Day 4: No Sex...

...and the City, I mean. We did watch one, but then we spent 3 hours discussing it and related topics. So now I'm kind of burnt out. Hank watches them all with me now, but just to save him face, I will hold forth that he hates every minute of it. It was the one about why married people hate singles and visa versa. Kinda lame. I think they should all just get along.

So I am in a better mood today. Why? I couldn't tell you. It certainly isn't because I found a job. Or even a job prospect. I think it may be that I received my copy of THE LUCKY SHOPPING MANUAL in the mail today. And maybe that I ordered pad thai and summer rolls with peanut sauce for dinner.

While scarfing my food and leafing through the guide on wise skirt buying, I started to feel that old familiar feeling crop up. Excitement. It has been a few days now. For the past week, I have devoted each day to a different career field and have spent my time applying for all the positions I qualify for. This translates to spending up to four hours sitting on a couch and barely moving more than one finger (to cut and paste resumes, etc). Fun. I mean FUN. I mean FUN!

My "excitement" these days has consisted of warming up my cold cups of decaf coffee and taking my dog out to poop. The only thing that saved me last week was Hank getting two days off from school due to excessive snow. Even though he was sick, we got to flirt at various times throughout the day and take some walks together. Actually they were like forced marches, with Hank saying, "You know, you're really not supposed to exercise when you're sick, because your cells are focussing on walking instead of beefing up your immune system" or something very close to that. But mostly he was studying, and I was pasting resumes.

Today was different. Maybe Friday always holds a special aura over us while we do mundane tasks. "I am washing dishes...but it's Friday," we think, our minds almost bursting at all the possibilities Friday holds. "I may be broke and jobless, but it's Friday," was today's version. To celebrate Friday, I took a long walk--a four-mile long walk, in fact, because Bela and I got lost and went a mile too far. It was a sunny, slushy day, and my bouncy feeling wasn't even ruined when a Jeep (purposely?) sped through the puddle right next to us spraying muddy crap everywhere. "People can sure be assholes, but it's Friday," I said aloud.

Basically I just said "Screw it" to the job search today. Some days I find it's necessary in order to retain sanity. Since Hank was back at school, I was extra lonely. After four weeks of sitting alone in the house talking to no one but my dog and my mother for eight-hours at a time, my mind starts to do funny things. Today, I actually thought mice had chewed through the wall, because I heard little scratching, tearing noises coming from above the piano. Then I realized that the mirror I put up with industrial strength velcro was just coming off--and was about to fall on the piano in fact--so I fixed that and resumed breathing.

I am trying to get a piece ready to send off for potential publication. I have little hope. But I feel like with certain things it really doesn't matter how much hope you have. You just have to have skill and give it a shot. Better to save the hope for things that are actually probable or don't depend on skill at all, like having a baby someday, which I hope to do.

I'm going to watch a movie. Because I can. So there. I may not have enough money to buy dog food tomorrow, but that is entirely beside the point.

Goodnight. I hope you'll be back. I will.

Day 3: Naked

It's been a few days since I wrote here. I have decided to keep this as more of a diary or journal, not a blog. It's too much pressure (and too depressing when you don't have any followers) to have blog.

The last episode of Sex and the City I watched was the third one--fitting since this is day three--and it had to do with "modelizers." Since I've never actually met one of these men, I don't know what they're like. It isn't a type of man I have ever dated. I've dated nice guys and rebels but not really the weird, fetish-driven guys.

But instead of talking about the show, I just want to talk about the day and life.

I woke up at 9:30. I am still looking for a job and under the impression that I'm going to have to start looking seriously in unconventional places. Like the grocery store. Hmm.

I did not get the bridal receptionist position. Neither of the two I interviewed for actually. I didn't even get asked to work at Starbucks. All of the sudden, they didn't have a position open at that store, but I should keep trying back every few weeks or so. I feel so disappointed in myself. And bored. And yet strangely unmotivated, which leads to more disappointment. That's the hardest part. At least when you have a job that sucks, you can complain about the job. I can only complain about myself. Because my job is finding a job, and every day I don't find one is one day where I haven't succeeded at work and--the worst part for me--have nothing to show for the entire day. I hate this. I had better job prospects in Peru. And it was fun work. I love teaching. It makes me feel like I'm doing something meaningful with my time, even if I don't always enjoy it or it takes a lot of energy...both of which are true.

