You invited to my Royal Weddin'

Many of us are very excited about the upcoming Royal Wedding between Prince William and the Catherine that is not me. Some of us might even wake up as early as 4am est this Friday to watch the thing. I know I will try to--my vision might be obstructed by tear-soaked tissues, but whatever, I am totally over him, like, totally, I don't care anymore, just watch me throw away all of the pictures of him that I had clipped from Time magazine (my parents only allowed me to subscribe to Time and Newsweek). While many have been anticipating this ceremony since the engagement was announced--some time after my brilliant idea for a taxidermy workshop--I have been waiting since I was fourteen. However, running completely counter to how I had envisioned this wedding so long ago, I am not the bride! What the fuck?! At the sweet, deranged age of fourteen, I really thought I was going to marry Prince William one day, or at least hook up with him, you know? I knew there were going to be obstacles because of the distance and the age difference... I was fourteen and he was, like, eighteen. I consulted my French/SAT tutor about my situation and he said that it was not impossible for me to date Prince William. With that glimmer of hope, I started planning my future with Prince William. I decided that I would have to meet him first so he could fall in love with me at first sight... Looking back... was he really going to fall in love with this?

No, this business took time to love. My love for Prince William blinded me of what I looked like...a dorky swamp monster that almost failed fifth grade because she made a pop-up book instead of writing an essay on John James Audubon. So, I continued on with my wedding plans. I decided I would have my parents take me to the UK for a family vacation. Once there, I was going to get all dressed up and get hit by Prince William's car--not badly hit, just enough to knock me unconscious. I logically reasoned that the fear of press coverage would force him to take me back to the castle, instead of a hospital. There, he would wait until I woke up to sign a confidentiality agreement. While waiting, he would fall in love with me. I figured, after waking up, he and I would have a meaningful conversation, a type of conversation that would make him think, "wow, she is really cool. I want to be her boyfriend and kiss her with my eyes closed and my hands on her waist like a slow dance."
Had he asked me to marry him for realz, I would have thrown a baller wedding. But hey, dreams can come true... which is why:

YOU INVITED TO MY ROYAL WEDDIN'!!!
My bridesmaids are: Jon Hamm, Anderson Cooper, and the guy from all those Mentalist posters. The wedding in my parents' backyard will be followed by a reception of bagel bites, Zing crunchy snacks, dosas, and cheese. Hope you can make it!
If you can't make it to my royal wedding, then please come to the taxidermy workshop on May 28 at 10am. Admission is $375.

Work physically hurts, but I am okay with that.

Work has been going well. While waking up at 6:30am seems like a sick and inhumane form of corporal punishment, I learned how to deal with it... oh, how humans can learn to adjust to almost anything! What keeps me going is the fact that in 6 months I will be back in school. Until then:

I will be bitten.

I will be scratched... scratched so bad that strangers stop me on the street to ask what happened (yes, this happened).

It is fortunate that the feistiest child is also the most good-looking and likable.

I have told a few of my co-workers that I will be leaving in half a year. I did not intend to tell anyone at work, but I am bad at lying and we have an alliance now. During lunch, the day after I had called in sick to go to a graduate program's meet-and-greet, a co-worker asked me how things were yesterday and where I was. My answer was vague, which made him ask further if I was trying to be secretive. I did not want him to think that I was absent because of something embarrassing like... diarrhea (my bowel movements are healthy), so I told him the truth--eh, screw it, he's in school himself. As I am slowly observing, there is a high turn-over among teachers at this school, so my eventual resignation will be statistically consistent and inoffensive.

Looking back to September-now, back to the stress that I was undergoing while researching, GRE-preping, Statement of Purpose-writing,  application response-waiting (hurrah www.thegradcafe.com which made the wait both tougher and easier), I feel accomplished, which is not something that I can say very often... because I am so flippin' modest and stuff. It was hard work! It took three application seasons to get me into grad school! Hell, I had to go through a master's program to get into grad school! Yes, that translates to: going to grad school to go to grad school. And now, all of it is done and I am finally going to go to school. I am pretty happy and grateful.

What could only make me happier now is... going to Mars 2112 (a Mars-themed restaurant) with Jessica... Oh, wait, that is what I am doing tonight! Wohoo!

Interpreting interpretive dance and hell... a flashlight into the abyss

Last night, Josh and I went to City Center to watch Paul Taylor's three-piece modern dance production. It was flippin' classy, people wore gowns and tuxedos, so I wore my Celebrity Punk Jeans with yellow stitching, which my mom bought for me from the Macy's Junior's department (thanks for telling me this was some freakin' gala, Josh!). The entire time I was expecting interpretive dance... but then learned that modern dance and interpretive dance are not the same thing (but can be sometimes? Whatever.). Part one was, what I can only guess, a story about a group of friends who go out for dinner and all come home with horrible salmonella poisoning.

