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[Mar. 9th, 2005|10:28 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | random taste day: Sunny Day Real Estate and the Black Keys | ] |
Okay, enough fancy shmancy live journal entry nonsense… Here’s my life in my good old rambling way.
Today I did absolutely nothing. I had big hopes. This was my first unplanned day off in a few weeks, and so I was going to use the time to job search / research future – I don’t know – life options. Did I really want to apply to teach in Japan? If not, what US cities might I want to live / work in? Do I want to teach at all, for that matter? The questions of the world were to be answered. Instead the following, nauseously common pattern unfolded: I woke up at 11pm after going to bed at around midnight. This alone is like a productivity death sentence. I bummed around for 3 hours. I made a breakfast of eggs, toast, strawberry shortcake (yum!), and coffee (mistake #2!). However delicious, for some reason drinking the coffee toasted me and I spent the rest of the day in some sort of frantic, nervous mind warp. I did this sort of primitive, interpretive, spastic, energy-burning dance later in the day to release the nervous anxiety I experienced when I realized I had forgotten my promise to make dinner (I ended up ordering pizza). Really, I shouldn’t be allowed to drink coffee. I also spent a forever lost chunk of the afternoon reading music recommendation lists on amazon.com, clicking on each album I didn’t recognize and listening to the provided song snippets. A career of envelope stuffing or filing might be better for me. Only after the Dietzels returned home from work and I was consumed with guilt when Dianne asked what I had done today did I finally spend some time examining the possibilities of teaching abroad (the verdict is still “ehh, ahh, um, seems cool… ohh, hmmm, I don’t know). Oh yeah, this was after I took a 4pm shower and spent 20 minutes picking out an outfit that I eventually changed and never left the house in… I need work. God, let me be useful. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 16th, 2005|07:00 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | a whole lot of The Flaming Lips | ] |
I ate authentic sushi for the first time today. It was delicious. More importantly, I ate wasabi for the first time today. It went something like this:
In my zeal to maintain public eating tact and etiquette at a local sushi bar, I shoved an entire glop of squid/sushi into my mouth when it became apparent that I wasn’t going to be able to bite the chewy mouthful of squid in half and I was either going to have to spit the partially-chewed food back onto my plate or go in for the kill. Little did I know that hiding between squid and tasty sticky rice was a smattering of the infamous Japanese spice.
When the wasabi hit the back of my throat I suddenly became aware of every inch of the inside of my head. I squeezed my eyelids closed to hold in my eyes and all of the other fluids located within, only to partial success, and I wondered briefly if eating something beyond one’s spice tolerance could kill. It felt as if my sinus cavity (cavities?) had ruptured. I expected blood to shoot out of my nose. Megan, my boss/lunch buddy, asked if I was okay, and I probably responded with some sort of “don’t worry about me” gibberish as I wept involuntarily. The sushi chef chuckled. Watching a wide-eyed, unsuspecting white girl gag on wasabi was probably a perk of the job. After a long, psychedelic moment I was fine, the only casualties being a few thousand brain cells. Despite the show, I was exceedingly proud of myself for having survived. :P |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 28th, 2005|11:39 pm] |
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Tonight the Dietzels went out for a romantic evening on the town. Not planning to return until tomorrow afternoon, they have left me to the house and to myself. With this opportunity to relax after trudging through an unusually long week of work, I had every intention of enjoying the night. I dragged some pillows and blankets, along with my old school bag full of magazines, books, notebooks and other potentially interesting things, upstairs and stationed myself on the floor of the living room. I popped my newly purchased Bright Eyes CD into the DVD/CD player and proceeded to leaf through fliers and free magazines that I picked up from the Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak. I was looking for things to accompany the long-promised letter I planned on sending to Stephanie in Marquette. I shuffled through the stack and systematically eliminated unpromising sources like the obsessive compulsive I am. The reject pile grew. I cracked a few of the magazines and passed over pictures and articles, all equally uninteresting. The CD froze up and I swore at the DVD player but didn’t move to fix it. Seconds later, it corrected itself. I stared at a picture of David Cross in an old issue of Resonance and he stared back. Discouraged, I abandoned Stephanie’s letter in favor of decoding the muddle of thoughts I’d been