I also like writing. I like getting thoughts down I didn't know I had until they're there on paper. I like just thinking and thinking and thinking. Or doing but stemming from thinking. Does that make any sense? So not making coffee. Or bagging groceries, or just answering phones. And I will very likely be doing one of these things very soon. Why am I so gloomy and defeatist?

I really don't understand how the people who end up living their passion do it. I don't understand what makes them different from me, but they seem very different from me. I always thought I was resourceful and proactive and smart and driven. These days, I just feel like a bum.

I'm reading Sylvia Plath's novel THE BELL JAR (I've mentioned this), and that's not helping. But I will say I had an interesting thing happen today while reading in the bathroom. For the first time, I actually felt myself disassociating from the main character. It was fine when she was becoming disillusioned with life, when she couldn't choose between different possible futures, when she was depressed. But today she tried to commit suicide. And as she drifts into deeper insanity, I just find myself reading about a character instead of my potential self. It's almost like the people in the book who put her into the asylum. Really, we are all so close to insanity, but we can't relate to it too much. Otherwise that makes us crazy too. And that makes us able to do the things crazy people do. And that's not cool. Maybe it's just self preservation. So I'm the enemy for her now. I wonder if she meant for that to happen to the reader. Probably not. She probably just needed a catharsis.

Getting tired. Now that I know nobody's reading this yet, I will just say that I'll be back. Like the Terminator. We all do the best we can.

Day 2 (continued): "Have You Ever Been in Love?"

Carrie asks this to Mr. Big at the end of the first episode of Sex and the City. And what I can't believe is that she seems to never have been. How can you be in your mid thirties without ever experiencing love? I guess I relate more to Big when he answers "Absofuckinlutely."

But maybe there are degrees of love. This has always intrigued me. There's love and then there's LLLLLOVE. And when you're in LLLLLOVE, it seems that love was never love at all, just an impostor. Somehow, looking over all of our relationships in life, it becomes easy to sort them in order of love strength. Yeah, he was a two or maybe a three, while that other guy was clearly a 5. It hardly matters how long we were with them, whether or not marriage was discussed, how good the sex was. Some people just capture a bigger piece of our hearts than others. Why? And what does it mean?

When I first got together with Hank, my current partner, we both said it was love at first slow dance to "Thriller." We met through mutual friends--three of them--who all said we would be "perrrrr-fect" for each other (okay, confession: all involved were a bit tipsy, including us). And I was so cynical (what, me?). I didn't even want to meet him. Just out of another whirl-wind disaster of a relationship, which had begun right after yet another fatal union, I was all out of ways to make the spark last or even start to grow it into something meaningful. I just wanted to spend Saturday nights with my dog.

But Hank really did capture my heart. Right there on the dance floor. And he's kept it since without us even trying too hard. I don't understand it myself. I had struggled before to be right for other people, to think they were right for me. I had stayed in relationships for two, sometimes three years, just to figure out that I had known everything I needed to know at two months. Why do we stay when we know it's not right? Wait, I know the answer to that. We always think we might be wrong. That this really is as good as it gets.

So...love. How do we know when we're in it? How do we decide what's in love enough?

Sometimes it's the little things that end up feeling really big. I went shopping today. At Neiman Marcus. Let me reiterate that I don't have a job. I shouldn't be shopping. I should be staying as far away from malls as humanly--well, womanly--possible, especially evil stores like NM. But I had just come from my interview, which didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped, and I felt like I needed a drink. So I put $600 on my credit card instead. Cute Nine West red heels, a huge red clutch, and tailored designer jeans later, I was in trouble.

Shopping was always taboo in our family. With two doctors for parents, we had our fair share of disposable income. It was understood you would shop. But either because my father came from a humble Lutheran background and worked construction to put himself through college or because my mother's family repressed everything, you weren't supposed to talk about shopping. What you bought was to be hidden in the spare bedroom. That way it wouldn't cause anyone to worry that you were dealing with your emotions by making mass purchases.

