Thanksgiving 2010

Yesterday was a great Thanksgiving. We had plenty of friends over and all the food collaborations were delicious. However, before the festivities Josh got stuck in our elevator while trying to fetch the laundry. Our building supervisor had to bring in elevator specialists to pry open the door and free Josh. It was a hectic time. I kept Josh company by yelling at our broken elevator door like a crazy person. Later, I got bored, realized there was nothing I could do, and went back into the apartment to talk to my sister on the phone. She is doing well.

In the days leading up to our Thanksgiving dinner I obsessed over scented candles. I have been wanting a scented candle for about two months now. A lot of thought went into what kind of scent I could live with. There was also a fear that the cats might play with candle fire and then catch on fire and then die.

I had the idea that our apartment had to smell like holiday and not crazy mystery before the guests arrived. The fear of cat fire was still in the back of my mind, but with some reasoning my concerns were at ease. <Cats should know not to play with fire... right? But then again, it is not like they invented fire, so would they know? How natural is fire in nature? Well, pretty natural, I guess, considering my house almost burned down in the fire of 2002. 2003? No, 2002. 2002 because that fire happened the same year that the kid whose house burned down started wearing a t-shirt that read: 'Jesus is my Homie', so yes, 2002. Should our cats deserve to live if they do not know how to interact with fire? Whatever, this house needs to smell like holiday magic.> The night before Thanksgiving I made Josh and Kyle come with me to Duane Reade (I hate you, Duane Reade). It was a last minute desperate attempt to make the apartment smell magical. I had been thinking too much about candles and not actually shopping for candles--inevitably leading to a pathetic attempt at 10pm to improvise magic from the crap bomb that is Duane Reade. I bought something that purported a permeating apple cinnamon scent. Thanksgiving morning I lit the candle. Four hours later I got sick from the smell and had to open the window, but I left the candle burning because I wanted our guests to feel like it is holiday... With the window open the smell dissipated. Candles suck. Duane Reade sucks. Luckily, no cat fires.

I don't want to end up working at Duane Reade and admitting to my mother that she was right about how I should have gone into pharmaceuticals , or married a doctor with a nice Mercedes, or business man with a fuckin' private jet like Bill Gates

I am applying to grad schools this winter, as I have written about and alluded to a billion times.
Recently, I lost the taxidermy workshop I was organizing, I was rejected from the Seattle art gallery because the hipsters think my works are priced too high (I say, not high enough!), I stopped going to ballet, my nose is peeling all the time, and I am slightly behind in my research paper... Well, at least I have not been officially rejected from the smaller publishers... my agent tells me it should take awhile before we hear back from the smaller guys... And, I have my health, which is great--except I have developed a fear of eating hard-candy alone (I could choke and die with no one around to try to save me or listen to my last words, "arg, argh, always check the stove before you leave the house, arg, arg!").

Things feel like garbage even though I know these things are not THAT bad--and in fact, compared to other people's situations, my life is baller.
Very much a part of my quarter-life crisis, (1) I am finally realizing that one day I am going to die... and while there was a time in which death felt eons away, I have already gone through a quarter of my life--and that is generously assuming that I am going to live up to 96, which we know is not going to happen because of my diet of corn syrup and wine--it's probably going to be diabetes or liver failure around 65, right before retirement (2) I don't want to be mediocre, but I am realizing that a lot of people are mediocre. I am not going to be a Beyonce or an Ellen or an Oprah or a Boyle.
After all of my reality checks, I just want to go to graduate school, get my Ph.D. in sociology, work as a researcher/professor at a second tier university, publish some of my fiction, and skin road kill on my spare time.
This is where I am today:

I don't want to end up managing a flippin' Duane Reade.

I thought I was going to tell a cute story and specify all the things I hate about Duane Reade, but I spent too much effort on the picture above, so I'm just going to go make more popcorn and end this post.
The main point is, I want to get into grad school and if I do not get into a school this year I am going to barf.

This Research Paper is Killing Me

I have been laboring over this research paper for days now and am going out-of-my-mind-bonkers. However, while real work has not been accomplished, I have been getting some business done online. I have made like fifty new facebook friends, read the newspaper (like the real newspaper, not just the most circulated articles), and quietly cried in my little work corner while watching that Susan Boyle sing "I dreamed a dream".

I think I will go follow up on that baby in Cambodia who smokes cigarettes now...

In case people are taking the poll without knowing what a Quagga is...

Squirrels hate you

Over the past few weeks I have been co-organizing a taxidermy workshop that was intended to be held at the end of this month. Because of a minor financial shortage brought on to us by a church that wants to charge us $150 an hour for the use of its recreation room for skinning and stuffing... we are now without an affordable workshop (why a church? well the taxidermy workshop is full of bears right now because hunting season just started). In addition, it is hunting season, so our taxidermist is struggling with scheduling... ARGH MY LIFE! Somewhere in Jersey there is a freezer with nine dead frozen squirrels waiting for me.

I hate you, Mission Statement!

The GRE victory high is over...
I am now writing my mission statement. Writing the mission statement makes me feel inadequate. It feels like this:

SUCK IT, GRE, SUCK IT!

This was me and the GREs last fall when I did not study and thought that I could just waltz in and ace the mofo... which is bonkers because by looking at my school records and history of anxiety you will see that I do horribly on in-class and standardized exams. How the hell I made it this far is beyond me.