The poising is so bad that they become delirious and take part in an orgy, creating opportunities for all the men-folk to enjoy each others masculinity without any inhibitions. The next morning everyone is hung over and wondering what happened the night before. The End. 
Part two was about a threesome of a woman and two men who are abducted by aliens from an advanced planet where 80s style and synthesized music are popular. On this planet the two men realize that they are not rivals; they were only fighting over the girl to prove their masculinity to each other. They get it on. The girl is pissed. This End.
Part three was just okay. At one point, four people dressed in KKK ceremonial head gear came out to prance and stuff, which at first made me feel uneasy, but then it became silly, so, okay, but then I went back to feeling uneasy at the end.
Thank god dancers get tired super fast, unlike those damn Met opera singers who can go on for four hours, lulling me into a light sleep (which is embarrassing because sometimes I suddenly wake up and wonder if I had farted or something). Operas make me gassy.
After the show ended, I convinced Josh to take me to Mars 2112, a themed restaurant. Much to my horror, the restaurant had closed four minutes before our arrival. I felt very sad. Remember, at this point we were dangerously close to Time Square, the turd of the devil. So sad, I hastily pointed to a diner across the street and said something like, "screw it, let us go there!" Oh... how little did I know what I was dragging my disappointed butt into.
We cross the street and entered Ellen's Stardust, a 50s diner. The host walked us through the crowded restaurant to our table. I sat in between two fat tourists. It felt like a family-friendly strip club. It was a spectacle, as most things are in and near Time Square. The lighting was bright and flashy. The music was disturbingly loud. The waiters and waitresses dressed to the era and impressively karaoked pop songs in between taking orders and serving patrons. Oh geez, it was what I imagined hell to be for performance artists. The staff exemplified: shattered dreams, depression, shame, and struggle. It was the saddest display of compromise I have ever witnessed. 

The staff was a group of young, talented singers and actors waiting for their break and wasting their years of training and practice on a bunch of tourists who wanted to hear them sing Ke$ha and Jay-Z. I wanted to go, but Josh:

was fascinated. So, I ordered a drink.
The most raw, heart-breaking, Oscar-winning moment was when waiter "Beau" took a break from requests to operatically perform Puccini. His voice was incredible. THIS was the real Coyote Ugly.

His face was wrinkled and twisted as he sung at the top of his lungs. The depth of his misery, the preponderance of nachos on my plate, the circumference of the woman sitting next to me made Ellen's Stardust the saddest place on earth. So, to our waitress, Jamie Rae, and Beau and the rest, I hope life will suck less soon. The End.

Katy Perry believes in me.

I have this week off work and will hopefully get some writing done. This has not been going so well. In fact, it is not going at all.

My writer's block, I believe, can be attributed to my recent rejection from round two of submissions, and Snookie. Considering that the literary climate is currently at Vampire, non-fiction, memoirs, and chick-lit, I am not surprised that editors are as interested in publishing my book as they are in... are in... god, I don't know, I have writer's block, lets pretend I wrote something wry and clever... eating boogers. Perhaps I should just change all the characters in my book into vampires and Justin Bieber and stuff Americans are into--Bridalplasty, and it hand over to my agent for another go.

It will be a huge success.

Sometimes I can feel the dark side whispering to me in the voice of Voldemort (and sometimes Anderson Cooper for when I am feeling both desperate and sexy)... "hey, you, 'writer', I can make your dreams come true. You can get published... you can do it. It is as easy as 1, 2, 3... credit card information." What are you saying Voldemort/Anderson? "SELF PUBLISH!" NOOOOO!!! I can't! I can't! You can't make me, Voldemort! Maybe, Anderson... YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!!!

Really, I can't self-publish. Sometimes, it feels like that may be the only way in which I can ever get printed and bound, but I am as interested in self-publishing as I am in... in... eating boogers. So, I guess I will push through this writer's block, write another book, and years from now, I will try to get it published. And then if my agent tells me that I have, for the second time, failed. Well, damn it, I will write a third book! I will write ALL THE BOOKS!

I only feel optimistic because I was just listening to Katy Perry's song, Firework. Lemmetellya, that is some potent stuff because I know I'm not PMSing, so... I guess what I feel from listening to Fireworks are just emotions, regular. 

Valentine's Day

Josh and I celebrated Valentine's Day on Sunday. I was very excited to give Josh the present I had customized and pre-ordered weeks in advance. Before he was able to brush off all his eye boogers, I shoved his unwrapped gift right in his face. It was a coffee mug with this image printed on:

It's my faces! It's a mug with two of my heads fused together with MS paint to form a super-conjoined-twin me!!! In addition, I gave him a hologram bookmark--also with my faces.
I think he really liked it. His mouth uttered, "Thank you. I love it." But his face read, "Seriously? This is the fourth mug she has designed this year." After the mug and hologram exchanged hands, I demanded my gift... because as much as I like giving presents, I really like receiving presents. I like presents like nobody's business. I like surprises. I like tearing gift wrapping paper. I like coiled ribbons. I like confetti gratuitously stuffed into boxes and gift bags. I love presents!!!