I would like not to blame my current credit card debt on this shopping complex from childhood (so cliche), but old habits die hard. That's all I'm saying. And it's no coincidence that my sister is the only one I can talk to about shopping woes and the only one who is in deeper than me.

When I came home today with my loot, I looked guiltily at Hank. "I did a very bad thing, " I said. "I needed a drink." "Oh no," he said. "What happened?" I replied quickly, eager to feel relieved from telling my secret, "I decided to go to the mall." I prepared my gut for the blow. The "How could you?" he was sure to ask. I formed my argument for why spending that money really wasn't so bad. The self-blame and promises to cut up the credit card. "That's okay, sweetie. I thought you went and took shots or something." Huh? What? He didn't even care?Even after our conversations about why accumulating stuff wasn't the best way to feel good about your life? Even after I had told him it would stop?

And then I realized that that's love. Don't know what I mean, but when someone isn't even bothered by the things about yourself that bother you the most. Yeah, it would be easier on our finances if I didn't spend what we don't have (and we don't have it). But it isn't the end of the world.

There's that line that if you hate someone, the way he holds his fork will drive you crazy. If you love him, he could drop spaghetti in your lap, and you wouldn't care. Maybe that's all LLLLOVE is--the natural inclination to forgive another's faults because all you can see is his or her greatness. And that's a wonderful thing.

Hope you'll be back. I will.

Day 2: Take Your Life Seriously

This is the sign I have put up on the fridge.

I have figured out how to put this whole blog thing together. First, I will try to watch one episode of Sex and the City a day, and I will use this space to reflect on it and talk about fashion, obsession, and love. All while indulging one of my biggest obsessions! It's perfect! This gives focus to the writing but also keeps me from watching too many episodes in one day. The bonus is that while I'm in a new city with no friends (I think if I keep saying this it will hit home and make me more social), the show will tide me over with TV friends so I don't go insane. Don't judge, people.

So...94 episodes. Plus the movie (and by the time I'm done probably the sequel to the movie, which comes out in March or May I think). That should keep me busy for a while.

Since I'm already half-way through the first season (for the second time, of course), I will need to start over. I will start tomorrow or tonight. Procrastinating on day 2, not good.

In other news, I have a job interview today. Last week's was at Starbucks. The whole thing went fine right up until the guy who interviewed me (we'll call him Joe) asked me all chipper-like why I wanted to work at Starbucks. I told him I thought I would be good at it, and that I like coffee. Lame-oh. But the truth was that I was humiliated at the thought of working there. You see, part of the problem of higher education and graduating at the top of your class is that it instills in you a mighty strong ego and sense that you can do anything you want to. So why are you working at Starbucks? That is not why you took out $5,000 in student loans (and I consider myself lucky with only that much). That is not why you've been eating Cup of Noodles for 4 years or getting only 6 hours of sleep a night. No, it all should have amounted to much more. But it didn't. That's what I didn't tell Joe. Yep, you graduate with PRIDE. And pride's a bitch.

So, my interview is at the best bridal dress boutique in Denver. Miraculously, I got the interview the same way I got an interview at the best wedding cake shop in Seattle. Cold calling. It goes like this. I think of something that would be fun, a job where I wouldn't want to shoot myself after a day of doing it, and I call all the places in town that do that. First on my list was wedding dress shops.

I guess there's a special bond between me and the wedding industry. Weddings seem so special and beautiful. All that pent-up anxiety the bride experiences (pent-up, because you can't punch anyone, and you are supposed to be deliriously happy all of the time on account of the fact that you're getting married) culminates into a day where people are looking their best and changing their lives hopefully for the better. Or maybe I'm drawn to the wedding biz because of my own quite copious experience. I'm still trying to sell my unworn dress from last year. I've already half-planned two ceremonies and made monumental cakes for two of my friends' nuptials. Whatever the reason (and I'm not saying it's healthy), I'm nervous for this interview.