hauling around with me for the past few weeks which now seemed to be reducing my search to tedium. I scratched out a few lines of (always) unyielding poetry. Eventually the CD ended. I leaned back against the base of the couch and laid my head onto its cushions. I shut my eyes. The feeling reminded me of creeping drives between Harrison Township and the Rack during rush hour traffic—glazed eyes watching exhaust rise from lines of dingy, colorless cars idling impatiently. A slow wave of energy came, and I shivered but kept my eyes closed. I should keep trying to write. Otherwise, I could watch a movie. I could play another CD. I could read a book. I let the wave pass. The family cats, perched together atop the Lazy Boy, eyed me from across the room. I’d hate to see the look of apathy on my face. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 24th, 2005|10:00 pm] |
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Mmmmm... reality. Delicious. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 19th, 2005|10:48 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Portishead -- Dummy | ] |
Boy, do I really wish that I had something interesting to post in here. My life is just streaming thought. On the upside, I’m at a stage in life when lots of thinking needs to happen, and so I have time to ponder such questions as: Just what DO I want to do with my life? Where do I want to live? What sort of person do I want to be? Etc., etc., etc. On the downside, I’m like that friend that you get sick of because you hang out with them 24/7, only to myself. Due to this lack of relevant topics, I’ve lowered my journal entry standard from Response Inspiring to One Step Above Skimming Material.
For the last week I’ve been sick—phlegmy cough, chapped nose, etc.—but I finally ventured out today. I cajoled my sister into driving around with me while I ran errands. This was, of course, thrilling for her, I’m sure, as our ride was punctuated with passive bitching on worn-out topics and silence. She’d flip restlessly between radio stations and then I’d alternate between popping in mysterious, unlabeled cassette tapes and reinserting my CD player’s tape adaptor. Our destinations included State Farm, the Avondale School District administration building, and Tim Horton’s (for chocolate-dipped doughnuts and chocolate milk).
After I dropped Sara off at her apartment (and stayed to watch Underworld), I made a trip to Starbucks where I attempted to fill out what sections I could of the thousand-page substitute teaching application I pick up and read insightful articles about Buddhist monks in literature magazines. I also took to spying on other customers, like the portly, red-headed coffee server who took his lunch/dinner break at a nearby table (with his Olga’s Kitchen takeout bag situated like a shield between us), and the throngs of high school girls that came in (in packs, of course) to buy pristine, sugary drinks. Thanks to the article and the setting I was able to both reassure myself that I could, in fact, “do it”—get a teaching job—and also find the interesting in potentially mundane life. This feeling will last for a day and then disintegrate as I sleep. Or maybe it will roll over. We’ll see.
Who skimmed? Any provoked thoughts? I live off of feedback… |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 13th, 2005|06:20 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | The Killers -- Hot Fuss | ] |
Exciting event of the week (thus far...):
On Tuesday night I went out with a friend from work to see her fiancée’s band play at The Majestic in Detroit. I was ecstatic to have been invited out in the first place, and this tipped toward euphoria as the night progressed. The Majestic was by far the coolest bar I’ve ever been to down here, being a combination bowling alley/restaurant/intimate concert venue. The occupants of The Majestic were not normal bar fare (think spaghetti straps, cell phones, and sultry glances), but rather kids you might see at a coffee shop or thrift store. Tee-shirts and sneakers. More sideburns and careless hair than you could ever hope for. I was thrilled.
Megan’s fiancée plays in a band called In Arcadia, and she described their music as “screamo.” You can imagine what this sounded like. Aside from the fact that we were sitting directly in front of the “stage” (basically the instruments were set up on a rug at the front of the bar) and that I ended up having tunnel hearing for the rest of the night, I found this quite enjoyable. My entire body was vibrating from the ground up.
I would comment on the content of the music, but what I could actually hear quickly dropped to a muffled screech as the delicate, sound-sensing hairs in my ears began to wither and die. Also, the vocalists microphone didn’t seem to be working properly, so there was no deciphering lyrics. Most of the fun came through soaking up the action. The front bass player – looking more hippie than emo – was getting pretty into his playing, and considering that I was sitting about a foot away from him I was starting to get a little nervous. His guitar kept coming within what seemed like inches of my face.