Okay... so this year I wised up and actually prepared for this stinkin' test because I really want to get into a PhD program--you know what people with Sociology Masters do? Duane Reade. You probably get to manage a fuckin' Duane Reade, congratulations smart-ass, you were some how better off with just a BA because when you had just a BA they made you queen of autism back in 2007 (I was a behavioral therapist before all this). Whatever. Let us get to the good part. I did not get a perfect score. My adviser told me that it was acceptable--"could be better" but acceptable. However... while I maybe could have done better, it was a victory! For the first time I did an acceptable job on a standardized exam... Yes, I took three calm pills before going in, but I don't think they work because I broke down while trying to analyze a pie chart--why do we care about the retail price of mattresses?! Luckily, I snapped out of it... and by the end of the exam it felt like this:

 

 

There is a lesson to be learned in today's post: L-Theanine does not work.

"Want me to get rid of the purple crap radiating from your head?" ...No, I'll keep it. I'll let you know if the infection gets worse.

Yesterday's 6pm meeting with the psychic was a big waste of ten dollars and ten minutes. The psychic, Grace, buzzed me up to her apartment on 5th ave and 30th... Holy freak, nice place for a psychic! As expected everything she said/asked could have applied to anyone. She closed her eyes and solemnly asked me when my last heartbreak was--this did not really go anywhere. She then warned that one of my good friends is talking bitchy-crap behind my back; she asked me who that person is and I said 'I don't know, who is it?' She then told me that I have a great year coming up but because my aura is purple and not glowing yellow like the one in the picture I am going to get nowhere in life. I told her the purple crap radiating from my head has not been bothering me. She told me that whether I realize it or not, whether it interferes with my life or not, it is going to make my life bonkers... what? but for more money she could exorcise it. Yep, there we go. At that point I told her that I am going to keep my purple shit, paid her ten for the 'energy' reading, and handed back her flier with the spelling and grammar corrections I had made over lunch. A bit annoyed, she told me her business has been doing fine even with the spelling and grammatical errors.

Sometimes it's not supernatural. Sometimes it's just Manhattan.

The flip was in that Mediterranean wrap I ate?

About a month ago--October 7th to be exact (the day before I went to Boston to see the Vans--how could anyone forget?)--I was standing in front of the Pizza Cone (a pizza cone is a pizza in a cone) waiting for a friend. A woman who does not look unlike Norah Jones told me that I have crazy aura radiating from my pores or something like that. She gave me her card, which was just littered with misspellings and grammar errors. I dismissed her as a charlatan and went on with my business.
Today, while standing on 30th and 5th ave I see this woman trying to make her way across the street while traffic was approaching. I thought she was stupid. I also felt bitter because had she been someone not so attractive the taxis would have angrily honked in admonishment. I waited for the lights to change and she told me that my aura was radiating crap again. I told her that she had approached me before. She used this to support the hypothesis that my radiation was in fact meaningful, and you know, something, something, 'meant to be'. I decided I would give her a chance (Pass for Persistence). I told her I did not have much money (to which she just said $10--a minutes? a half hour? an hour?) and that I had an appointment to get to a 7 (she said that I will be done by then--done? like robbed blind? massacred?). Anyhow, I have an appointment at 6pm.
Shame to say, but for the next few hours I tried to let myself believe in... whatever you want to call it... I tried to superimpose meaning on the earlier incident, but then I walked into Starbucks and something set my head straight.
While I was standing in line at Starbucks I noticed the man standing in front of me. I have stood in line behind him before. How can I forget? He is a disturbingly handsome Indian man measuring well over six and a half feet tall! Oh... and his fashion sense. Perfectly tailored trousers. He wore nice trousers last time I stood behind him, too. Was this strange? I asked myself. Was this strange to run into two different strangers for the second time in the same day? Was it... fate? The answer is: hell, no. There is no supernatural or luck or fate or any of that bringing me back to these people. It is the size of mid-town. Mid-town is small. People cross streets. People go to Starbucks.
I am still going to that psychic read at 6 though...

Nutrisystem: scavenged through a pile of garbage

Halloween times!
For Halloween, April, Kyle, Josh (that's my boyfriend), and I scavenged through the give away table downstairs in our lobby. Wowzahs, we dragged upstairs three sacks of Nutrisystem diet food. Three sacks! All that crap must have cost like freakin'... $500 or something. Well, right after setting the sacks down we went out to the Halloween parade in the village. Unfortunately, it was a ruse. We did not see any flippin' parade. No, we were smothered in a morass of drunk people and were almost crushed by an ambulance while a guy pulled an unconscious girl through the street. Fast forward to one gypsy cab later...
We arrive home, safe from the public... but not safe from ourselves... We ate the crap out of Nutrisystem diet food with wine through a series of dares and challenges, "put it in your body!!!" Carmel bars "breakfast time", honey mustard pretzels "dessert time", tortellini "lunch time", chocolate muffin "breakfast time", peanut butter crunch "breakfast time", carrot cake "dessert time", chocolate brownie "dessert time", soy bbq chips "dessert time", peppermint patty-type deal "dessert time"... a lot of crap is what we ate. A lot of crap. We do not feel good right now. April is almost completely passed out and Kyle is too wired from his crazy sugar cocktail and Josh is too good for Nutrisystem, so he is fine. I'm writing this blog. I am going to throw up neon shit now. Happies Hallowen.