I don't know what I'm going to wear. Casual skirt and belted cardigan with boots or professional-looking sheath dress and scarf with heels? Curly hair or straight? I just got cute new fish-scalely tan flats yesterday from All Black. Maybe I'll wear those. I love that label. After two years of searching for the perfect black flats (not non-stop of course), I finally found All Black's version at endless.com. Quilted patterned, professional but fun, shiny goodness. So I ordered them in my usual size 9, and when they came I nearly had an orgasm taking them out of the box. I tried them on, and much to my dismay, they felt like a size 8. Damn. No problem, I thought, I'll just order a size up. But they were now completely sold out. Double damn. So I got on the waiting list. I knew I had to give the 9s up, but they were so perfectly shaped to my foot, so light to walk on, and so mesmerizing (albeit too small), I had a hard time laying them back in their box. But I did.

Gotta go shower. I just realized I didn't talk about love, but I will save that for my first Sex and the City review. Oh this will be fun! Hope you'll be back, I will.

Day 1: And Just Who the Heck Are YOU?

I am unemployed.

I am unemployed and sitting on my couch, in our new Denver apartment for about the 20th day in a row.

I feel about a joint away from the guys on Knocked Up or the main character in Forgetting Sarah Marshall when he starts enacting scenes from movies to entertain himself. I am starting this blog mainly to keep from becoming like Esther in Sylvia Plath's THE BELL JAR. Because I'm getting close.

Now, a bit about myself, just for reference. I am 27. I am in a relationship, and my significant other (what is the best term for this, really? I think there should just be one, and everyone should have to use it...like "novio/a" in Spanish, which means fiance but has nothing to do with being engaged) is in first-year med school, which makes me feel like an even bigger slacker. He spends his days studying to save the world. I sit on the couch and write into a potential void. We have a dog, Bela. He's a cute munchkinface of a Wheaten Terror. He keeps me sane these days, because often the only time I talk from 9-5 is to say, "Bela, no, drop it" in my serious voice.

I have two college degrees, both in equally unemployable fields--history and music. I got the first degree, because I couldn't decide on one (I had changed about 5 times), and I only had a year left before I was supposed to graduate. So I completed all of the required courses in two summers and an eyes-bloodshot-from-reading-so-much year. In some act of luck, I was elected by the history faculty as "History Graduate of the Year" from a pool of 5 graduates in the department with the highest GPAs out of 200 or so students. Even though it was true I had done well for myself, presenting papers at conferences and helping with grading as an undergrad, I wondered if I was there mostly by charm. After all, I received a C+ in Problems of Peace and Security, only because my professor pitied the fact that I forgot to answer one of the essays on the final and let me do some extra credit. That doesn't seem like HGY behavior. I spoke at graduation and cried through the whole thing, recounting all of my beautiful memories from various conferences, yada, yada. It was embarrassing.

But I really thought doors would open for me at that point. Let me rephrase that. I thought I would start opening doors at that point--that I would begin to see a direction for my life. That I would start to take my life seriously and see my potential when I really put my mind to something. It didn't happen.

I got the second degree in music two years later. I have always played the piano, and everyone--Mom, professors, Mom, friends, peers, Mom--thought I should get the degree, so I did. What else was I going to do? I have a good deal amount of talent for the instrument, and I am in love with music. I think that was their reasoning too. But it turns out that music jobs are hard to find. Go figure. And you have to be REALLY good. Or really convinced you are good. I am neither. I am good. So now I have two degrees, both of which I enjoyed pursuing. However, I can't say I'm too appreciative of the choices they've left me after graduation. I'm lost. But on the upside, I know what a harmonic progression is. I can tell you the tenants of Just War Theory and most of the major battles of World War Two. And I can analyze Chopin's first piano concerto. Jack of all trades....

I am from Montana. And yes they, surprisingly to some, have running water there. It is a beautiful, magical place. Maybe someday I will post a picture here for anyone at all to see. But let me attest to the fact that you can be gloomy and lost anywhere. That's why I don't dream of living in Cabo San Lucas. I know I would just be sitting on my couch THERE, watching my dog chase squirrels in his dreams, and writing this post, because I probably wouldn't have a job. Well, I could probably teach English, and likely I'd be sitting on the toilet much more than the couch, but those are neither here nor there.

