge is selling. After all, no one noticed that I was getting robbed. In fact, a coworker of mine actually asked if I had any two-dollar bills as I was piling the money into the assailant’s bag and he didn’t get the clue. I was that tremendous.

I have also been surprised about the generous amount of moral support I have gotten from this ordeal. The manager ordered lunch for everyone and sent me home early. The district manager stopped by to tell me how well I had handled the situation. Last night, employee assistance called me at home to see if they could do anything to help. At work today, I was adorned with flowers and told to go home after only three hours. Okay, I won’t argue with that…I’m just surprised that I’ve been so laissez-faire about it. I tend to sway on the dramatic side of events, but with this, I’m in general more agitated by the lackluster Christmas Muzak we play at work.

However, I can’t stop thinking about the desperation that must exist in this felon’s life. There is a certain lack of hope one must have in choosing to commit such a crime, for it is not something that one would carelessly jump into. Indeed, it’s a choice that would likely include lots of consideration and premeditation before actually pursuing. I mean, has he done this before? How much did he get before? Did I make it too easy for him? Was I the thinnest person he had robbed? Does he have kids? Had I resisted handing over the money, would he have shot me? I want a full sociological profile. I don’t care if he’s caught or if the money is confiscated, but I want to know his name. Did his dad beat him? Was his mom a hussy? Maybe he needs help. Perhaps he’ll get the assistance he needs with the stolen cash, or maybe he’ll just buy crack and hire out prostitutes. I want this information…

Oh, well. I hope he really needed the money. I just wonder if he knows he held up a queer.

Honestly

I am struggling a little bit in Seattle. With the newness gone, I am now left with everyday life less the excitement of a new adventure. I miss my friends terribly. I miss what feeling of community I used to have, even if it was a community that I was frequently frustrated by. I felt like there was something wrong with me in Minneapolis, a falsely conspicuous history that was going to haunt me until I accepted its accusations or moved. I participated in the latter and chose to escape the wearisome patterns that colored my life.

It is important to admit that many positive things have happened to me since I arrived here. I got a call last weekend from a theater producer who wants me to audition for his show in Portland. I have two willing pianists for a cabaret show. I’ve enjoyed critical success. People have noticed me. I have a show lined up for next spring. I feel good about my acting career.

However, the negative things – namely in the personal sphere – feel so much heavier here. I’m still derailed by men. I met a guy last weekend who I felt something for. Deep within my chest arose a feeling of possibility that I haven’t experienced for well over a year...since the last guy I sincerely dated. Contrary to all expectations, he hasn’t called. I didn’t bother getting his number because I was so confident that his request for mine guaranteed an interaction. I may just be acting stupidly...he could still call, but I can’t be optimistic anymore. I don’t have the energy or the track record to maintain that it’s likely.

Over Thanksgiving, I called my parents to wish them a happy holiday. When my dad put mom on the phone, she could hardly speak to me through her tears. The reality that I wasn’t there was tremendously and unexpectedly painful for her. After all, my brother just got married to a woman whom she feels no connection with, and her younger son moved across country for no apparent reason and was unable to make it home. These memories are cutting.

I feel a certain obligation to be closer to home. My family is not a large one; it consists only of those mentioned in the previous paragraph. No extended family, period. No grandchildren for my parents, no nieces or nephews for me. As much as it pains me to admit, if something happened to either of my parents – or to my brother for that matter – I would feel completely orphaned. In many ways, I regret that I am not closer to them, that I’m incapable of investing the time that some are able to. It makes me feel selfish that I cannot be a regular part of their lives. My relationship with them is subject to airfare. Perhaps my ability to move thousands of miles away stems from my closeted adolescent urge to get the hell out of the house and never look back. Maybe I should rethink this credo.

The point here is I’ve fallen a bit off track. I need to do some analysis and consider what I should do with my life. I have potential here. I have potential anywhere. I have a reasonable and desirable life in Minneapolis. I have family in Kansas (where I’m sure as hell not moving, of course). I have a huge credit card bill for the flight home for Christmas.

One good thing about living in Seattle is that grocery stores sell wine, and there are three markets within a few blocks of my apartment. I know what I’m doing tonight.

Kenny

Oh, butthole. I’m one tired bitch after a crazy day at the office, and to add salt to injury one of my Kenneth Cole shoes split wide open like a dilating cow. Of course, I didn’t notice that my shoe was dead until a meeting at the end of the evening, where I nellied out and squealed, “Eeeek! Kenneth is wounded!” People laughed, but I was embarrassed by my revealing moment of materialism.

Now that I’m home, I think the people that live upstairs are fucking. A heterosexual couple in their mid-fifties, they’re bouncing off the walls like gerbils on angel dust. I’ve always wanted to be thrown about my living room in the throws of ecstasy, but I guess I’ll leave that fantasy to the geriatric sex fiends above me.

Once again I’ve successfully averted going to the gym in exchange for an evening in front of the television. This isn’t a good habit. Not only is my brain being turned to tapioca, but my ass is losing some quality. My tits are smaller, too, and my snug fitting work pants are angrily suffocating my waist. Nevertheless, I enjoy making bitchy comments to my roommate and generating an opinion about The Apprentice. I think that Donald’s female minion, Caroline, is a tampon. She just reminds other people to be assholes. What use is that? Shit, pay me to sit around and make bitchy comments…I already do it for free.

Tampony women aside, I feel that I have learned something from The Apprentice tonight. I need to have a plan. I’m never going to have success without a plan, unless I’m really lucky. And I haven’t been that lucky lately considering my batting average with men and designer shoes. I need to make promises to myself and keep them, but I need to be committed to those promises. Otherwise, I’m just lying to myself...and I’ll just get mad. At myself. Then I won’t talk to myself anymore.

No one wants that.

Distraction

Sorry, kids, that I've been silent lately. I've simply been distracted. I can't seem to put my finger on exactly what I've been distracted with, for I have no idea. The blogs I've started writing have been interrupted by other thoughts, so I have four or five pending entries that I haven't had the patience to revise. This theme has poured over into my life in general. For example, last night I got up to go to bed, and five minutes later I found myself making a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies. On Tuesday, I got up from the couch to go to the gym and ended up making my first baked potato.

Perhaps I haven't been distracted. Maybe I've just been eating.