Realizations

I work with a racist. In the Bay Area. None of us are safe. I listen to her talk and am terrified but not sure what to do. Is that how racist ideas turn into racist actions? Because the rest of us tiptoe around this idiot until one day she explodes, goes apeshit on some “colorful folk” as she would put it? And I’m on the channel 4 news, terrible lighting exposing my flaws, medical gurneys being transported behind me, feigning shock? “I honestly never thought…” and I knew the whole time. Had nightmares about it for months.

I need coffee. I’ve replaced it with exercise though.

I want a job that pays me too well or a graduate degree, which may or may not lead to jobs that pay me too well. Probably not.

If I can’t have either of those situations then I just want a lot of babies. Mostly though I’d like all of those to happen. And for forest animals to sing to me whenever I wake up and take big huge chomping bites out of my gingerbread house laced with cocaine.

I’m grateful I never got past the gateway drugs. Really I should thank my family for good genes that don’t predispose me to addictive behaviors except the usual body image bullshit which isn’t their fault as much as Vogue’s and my high school friends’. And by ‘friends’ I mean people who aren’t friends at all. When I think of where I want to send my future children to school, I keep thinking about the shitty people they’ll have to associate with and how crappy those kids might make my kids feel. Then I feel angry about my own experience and consider sending them somewhere out in the Midwest or Canada where everyone comes out so nice and saying their “ou”‘s so interestingly. Then I wouldn’t be able to relate to them. It would be like having small polite people roaming my house. Not uncomfortable but not desirable, which must be what having children is like anyway. The number one determiner of unhappiness in relationships.

Weekends with Kat are possibly the best way for me to unwind. And much cheaper than a spa retreat in Napa.

I think there must be an overweight girl with long brown unremarkable hair under a dirty hat working in every Starbucks. Always cheerful and usually the manager. If I were overweight and lived in LA, I would consider taking up a cocaine habit. Although a gym membership would be cheaper. If I had to move to LA, I would have to go on a diet and lose a significant amount of weight beforehand. It would be like how people prepare for their weddings. Body boot camp pre-LA move. For months. Or I could dedicate to eat only things I could grow myself. Although with my black thumb, I might die that way.

“There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do to make you feel my love.”

A little while ago

I can’t believe it’s been more than a year since I left NY.

I love fall in SF. The air so clear and crystalline, it seems as if I can look out my window, over Lake Merritt, clear through to Hawaii. That every light coming from SF at night is pointed right at where I sit in my apartment in Oakland.

I miss the color of the sky over the Hudson River during sunset in the fall. The piles of leaves up to my knees in Harlem because the city never gave enough of a shit to clear anything in that neighborhood [snow, leaves, criminals....]. I miss taxi rides. I’m certain the moment I stepped foot into that city, I’d be reminded of all the things I couldn’t stand. But mostly, I just want to go back. For a week. A month. A lifetime.

In New York
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of
There’s nothing you can’t do
Now you’re in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new
These lights will inspire you
Let’s hear it for New York, New York, New York

Is it weird that this song makes me want to cry?

Commuting

Yesterday, it took me over an hour to drive the 25 miles that exists between my front door and the cold mirrored doors of my office building. By which point, I was shaking from a mixture of anger and caffeine withdrawal. I swore to love BART more. So I took it this morning and read some disturbing Vietname War literature.

I fell asleep last night at 7 PM. I woke up at 6 AM, still tired. I walked immediately to the kitchen and drank surgary juice and ate some Starburst candies.

If PMSing weren’t such a bitch, being a girl would be fine. Then I wouldn’t think that I was seeing my dead aunt everywhere and crying every time I heard that stupid John Mayer song come up from the movie “The Bucket List” or whatever it was. I nearly hugged a stranger the other night, I was so convinced she was my aunt. I was overjoyed. And then nothing. I just stared at the likeness. And followed her through a couple stores until my heart felt thoroughly bruised and I thought I might go blind from all of the eye-widening I was doing to stop from crying. I sat in my car for a long time in the parking lot trying to swallow the idea that everyone else around me was considerably happier and less crazy than me. It seems unlikely.

I’m just tryna change the color on your mood ring.

Lately

Lately I’ve had dreams of an ex in which we’re still dating and I’m still uncomfortably happy.
But I don’t get it yet.
And then I wake up and am uncomfortably unhappy.

I volley between wishing I had grown up faster and thinking, no, I was just stupid.

How much longer do I have to be stupid? What will be the next big eye-opener?
Will I recognize it before it completely kicks my ass? Or will I only know once I’m in the dirt?

end of month

I had to close the books for end-of-month today. Which means I depended on everyone else doing their jobs during the month. That’s all. I just need people to do their motherf*cking jobs and then that makes my end-of-month not so remarkable. Instead, I spent my day crushing my eyeballs in my hands, massaging my temples until I gave myself cowlicks, and yelling at people to JUST DO YOUR GODDAMN JOB.

I made a full grown man tear up.

Honestly, my sympathy levels hit the floor. I really don’t care what you do with your day as long as your shit doesn’t mess with mine. I will make you cry over and over again if you threaten my work or my job. That’s all. It’s so simple.

Also, did you know the bay bridge is down? Idiots. If they would just work harder on that new one. Or, I don’t know, improve public transportation.

I got a crock pot. I can’t decide if that makes me old or domestic. Maybe both?

This past weekend I told Patrick that if our relationship-shitty week turns into a relation-shitty two weeks, I’d move out. Suddenly, everything was better. I don’t know what to make of that.