Now, briefly, the title of my blog. I hate titles. I only come up with them at the last minute, because they are mandatory. I usually do so after I've written, because I'm so bad at them and I can spend 10 minutes thinking of a crappy one when I could otherwise be writing. I ask, "Who has the time?"

But this one seemed to incorporate the things I spend most of my day thinking about. And it is probably what will make it into my blog most of the time. And I think three words with a period after each looks cool. But I'm probably horribly wrong, since I suck at titles.

Fashion. I have a closet that takes up half of a room out of our 2-bedroom apartment. I have close to twenty coats at this point, and an equal proportion of scarves, shoes, blouses, boots, bags, hats, dresses, etc. I am probably not alone in this reality. Despite my expansive closet and attention to fashion detailing, I am under no illusion that I am the most fashionable girl walking down the street. I know how to put things together, but I am a bit predictable. Long tank? Check. Shorter tank to go over it? Check. Jeans? Check. Scarf and boots/flats? Check. Cute blazer? Hell yes. And a variation of that is pretty much what I wear every day. As you can imagine, my tanks take up an entire drawer. I have them in five different shades of green.

I told my boyfriend (is this a better term?) that if I ever go into extreme depression, just hand me a GLAMOUR magazine, and I'll perk right up. It is scary how true this is. I get strange, deep pleasure out of picking out outfits, having discussions about clothes, tearing out fashionable outfits from magazines for inspiration, and watching Sex and the City.

And that leads us nicely into the obsession part. I have a few of those. Sex and the City tops the list. As for the rest of them, you (and I) will learn about them in time. Now, I am not one of those women who thinks (or worse exclaims), "Oh, my girlfriends and I are SOOO like that show. My life is basically just like Sex and the City." I am jealous of those women. I don't really have girlfriends. Sad, I know. Well, I do, but they live all over the country--world, even--and I rarely see them or even talk to them enough for me to say something like "If you don't give him head, how do you expect him to give you head?" (Samantha). No, those conversations are once in a blue moon. I barely have them with my sisters. (We were brought up in a conservative Presbyterian family, after all.) No, I like Sex and the City precisely because it is NOT my life.

I didn't find out about the show until my first year of college at NYU, when I was a scared but precocious little freshman, 30 pounds overweight, with no friends and no boyfriend or lover to speak of. And it was obsession at first watch. It made me feel like I was part of something, that I was friends with those women, as sad as that sounds. That I, too, could be cool and talk like them at least in my imagination.

I haven't had a TV since I was little, so I had to rent the seasons at Blockbuster (since Netflix didn't exist). And I used to be really embarrassed by it. Here I was reading classic novel after intense classic novel, my nose always stuck in a book, only saying enormously serious things in class, getting a 4-point. And what did I watch in my spare time? The History Channel? BBC? The news? No. Sex and the City. While eating a gallon of ice cream.

You will hear lots more about Sex and the City, whether you like it or not, because my relationship with it has evolved into an almost healthy one. Almost. And I'll try to include thoughts about it in each blog. But moving on to love....

This is probably the third reason I love the show so much. (Remind me, what were the first and second? Oh yeah, fashion and friends. And I thought we were moving on....see! Obsession!) There is one episode where Charlotte says, "I have been dating since I was 14. I'm exhausted. Where is he?" And that sums up my entire life until about 7 months ago. At one point in high school, I actually said to my mom that I didn't think I was worth anything if I wasn't in a relationship. I have been engaged three times, two with bona fide rings and wedding dates. Only one with invitations sent out. And I have never been married. You figure it out.

Despite that history, I'm applying for jobs at wedding dress boutiques. A die-hard romantic, I cannot NOT talk about love and relationships. So I'm sure you'll be getting some of that. And that's the beginnings of my blog.

Well, here's to fall, the gloomiest season around, but also the most soulful. Hope you'll be back, I will.