 Josh did not have anything for me. He said he had gone down to the Bowery earlier last week to look for some duck I had said I wanted (whatever, dude, I have no memory of this stuffed duck). He looked sad and embarrassed, so to comfort him--to be a good person--I said something lame like: "Oh, it is the thought and... you know, the effort... that counts. Yeah. That's it. Your present counts so much to give to me in an imaginary thing that so much effort and all thoughts so it is so that thus is a present that is both full of mind feeling nice which makes me so good." I was disappointed. I like surprises. My surprise was stolen from me! and of all people... who knew it would be the person who was supposed to give me a surprise that stole the surprise from the person who was supposed to give me the surprise but could not give me the surprise because it was stolen from the person who was supposed to ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I felt rage.

Josh suggested that we go to the Columbus Circle mall after watching the Justin Bieber 3-D documentary at Lincoln Center Lowes. Damn right we're going to the mall after Justin Bieber! Not a bad movie, by the way.
However, when we got to the mall, I did not want anything. I was sad that I did not get a surprise. Too sad! Kind of pissed. More sad. Josh really wanted me to pick something out because he sensed my agitation, but I do not like knowing the cost of my gifts (I like guessing the ballpark)... and what I really wanted was a pre-planned surprise.

Eventually, I found a sale and did not feel guilty about picking out some practical sweaters. We at at Avoce for dinner. There, I got pretty drunk off of gin and lavender-something. After dinner, I ran wild at Whole Foods, looking for 365-brand Oreo knock-offs and the glittery kitchen sponges we normally use. "They do'n hab our sbonges!" I loudly slurred. "I neeb coffeeeeeeee..."

On actual Valentine's Day--today--I got a call from my agent. She informed me that our last publisher had rejected my novel and that my best bet is to write a second novel, get that one published, and then publish the first one. I am feeling pretty sad. Yes, I am not getting published this year... but Snookie did. Anyway.

I RISE FROM THE ASHES LIKE A PHOENIX!

I was feeling rather dejected for a few days. I worried that I was not going to get into graduate school--like many others at this time. I thought I was going to trudge through life going from Duane Reades to Duane Reades pleading for a managerial position. I thought I was going to end up in the underground mole-people alliance; only going above ground to beg for food and money--I would sit in front of supermarkets holding a sign that reads "war veteran" scribbled on the back of my diploma. I feared that I would one day be found dead outside of a Dairy Queen with my stiffened arms clutching a opossum corpse that, in my living days, I referred to as "my Sophie's Choice" (I only had room for one opossum in my underground mole-people living corner). After finding my body, someone in the crowd (because people like to see this kind of stuff) would lift up his arms and scream, "HAD SHE NOT BEEN REJECTED FROM GRADUATE SCHOOL THIS WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED! OH THE HUMANITY!!!"

Yes, I have been wallowing in self-pity. A LOT. I did not not see myself as some kind of:

Well, yesterday morning, I woke up and realized that Sallie Mae still required two more documents before I could get my loans adjusted (screw you, Sallie Mae!) and that I had been waitlisted for Indiana University (Well, flip-you, Indiana, you are located in Indiana!). Frustrated, I walked down to Pisticci's for brunch with Jessie, Kyle, and Josh, grousing about my misfortunes quietly to myself. I was pretty pathetic--yes, I know.

After brunch, we all returned to the apartment to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer and play Scrabble. Pissed that I was so close to winning until Josh used all of his letters and took the points that everyone had in his/her remaining hand (I had a flippin' Q and a bunch others), I checked my email while the others finished the movie and sipped spiked hot chocolate. 

... (suspense building) ...

And there it was...

Just sitting in my inbox with such nonchalance...

I RISE LIKE A PHOENIX FROM MY ASHES!!! I got my first acceptance from one of my top choice schools (of 12 applied). Full fellowship and funding. Yay, me.

I am failure.

My skirt an inch too high, my makeup an inch too thick: I was flippin' ready for this interview. The interview was for a teaching position at a private school.

Confident in my skills and impressed by my bubbly-yet-authoritative demeanor, they decided to hire me. 
I walked toward the subway, fantasizing about my new position. I was determined to become an obeyed martinet. I wanted to educate with an iron fist and produce winners! WINNERS!
...but much to my ignorance at the time, imminent misfortune was looming ahead...
As some of you may know, it is February. "Yes, we know, but what does that mean?" some of you might ask. Well, February is the start of a sacred time, a time of paradox, betrayal, surprise, self-deprecation, and mental haywire. Prepare the pyrotechnics... graduate school admissions will be announced starting now and into early April! Forget My People's New Years, Valentine's Day, and the Super Bowl, this is something greater than all of that combined. This time of the year is comparable to an apocalypse.
Well, apocalypse cometh. About an hour after employment, I received a personal email detailing the process that led up to my ultimate rejection from my first choice.

I did not take it very well. One down eleven more to hear from.
Josh, Kyle, Kyle's friend, and I went out to a fancy-pants dinner that night at One if by Land Two if by Sea. I might have been tipsy and took it out on Josh.

Sorry, dude.