I could also see the drummer fling sweat onto the window behind him (which peered out onto Woodward Ave.). Gross, and yet awesome. Hooray for live music. :) |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 7th, 2005|09:58 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | bewildered | ] |
| [ | music |
| | I want the new Green Day CD... | ] |
The Dietzels have a fairly long driveway that leads past their house to the garage behind it. I park my car by the garage. When I leave for work in the morning I have a hard time backing out straight and I tend to run over the neighbor’s lawn/sideswipe the branches of the neighbor’s bushes/nearly run into the neighbor’s house. Scott set up a trail of reflectors (shiny flowers atop tall metal stems) along the side of the driveway to help prevent this. Now, when I leave in the morning, I run over the trail of reflectors… |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 6th, 2005|10:02 pm] |
I made the obligatory trip to Somerset Mall yesterday. This is when I pretend that I'm rebelling against The Man but dress to standard in the socially neutral black, crew neck sweater and corduroy khaki pants and walk around the ritziest mall in town without buying anything. It was revealing as usual. Wednesday was a slow, slow day and the mall was empty besides the few men-in-suits-on-cell-phones and well-to-do, detached-from-reality high school couples shopping for god knows what, so I hit both sides of the mall. This means crossing 16 mile by way of the second floor Skywalk (watching cars as they miraculously emerge from beneath my feet and disappear down the manicured avenues of Troy) to move from the "South" half of Somerset to the "North" half. A three story mall to a two story mall, by way of an ingenuous, elevated, Jetsons' walkway...
Some malls sell sex. This mall sells art. Or at least maybe sophisticated sex. The showcases of stores like Banana Republic and Ralph Lauren are almost exotic in their shameless and untouchable declaration of wealth. Who needs to show skin when you can layer in hundred dollar garments? Why I make this pilgrimage to Somerset, I don't fully understand. Maybe I like to torture myself. Maybe I like to submerge myself in the beautiful lives of seemingly beautiful people. At any rate, I go empty-handed and I leave empty-handed. So why go? |
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| I'm a cheesepuff after all... |
[Jan. 3rd, 2005|08:35 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Bright Eyes -- letting off the happiness | ] |
The most exciting moments in my life are as follows:
1) I experienced a moment of personal defeat today when I realized that playing mix CDs with Modest Mouse and the Mars Volta in the back room at work doesn't make me cool, it just makes me weird. I had to suck it up, come to terms with the fact that I'm the only person that likes my music, and turn the radio dial back to 93.1 so that the other employees didn't resent me forever. A rather Prufrockian move, however, considering that nobody actually said anything about my initial music choice...
2) I sobbed like a baby yesterday after watching the final two episodes of Sex and the City. Chalk the Dietzels up on the list of people I can cry in front of (Scott had to run and get me a roll of toilet paper so I could stop my blubbering without missing the last 10 minutes). This was not an incident of tear-streaked, silent composure. Oh no. It was gaspy and breathy and ugly, and yet unavoidable. I don't know how to describe the connection I felt to the show without sounding like a cheesepuff, so I'll hold off. Anyway, hooray for Carrie Bradshaw and the unapologetic dreamers of the world! :) |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 30th, 2004|09:14 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  satisfied | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Various angry sounding things: Rage, Kittie, Sleater-Kinney | ] |
Well, the world of retail hasn't been that bad, considering that I've been working as a stock person and have thus had minimal contact with the general public. Strangely, I would call being isolated in the gray, cement-floored back room and obsessing over sizing and organizing lines and lines of clothes interesting. I always have something to do (the old stock person's been MIA for awhile now and everything's gone to hell) and I don't have to deal with crazy people. Compared to working on the sales floor I give it 3 and 1/2 stars. Too bad the job doesn't supply me with ANY stories to share online. A small price to pay, I think. I have instead had to occupy myself with various sensical and nonsensical musings and daydreams. These include my glorious rise to fame as an impassioned and revolutionary educator as well as extended fantasies involving Jake Gyllenhaal, who will be saving me from myself for the time being. In an effort to match the excitement of my external world with my internal world, I've committed myself to making regular visits to my sister and Barnes & Noble. If I can find the local music scene I'll just die with happiness. |
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mightymouse301's journal